The Spoonpluggers Forum

The bass pro tour is on Eufaula this week, the boys seem to be having a tough time. To me that is a awesome looking lake have got to put that on my bucket list. Maybe this fall.

David, I have been watching it off and on while painting and there is so much to be learned about seasonal fish movements but our narrow minded spoonpluggers think the bassmaster guys are all stupid and some really are but a few of them are true spoonpluggers. To see how some of these guys adapt to the conditions shows they are not stupid. A handfull know how fish relate to weather and water conditions and some keep doing the same shallow thing hoping things will get better. The two guys that are kicking ass are fishing a bit deeper than the rest. They know the where(how deep)and they go through the controls of depth and speed. The reason they don't use the same language we do is because they are selling lures to feed their families. Who wouldn't want to do what they do for a living? It's tougher than it looks. Major highs and lows mentally. And this MLF format where they know what the other guys are catching puts that much more pressure on those at the bottom of the pack. Our spoonpluggers are some of the worse casters I have ever seen. The bottom line is to find the fish, put the boat in a fixed position and catch as many out of the school as you can. This requires a person to have some mechanical ability to finish the job. Ask yourself how many times in your fishing life have you gotten into that nice group of fish and caught them every cast for a good bit of time? The group of fish is the goal. Where they are fishing right now, the timing of the fish to move up shallow is nearly perfect but the dirty water and the colder night time temps is holding them back from moving shallow enough for the bank beaters to catch them. The guys that know structure and have checked a little deeper for the ones that have not moved up are the ones who are going to get a pay check. This is spoonplugging at it's finest. You just need to be able to understand fish movements to appreciate what you are watching. It makes great tv when the lakes are covered with ice and just maybe you will learn something from watching. John

Lake Eufaula in OK? 102,000 acres, max depth 87'. Fished it once when I lived in TX.

Lake Eufaula ALABAMA 45000 ACRES

I haven't been down there in maybe 30 years, but I won a few state held tournaments on that thing during the winter..."way back when".
Most of the contests were out of Chewalla Marina on the Alabama side. It can get ROUGH out on that thing after a front. I remember one tournament the weather and wind were so bad, I couldn't safely get my big rig out into the main body so I just stayed in Chewalla Creek. To show how rough it was, two boats and 4 guys didn't come back. Their bodies (and they were wearing life jackets too) were found floating in 6 feet of water...hypothermia got them. The wind capsized the rigs.
Coming out of Chewalla creek, turn right and go south under that big bridge. Turn left (east) and work the rip rap on the south side of that bridge.
There used to be some nice clean short bars coming off that rip rap extending out into the deep water. If someone hasn't ruined them for speed control by dropping brushpiles in there, it should be producing in this colder season.
WATCH OUT FOR THAT WEATHER...WATCH OUT FOR THAT WEATHER. After that wind gets up out of the northwest, don't even THINK about taking a smaller spoonplugger rig out on that thing.
Best to get back on the Georgia side, drive north up to Hannahatchee Creek, Florence Marina, or Rood Creek...launch up there and go to work. Pay VERY CLOSE attention to the channel intersections just as Buck talks about when fishing a flatlander.