My Lost-Fish Troubles Continue

Dave Lefebre’s Chickamauga recap

Lake Chickamauga is loaded with big bass, and for the first time in three previous visits I felt really good after the practice period was over. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out for me, and I ended the event after day two by missing the top-20 cut by a mere 4 ounces.

As everyone who’s fished tournaments there knows, Chickamauga fishes very small for its size. Most of the derbies are won near the dam, so that is the area that receives the most pressure.

Everything obvious is beat to a pulp in practice, and all the bigger schools are found by multiple anglers. Because of the pressure, I approached the lake differently this time. Though I did find and mark all the obvious schools just in case, I mainly looked for places off of the main channel, close to the feeder creeks and up on the flats. I was keying on isolated brush piles, logs, small subtle breaks and hard-bottom areas. I thought they would all be one-fish spots, but some of them turned out to be holding small groups of big fish.

It was the perfect plan, and had I not continued my annoying fish-losing streak, I would have easily made the cut and had a shot to win on Sunday. Losing fish is really starting to get to me, to be honest. Everyone loses a fish or two from time to time, but if you were in my boat and saw some of these things happen, you would simply be amazed. All I can do is laugh and move on to the next one, after I vent for a minute …

Going into Chickamauga I was fresh off a second-place finish at the James River Rayovac FLW Series event, where I hooked and lost two 5-pounders on day one, two more 5-pounders and a 7-pounder on day two, and a 5- and 6-pounder on day three. That sounds unbelievable, but my new friends (my co-anglers/therapists) will verify the insanity. I also lost a 7-pounder at the net on my last stop on day three at the Walmart FLW Tour event on Lake Eufaula the week before the James, and “Losefest 2015” carried into the Chick.

On day one I lost two in the 5-pound range at the boat, and on day two I had 5-pounder come off at the net and then a 6- to 7-pounder jump off in the late afternoon. Those would have culled a pair of 2-pounders and put me in contention.

I don’t know what is going on. I’m having good finishes, and I’m certainly thankful, but how can you not be consumed with what could have been? Fishing is not like other sports where you can simply examine game tape and make fundamental corrections to fix problems on the spot. But I actually have hours of footage from the last three tournaments, and I can’t see an obvious reason for these costly mishaps. Everything is perfect up until the “BOOM,” followed by me looking at my on-the-water therapist for the day (co-angler, lol) and saying, “Why does that happen to me?”

I’m uploading all the footage and plan to make a compilation of the latest happenings soon. I’m obviously hoping I can change my luck and have one of those perfect days I keep hearing about, but have never ever experienced in my career. You know, those days where I land every fish that bites. Really? Does that actually ever happen for any of you?

Well, back to Chickamauga. My baits of choice were a 1/2-ounce green pumpkin blue Terminator jig with a green pumpkin Yamamoto Double Tail Grub trailer and a pair of 3/4-ounce homemade hair jigs that my friends Jimmy and Dustin made for me.

I was trying to get the fish to come out of the cover and bite the hair, but when they would not, I’d go in after them with the Terminator. I moved around quickly, choosing not to mess with the fish I could see on my graph. I wanted a reaction bite in the first two to three minutes, or I was off to the next spot. I won’t dwell on the other baits and patterns of the top 10 anglers. You can see all that stuff in other related stories on this website.

Now it’s time to get ready for our last Tour stop on the mighty Potomac River. After a major train wreck at the season-opener on Toho, I’m sitting pretty high in the points now and will probably not be fishing conservatively at the Potomac. I’ve won there before and really want to do it again and end the season with a bang!