cast4bass, Carters Lake MS TX, Spots Hybrid, 11/14/2009, Sam

[FishNews]

First of all thanks to all the sponsers and everyone who organized this TX! It was a class event and a whole lot of fun. I am definitely in for next year. Sam and I were the last boat to register and the last to blast off. Had trouble getting the teen up at 4:30am. We made one stop at Ralston's corner and then got to the ramp. The water was up about 6 feet according to the locals which almost submerged the ramp and submerged the boat dock so it was a little challenging getting your partner on the boat after launch but everyone figured it out. We tried some deep humps first thing and were marking a few fish. We caught a couple small ones and then threw cranks across some points and got our first two keepers of the day. Only problem they were just over 12 inches. We went to TW along the banks hoping for a big lone spot or LM since there was consistent blowups along the shore but no takers. We moved to the main lake points and found nothing - the wind blew pretty good yesterday so the thought was maybe the fish had moved to a better ambush spot for bait. Went to another cove and threw cranks at blowdowns and picked up our third keeper and some smaller ones. Around 1pm with the clock ticking went to a creek and almost to the back of it and just started randomly trolling around casting the bank watching for schools underneath. After about 30 minutes Sam wanted to leave but I said to give it a few more minutes and as we came across a point there was the school we had been looking for. Only they weren't biting! emoBang We stayed on them though and tried different lures. I trolled away and found another bait pod and what looked to be some arches and hung something huge on my spinning rod with 6lb test. Was this the winning fish? After pulling drag and racing after it with the trolling motor for about 5 minutes it pulled off! emoBang Can't catch a break. In the excitement we lost our bearings so it took us a little while to get back on em. I had three straight bites but only one in the boat for our fourth keeper of the day. Then a good fish hit my line and we got to see it - at least three pounds - but pulled off right outside of net range. I got to get a net man with longer arms emoUp Stayed with it and Sam hooked something big! Could this be the fish we were looking for? Landed it and it was huge - nine pound hybrid on light tackle - thought about spray painting it to look like a spot but figured the judges would not be fooled emoBig Went back to work and Sam got our fifth keeper. I moved in some deeper water to see if we could get some quality fish - I hate to leave fish to catch fish but time is running out. Got on another school with about 10 minutes of fishing time left. I caught two that were over 2 lbs pushing three and missed at least two others. Ran out of time but wished we could have fished that school 15 more minutes and I think we would have gone over 10 lbs but weighed in over 7lbs instead with a 5 fish limit. Did not feel too bad about that since it was our first TX on Carters our first TX together and tough conditions where some teams showed up without fish to weigh and without a five fish limit. Here are some pics enjoy - got a pic of the 2nd place large fish around 4.2 i think don't know who the gentlemen was but hats off to him