Triton-LB, Carters Lake, Spotted Bass (accidental HUGE Striper), 12.23.09, Richard Simms

[FishNews]

I had the pleasure of fishing w/ RSimms from the forum today. Richard drove down to do an article on drop shotting and sonar fishing on Carters, which quite possibly has been the hottest spotted bass lake in the country over the past couple of months, "has been" LOL. The bite has slowed over the past few days, water temp hasn't fell much (down to 50), water level has been high but nothing much has changed there either. In typical spot fashion they've changed overnight LOL. <br /><br />The dropshot bite is still there, we had plenty of bites just had a hard time hooking up. Caught most of our fish casting the drop shot, the spots seemed a little spooky for sight fishing, I could get them to follow the bait up and down but if they'd bite they wouldn't fully commit. We focused on channel banks in creek bends for most of our catch. It's still a good time to get out and tweak your electronics and if you want to learn the dropshot bite there is a good enough bite to catch fish throughout the day in the right areas. RSimms caught a couple of nice spots on the Float n Fly as well. I'd never seen the f&f and was excited to see it in action. RSimms caught a nice 2.5lb spot quick. I'm gonna get out to work on that technique soon. The highlight of our day had to be the HUGE STRIPER that Rsimms caught. We figured it was around 30lbs, I emailed the picture to Robert Edison w/ First Bite Guide Service. He enlarged the pic and said he thought it was about 42inches long and between 31-33lbs! Thats just a few lb's off the lake record. It gave Richard a battle, very good fight. It's not uncommon to catch stripers while fishing for spots, Carters is full of trophy striper and they often travel w/ their green friends.<br /><br />I thoroughly enjoyed my day w/ RSimms, I was impressed w/ his knowledge of bass fishing. I expected to hear some great stories and learn something but, I never expected that he'd be such a technically sound angler. RSimms could be a competitive bass angler w/ no problem, guess he loves those slime balls to much LOL. I learned a lot from Richard and hope to fish w/ him again sometime soon. The pic below is the only pic I have, maybe RSimms will add the rest of the pic's and his take on the day.<br /><br />LB