Cherokee Lake Regional News

[Dan]

It's late, I'm tired, but I did an update to my teardropbass.com blog and have info on the Cherokee Lake Regional. I also finally finished (Needs one picture uploaded) the article on the Super BFL. It's under the "MI BLF Articles 2008" button. We left Sunday night and drove all night. Boat trouble again, but we did get some prefishing in today. Check the blog and I'll try to keep it updated and will be doing an article upon our return.

[dartag]

no results on the FLW site.  anyone know what is going on??

[LAPORTE]

I don't know but it's killing me ..... I gottsaa know ...lol


Don L

[LAPORTE]

Day 1 results are up on the FLW website ....

Don L

[dashaver63]

Noticeable absence of Michigan anglers in the top half of the leader board. You guy's are all terrific smallmouth anglers but really struggle on largemouth lakes. I'm not bashing you at all, I just think it proves a point that at least 2 largemouth tournaments are needed in your division. My intent is not to offend anyone, I know most of you fish largemouth outside of the BFL's, but flipping and pitching is a must have approach to any anglers arsenal, not only that, but knowing when to head to the bank. Likewise in the Ohio division, those guy's are all bankbeaters and would have a hard time in the open water situations where cranking, dropshotting, and jigworming don't come into play. Fishing the 5 tournaments that they do play's straight into flippers hand. I would like to see more diversity on the trails is all I'm saying. Hope I don't get beat up too bad.

[motocross269]

I agree....It would stink for non-boaters, but the only way to show who is the best is to put them in different conditions on a variety of lakes...4 tournaments on LSC/Eerie..?  Great tournaments and good fun I just would like to see the Grand River come back or maybe Wixom...
Skip Johnson is sitting in 28th place..Go get em Skip..

[Jighead]

Day 2 results are up.  Gee, there's a big shock - 6 of the top 12 are from North Carolina.  A division that fishes reservoirs all year.

[McCarter]

hows skip doin?

[cr]

Skips in 45th place, first from MI .

[josh617]

hey David Hasty cashed the only michigan division boater check and John Serniak cashed a checked on the co-angler side. but i also agree with the need for there to be a largemouth tournament or two. i definetly missed not having the grand river on the 08 schedule as well as the 09 schedule.

[Dan]

There wasn't much flippin or pitchin down on Cherokee. You fished mostly rock walls or chunk rock banks. There is some brush in the water that most were throwing buzzbaits on. Topwater was definitely a fruitfull pattern. This meant if you were a co you were on the wall dragging behind the boat as the boater targeted the limited brush that was in the water. Low water left much of the brush way up on the bank. Cranking was on, shakey head worm, and a swimming jig were baits that I heard were effective. Spinnerbaits around the brush were somewhat effective. Best big fish bite I saw, or had good reports on was topwater. The lake was drawn down at least 15-20 feet and they were drawing it down further. This took a lot of the man made brushpiles out of play.
With the full moon, some of the locals were saying that the fish feed on the shad all night and don't bite well. There were a lot of shad busting out over deep water, but in our practice we never could get those fish at the surface or just below to bite, despite the big schools of shad. There are some marinas to flip, but there weren't any docks because of the low water. Pontoons, etc. were sitting on the banks high and dry.
I caught one fish drop shotting on a gulp minnow, and now, I wish I would have stuck with that more. Should have fished the shakey head more. One of the cos from a Michigan boater caught a limit of spots throwing a drop shot on shore and caught his spots in that first few feet of shore very shallow. Spots had to be 12 inches, and I didn't see many or any that were much bigger than that at the weigh in.
The sloughs or up the creeks were the only spots for shallow fish over very isolated cover. The water in the sloughs you had to fish was water that normally would be in 20 feet of water so there wasn't much brush and wood.
Day one was sunny with a little cloud cover late. Day two started in a steady drizzle and occasional hard rain. It drizzled for the first two hours and then was cloudy and much cooler, sweatshirt and rain gear all day.
Take offs went fast. Weigh ins fast. Pairings were slowed a little at the Wednesday meeting as they had to try and call for more boaters. There was a couple of boats that had two coanglers. Second day pairings were right on your Day One weigh in slip.
First day only two, four fish limits on the coangler side out of 159. over 50 cos blanked the first day and over 50 more had one fish. That's 2/3 of the field with one fish or less. It wasn't too much better on the boater side. I believe the first day 50 boaters blanked. My two boaters each day had two fish each. My first day boater caught both of his on a black and blue jig on isolated brush on rock wall banks. My second day boater caught two on a buzzbait over man made brush piles up a creek. Most of the brush piles were out of the water because the water was drawn down so far. The ramps were terrible. No docks whatsoever. No lights at all. You had to back in an then pull up on the rocks to pick up the rider. There was not a trailered weigh in and boaters were complaining about beaching and leaving the boats on the rock. Besides the rock when you walked back to the boat you had to go through that red clay. It  stuck to your shoes and built up with each step.  All the boats had a real mess on the carpets. My boaters were hot. We took off our shoes and tried to clean them in the lake. That helped but didn't prevent it all. There were at least four different ramps that were used. You had to find a ramp on your own then run to the check in. That wasn't so bad, but the ramp situation was very congested and parking not good.
There was no big bass pot unless you had a Frabil net. Then if you did, you only got the big bass money if you had the biggest bass of the tournament and had the Frabil net.
They gave out a Ranger hat and an Evinrude hat.
The scenery was beautiful, but running the lake was very dangerous. We had motor trouble, and when my partner took his boat in to one of the local marinas, there were 9 BFL boats in for new lower units. I saw two boats the two days of the tournament that hit rocks and took off skegs or damaged the lower unit, and that's just those I saw when we pulled my boater's boat out. 
There was some confusion over determining spotted bass. You had to go by the jaw line. My first day partner, who grew up on Cherokee, had what he believed was a spot because of the tongue patch that he got penalized on because they called it a largemouth. 
As I said, I drew a local and he had two fish on day 1. There were some limits that I saw that were nice, but they were few and far between. In Kentucky and Tennessee they raised the length limit on smallies to eighteen inches on July 1 of this year. My day one boater caught a 3 1/2 pounder that was 17 3/4 that he had to throw back. It stayed on his thumb a long time.
I was quite disappointed in my catch. One fish the first day and blanked the second. The first day I felt at least I had a fair opportunity to catch numbers, but only had one bite all day. The second day I lost one on a crankbait and never had another bite. My second day paralleled the bank and didn't leave me much water, but I had my shots and didn't come up with anything. He had come down before the cut off and fished and spent four days prefishing before the tournament. He had found some brush and he fish it. Can't blame him a bit for that. Both my boaters were very good guys. 
My two boaters, as I said, each had two fish each and I only heard them say maybe three times total between them that they had a bump or another bite. Both my boaters were very experienced on Cherokee and were boaters that fish a lot of tournaments. Very good anglers. I don't think I could have drawn better.
Next year's schedule for the BFL is up on Bassfan. The regional doesn't look promising with those listed on Bassfan. It doesn't say which region  gets what regional, but by the looks of it it may be Kentucky /Barkley. The LBL Division fishes all of their BFLs on Kentucky/Barkley which would really give them a big advantage.
I had a good time, but the prefishing (We had big motor trouble that caused us to miss 3/4 of one day. We put the boat in after that and found the batteries were dead, the charging system took a puke. The owner of Stealth Charging went above and beyond to try and devise a fix that night over the phone, but when we got up for the last day of prefishing the batteries hadn't charged. We went out with very little juice and did our best. We had to come in early because the Stealth Charging owner, Danny Roberts, drove 3 1/2 hours one way to bring my prefishing partner a new charging system and then installed it himself. Very impressive service!!  Our prefishing consequently was significantly impaired. We caught two 12 inch spots during our whole time we did get to prefish.) Fishing in general was very tough for everyone.
I'll have pictures and a write up on my teardropbass.com website. There a few pictures up now on the daily blog. We left immediately after we weighed in and drove all night and got in this morning at 6:00 am. Eleven hour drive with one lunch stop.

[Ryan]

Ouch, that sounds pretty rough. Regardless, congrats on a good season and I look forward to reading a full report on your blog.

[rufus]

Dan, just so you know they won't put us up against the LBL division if we fish Kentucky/Barkley kext year. The LBL will fish elsewhere. Anyway, I finished 43rd with 2 GIANT limits of spots that went 11'6". I was on the spots during my prefish anf was confident I could get 9-10 pounds a day of them. I caught them all the way up to 3 1/2 pounds and had many others in the 15 inch+ range. I also caught a big smallie and a few big largemouths between the spots so I really felt I could hit that 10 pound a day goal I had. The one thing I did not count on was the could cover amking the bite worse. I did get my 5 each day and sorted a few bleieve it or not, but I did not have a spot over 13 inches each day. I did weigh in a 15 1/2 inch largemouth the first day. This was a tough lake to figure out and I spent way too much time at the dam end of the lake when the largemouths ruled the tourney. I had more trouble putting those stinking spots in the boat than I do putting Erie smallies in the boat. I had no less than 60 bites a day and landed less than a quarter of them. Those darn little suckers can pull a shakey worm off the hook better than any fish I have ever seen. At one point I lost 4 complete worms in 4 casts and I was rigging them open hook on a ballhead jig. The Michigan anglers were at a disadvantage at this one simply because of drive time. North Carolina was much closer to this lake and it showed. All of us from the Michigan Division drove at least 9 hours and the other 3 divisions had less than 6 hour drives and most of them 2-5. I am not complaining, I love the challenge of a new fishery and trying to figure it out as quick as someone who already knows it. I will see everyone next year and God Bless!

[Team houston]

My day 1 boater said he was catching 13-15lbs a day in practice. He showed me some pictures of some 3lbers he caught. Of course practice is always different from tourny day. His secret technique he would not tell me for quite a while was buzzbaiting the bluff walls. He had one buzzbait bite all day and didn't hook up. He weighed in one lm caught on a football jig. I managed one lm on a beaver in some backwater pond we had to raise both motors to get too. I see he had 4 keeps the next day. My day 2 boater had 2 keeps the first day and was going to fish the dam end of the lake the second day. That was fine by me because there was less boat traffic that way and that is where me and Seth Valentine spent all 5 practice days.  We fished main lake rocky points and shorelines most the day. He had one barely legal spot on a spook. He caught several other short fish on it including a nice 15 inch SM. I had a couple of shortstrikes on a spook lost a possible keeper on a jerbait  caught a short on the jerk and a short on a beaver and that was it for me.  Cherokee was fun to fish and is a beatiful lake. I wouldn't mind going back but I look forward to Ky lake and I hope we do not get the Miss river.

[motocross269]

Great posts thanks for the reports...I have only fished down south one time..(Santee cooper) Do you think fishing lakes like Wixom or Sanford would help you get ready for fishing southern reservoirs?? I know they are alot different, but I would think some of the same patterns would apply..

[dartag]

check out Dan's photos at    http://www.teardropbass.com/  looks like lots of rock.   sounds like lots of boats hit them. 

keep them write ups and photos coming.  going to be a long winter. 

[Flippin222]

Fishing Wixom or Sanford may help some, but not a lot. The southern resoiviors are completely different; especially in the south / southeast right now with the ongoing drought and summer time conditions. All most any of the members here could go to a southern tournment and stumble onto something in a few days prefishing. On the flip side, any one of use (pro's included) could show up and blank on any given day too.

I grew up in Michigan (west side) and fished a few club tournaments here and there with pretty good success. Moved to NE Missouri and it took nearly 3 years before I was competitive in any tournament. Since moving back to MI 3 years ago and I have done fairly well on the inland tournaments. I have no doubt that I could go back south and do all right, but it took me 3 years to be there consistently and there would still be a bit of a learning curve.

[bow2ukblue]

I don't think fishing wixom or other largemouth lakes around here would help, I grew up fishing wixom, secord and other largemouth lakes and they fish nothing like cherokee. A lot of things go into a successful tourney. When the water is down cherokee fishes very small, I averaged 12 - 14 pounds a day in practice but drew boat 142 , ran to my first area and saw 4 boats sitting there, second spot had 2 , then I compounded the problem by losing my first 2 fish both 2 1/2 to 3 pounds , and ended up with only 3 fish the first day. I have fished many southern reservoirs including cherokee and done well , I simply just did not have a good tourney. Blast off played huge. Most michigan division anglers were in the last flight.