“The fish are biting really good when you find them and you can catch them about any way you like to fish – cranking, throwing a Carolina rig, a lipless crankbait, a jerkbait, however you want to fish you can catch them. When you find a good school you can catch some big fish, and a bunch of them,” said Moody who noted that the winners of a tournament on Sunday had a near 6-pound average at 29 pounds.

“That 26 pounds for a winning weight has been for team tournaments, but I think 26 pounds can win this tournament if it stays warm, If we get a cold snap the day before it could drop down,” said Moody, a 25-year veteran of tournament fishing, “but they have been catching some pretty good weights even when it was cold, so I would say 26 pounds will win it.”

In BWS tournaments the boater fishes as an individual and he is paired with a non-boater who competes with other non-boaters.

“We’ve had a really cold winter, colder than normal, so the water temperatures have been a lot colder than normal. It’s taking the fish longer to start moving shallow, but they are starting to go that way now, so that is a good thing,” said Moody who has been practicing on Seminole for the past three or four weekends.

“With the fish starting to move up you can find them in about 10 feet of water. They are kind of bunched up so when you do find them you usually find some good ones.”

Moody, who fishes Seminole about 15 times a year – “maybe more, depending on tournaments” – said he will practice the same areas this weekend that he has fished the last few weekends.

“I am still looking there because I know that sooner or later the fish I want are going to be there,” he said. “I am just looking for areas where the fish should be moving up.”

While he will be targeting fish that are moving up to get ready to spawn, Moody said actual spawning is probably several more weeks away.

“I’d say we still have probably until the end of February. There is a full moon around the 18^th or 19^th and you might see some up trying to bed then if we get three or four days of warm weather, but I think it will really be toward the end of the month before spawning really gets going.”

Following the Georgia Division BWS tournament Feb. 12 out of the Bainbridge Boat Basin on Lake Seminole the series will continue March 19 on Lake Sinclair out of Little River Park; April 30 on Lake Eufaula out of Lake Point State Park; June 18 on Lake Lanier out of Laurel Park; and Sept. 10-11 on Lake Oconee out of Sugar Creek Marina.

 

Bassmaster Weekend Series – Georgia Division

Sat. Feb 12, 2011

Lake Seminole

Bainbridge Boat Basin

www.abaproam.com