Reservation Number : 27591
Property Name : The Bigwood on the Trinity
Reservation Date : 03/21/2021 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 14 LMB
Lures Used : 4.3 Keitech with 3/0 underspin

I fished The Bigwoods on the Trinity at Tennessee Colony on 03/21/2021.  The water temperature was 58 at arrival at 7:30am, warming to 61 at my departure around 1:15pm.  The water is very clear, somewhere between 2-3 feet.  I saw one bed near the boathouse but I didn’t see any bass on it.  I spent 7:30-9:30am fishing a chatterbait all over the lake with no success, not even a bite.  I switched to a more subdued presentation with a 4.3 keitech on a 3/0 Trokar underspin, started to focus on the ditches that are dug into this lake rather than the timber and islands, and started to get bit.  I caught a few LMB in quick succession, but also had a few missed bites.  I considered going to an exposed hook but stuck with the weedless underspin because of the timber and grass.  I noticed that the bass would bite then bite again, so if I stopped reeling instead of setting the hook after the first bite, they always came back again the second time.  My guess is that they were trying to kill or stun the shad before eating it.  My hook-ups improved and I ended up catching 14 LMB, eight of which were culls and six over 16 inches, which were released.  Five of the six released were 16-17 inches.  LMB #14 was caught at about 12:42pm, in four-five feet of water, near a berm perpendicular to the wind and wave current, on the same 4.3 keitech on an underspin, but this one was 10.3 lbs, 24 inches in length and a huge, fat, egg-laden, prespawn girth of around 21+ inches.  I didn’t have a tape measure so I used fishing line that I then put on my check-it stick to measure the girth.  This big girl bit, I stopped reeling, felt her bite again, then set the hook.  It felt like a log that was moving.  I looked at my reel and it was moving so I knew it was a fish.  She swam up but only her head broke the surface and I was able to get her back down again, then she went on a run past the boat, pulling my drag with ease as she went by.  I got her turned and she headed back to the boat and this is when I got my first good look at her size.  She went on another run under the boat, pulling drag again, until I got her turned back from under the boat.  She proceeded to go on another run but was tiring fast and I was in position to pick-up the net.  She came up by the side of the boat and I completely missed with the net.  She went back under the boat, but again I got her back up to the surface, and this time she went into the net. One of the pictures shows the hook location in that fish’s mouth, which shows how close this fish was to being in the missed bite category.  Nevertheless, she was well-hooked in the hard cartilage of her upper lip and it took a pliers to get that hook out.  Thank you Private Water Fishing!!