Riverbassin Tournament Trail Charlotte Stop yields 2 Citation Roanoke Bass

I had eagerly awaited this stop in Charlotte but I had a problem....My best spots which were inbounds the last 2 Times in Charlotte(2011, 2013) were now out of bounds. I finished 4th both of those years and being able to hit my honeyholes surely helped. This time I was forced to fish a  section of river I had never fished.  My plan was to start off with a white spinner bait, a few topwaters and a fluke.

Legal fishing time was 6 am and by the time I was on the water it was 6:15.   My first cast yielded nothing but my second cast with the spinnerbait brought on a vicious strike.  I was expecting to have a good solid 2-4 lb bass by the fight but was a little shocked to haul in a good solid 13-14 inch Roanoke bass.  Awesome!  Citation size in North Carolina for this species is 11 inches or 1 pound and this one would make that easily.  I was so surprised(and half asleep) that I didn't get an exact measurement on this fish but it was a good start even though this fish didn't count for the tournament.
Several cast later and my bait is slammed again.  My first Largemouth of the day??.  No,  another citation size Roanoke bass at a solid 12 inches!   Not the fish I was after but I will never complain about catching big Roanoke's. 

Here are a few pictures of these fish.
The Bigger Roanoke Bass ( Ambloplites cavifrons )

The 12 inch Roanoke

A little while later I landed a 11 inch largemouth but I would need fish a lot bigger than that.   Several cast later I landed the first decent Largemouth of the day.  

Not bad but I would need bigger fish to do well in this tournament.  I ended up catching only 7 or 8 bass with the best 3 all being around the 15 inch mark.

My 3 best Bass fell to the White spinnerbait, Pearl Fluke and Zara Spook. 
I ended up with 45.5 inches which put me in 15th place. I just couldn't get that good solid 21 to 22 inch fish that would have put me in the top ten. I was still happy finishing 15th out of 38 entries since this was my first time at this strtch of river.  

 More info on this series of tournaments can be found at http://www.riverbassintrail.com/

Thanks Mack

#roanokebass

#ambloplitescavifrons