Muskrat, Chickamauga, bass / crappie, 3-4-13, solo

[FishNews]

Finally a nice day after all of the cold and wind for days that had kept me in the house. Time to go fishing. My "Fat Albert" bass rod was telling me...Jeff, please take me bass fishing - so I did. I had a back-up plan of fishing near my crappie spot if things didn't work out. This was my first bass trip this year. I catch a small one in the HBSP marina slough about 10:45 am on a jerkbait in about 15 minutes. I quickly found out that because of a carpal tunnel issue I have jerkbait fishing was...painful. I tried to tough it out for another 45 minutes or so and just thought I was a jerk for still trying to fish it. I run up to my crappie area to bass fish. I throw a Rat-L-Trap for awhile - nothin'. I find a Yum 5-inch Money Minnow in the bottom of my tacklebox. It was in bad shape and coming apart so I just peeled the whole exterior off. The eyes popped out and it lost all of it's dark shading but it still had the good tail action. I give it a shot. I see something that looks good on the fishfinder in about 16 ft. and "bang" - I catch a nice one in about 12 feet. I throw a couple more times then ease around the corner to take a pic and let things calm down. I figure I'll hit the same spot in about 10 minutes. I go back and on the second cast - "bang" - a larger bass within 10 ft. of the other one. I throw my Money Minnow one more time after that and it goes one way while my line went the other. It was great while it lasted ! I don't really have any other swimbaits in my tackle box but of course I had 5 or 6 at home that I "was" going to put in my tackle box. I throw a crankbait a few times and about that time another boat pulls up to fish close to me so I just moved on to maybe come back in a few days to find them there again. I didn't want to give another "honey hole" away.<br /><br />I had to see how my crappie "hot spot" was holding up and well, it's just as good as ever. I caught 13 in about 30 minutes. Deb and I might crappie fish there again later this week so I gave her the good news. Here's a few pics and once again my pictures are a little "bleached" out when I use my 10-second delay. I have no idea why it's doing that. If any camera expert out there knows what could be happening please let me know what I might can do. I took one pic without the delay with the bass in the boat to just show that the camera takes pretty good pictures. The second bass didn't have the "fat" little gut on it but it was longer and heavier than the first. Sorry I don't have any weights. I feel so blessed to be able to fish the "Chick" right now. A friend of mine told me Kevin VanDam mentioned the "Chick" twice while he was talking to folks at the Bass Pro Shop in Sevierville over the weekend. <br /><br /><br />