Classic Report

It was a Classic of missed opportunities for us on the TN Tom Bigbee waterway with over 6 inches of rain in two days that sent the waterway into a muddy rage and floating lily pad grass all over the place and dampening two days of pre-Fishing we desperately needed. Myself and my brother knew this was going to be a tough one to fish. Not to mention how hard it was to get around without tearing up your boat. It was the kind of lake/river system where if you got off any channel just a little you would run a risk of damaging your boat and end up in less than two foot of water in a split second.


With two good days of pre-fishing available to us we tried as many productive looking spots as we could spider rigging and vertical jigging as many types of lures as we could, But it was the last day of pre fishing when we ran into a local named Step who pulled up along side of us in a creek with a minnow and slip bobber rig set at 8 feet deep and pulled out two nice keeper crappie very quickly right in front of us. He told us to try minnows in the creek mouths and runs coming into the main river channel.


Well with the last day of pre fishing we tried minnows and found two productive holes in timber in a main river channel in the Waverly section of Columbus lake. My brother caught a nice 1.5 lb fish and we eased him back in and had two places we knew were holding good fish..


Day One morning came and it was beautiful weather. We set up on our spot and quickly caught 3 one pound plus fish. We thought wow we are going to kick butt in this tourney as we had a seven fish limit by 8:30 AM. It was at this point things started to turn south on us quickly as one of our four big fish was hooked in the gill and dies on us by 9:30 AM. The rest of the day we could only manage 10-11 inch fish and would watch two more big fish get off on us.


Day Two the temps dropped 20 degrees and clouds set in with high winds, we went back too our holes thinking they would produce a few more fish which they did just not the size we needed. This sent us scrambling trying to find some bigger fish. We would find only one quality fish with 6 10 inch fish one of which would also die on us and had to only weigh in 6 fish. On day two with only 20 mines left in the Tourney I had two slabs hooked in heavy brush they both wrapped me badly and in deep water and could not get them out. I know those two were some good ones that would have helped us. It was a Classic of missed opportunities. I just wished we figured the minnow bite out earlier in heavy wooded cover and had the two more good pre fishing days to explore the Aliceville pool where the Tournament was won on just a naked hook and minnow in the river runs. We were on the right pattern just the wrong Lake.


I was very impressed with Columbus MS, Great town and friendly folks where ever we went. Even had a Shell Station attendant get in his vehicle and track us down when we forgot our minnows at the bait shop. I will haft to think long and hard tho if I would return to that waterway for a Tourney.


I think we finished in 73rd place with a little over 9 lbs of fish. I also was glad to bring in a few fish on waters we never fished before. My partner and brother fished hard and fished the whole tourney very sick with a bad cold or Flu. I was very proud of his effort even sick as a dog... he got up…he went… and he Fished.

Special Thanks to Midsouth Man those Ozark Rods are great trolling rods.


Whelp its on To Grenada MS for my next effort. Hope to see you all there.
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i know you gave your best russ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope ABH reads this report and takes notice about the minners, lol. Good job Russ. Sounds like y'all gave it a heck of a go.


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Good job, man! Sorry you didn't get on that pattern sooner and get to use it in the right place. Sounds like y'all fought hard though. I'm sure that drop in temps overnight didn't help either. Anyway, good job, Russ, and thanks for the report and pics.

It was a really slow week of fishing with hard fishing conditions. We had some fish found and did decent on day one and lost some we needed we were in 31 place on day one. Then the cold front came in sat and our fish were gone we ended up finishing 47 . Wasnt to bad for our first classic wish we could have had a few more holes to have fallen back on. It was good to see you and your brother there Russ a fellow crappieholic team. Hope we can lay it to them next time

Handi That's them ms crappie like minners. Hadn't needed em here in Arkansas

Well, if u go to Washington again and only fish jigs I'm going to call you bad words, lol.


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Pfft maybe someone will let me in on where da crappie are and I show they will bite my jigs lol. Only report I got from jerry was they were 7 fow and there is a lot of that.

now how many have you put me on !!!!!!!!!!!!! NONE,NONE AND NONE!!!!!

Great effort Russ , maybe things will be better next time. Sounds like you did best you could with the conditions.

take it easy on abh MEAT - he aint seen the front of croppiepros tourney shirt yet! great story russ and i commend you and your fishing partners for fishing hard. most of the time thats all you have to do! thank you for sharing.

Man Jerry your memory going out I told you every trip I went last year when and what I caught em on. Can't say I didn't try to put you on some.

Nice effort Russ!!!! We're proud of y'all!!!

ABH----Minners AND CRITTERS!!! NUFF said. Lol


Big River Marine
Bill Burnett
870-635-0202

We offer Xpress, Excel, and Alweld Boats. Yamaha, Suzuki, Evinrude, Mud Buddy, and Tohatsu/Nissan Engines.
Pro Staff, Southern Pro Tackle and Ozark Rods.
Member, Tri-State Crappie Anglers

Waiting for blue thunder and luvpt's report, are they laying low.

We just ain't got nuthin to brag about J.W.!!! Seriously, it was a perfect storm that went downhill from the git-go. We did not do our homework and got a good spanking for it. Prefishing tourney waters is an absolute must and we did not get to do that at all this time. Three days before the tourney I nearly tore my shoulder off and had to keep my left arm in a sling for two days. During the tourney I had maybe 20% function of my left arm (the jury is still out on whether I tore the rotator cuff muscles enough for surgery or tuff it out) which is the one I always grab the rods with.

We arrived in Columbus late Thursday and had to run Paul down to get our weigh-in vouchers because we were unable to be at the seminar and dinner Wednesday night where they were given out. We did not get to prefish the water at all and in fact had to find a boat to follow to the water on the first morning just to find a boat ramp. This was our first sight of the classic water and it was really an eye opener.......nothin like the river oxbows around here for sure!! We found a creek mouth running into the main river and started trolling. The water was pretty muddy and the bite was poor. We were just not in the fish. After changing locations several times we finally caught a good 1.5 lb crappie about 11:00 but it had swallowed a roadrunner and was bleeding around both sides of the gills pretty good. We managed to keep this fish alive until about one hour before the weigh-in! By 12:30 we only had that one fish and decided we needed to do something drastic. We cranked up and headed south to the Aliceville pool (which I understand covers more than 8,000 acres) and after about 45 minutes of riding we finally found a cluster of boats (14 in all) in a good looking area of the water and headed into that area. We knew it would take us approx two hours to get back to the marina, load up and make it to the weigh-in so we decided to fish it until 2:30 which didn't give us very much time. We caught 7 fish in the next hour but they were not good ones (9-10 inch) and we would have been throwing those dinks back if we had been back on our home waters. One of the other teams told us on the water that the larger fish bit early that morning.....just our luck! Those 7 fish are what we weighed in for a total weight of 4.09 lbs! I didn't know a weigh-in could be so low! We were so far down in the rankings after the first day that it was obvious that we could not catch up and a top 20 weigh-in total was impossible. The next morning saw a 20 degree temp drop and 25 mph winds plus a flat tire on David's ride.....we figured that it would be futile to continue. We cut our losses and headed home without weighing in the second day. We wound up with 95th place out of 142 which was a disappointment but we do feel like we learned from it and will be ready for the next one. We are also qualified for the Crappie USA Classic which will be held in two weeks on Lake Barkley in Cadiz, KY but will prob not fish it unless we find a way to get a few days prefishing in. I will not risk a repeat performance of last weekend. These large tourneys are extremely hard for a working person to be successful at because of the inability to learn the water before the event. BTW, David used minners and did have his RR tipped when he caught the big one. I did not use minners and could not tell any difference in the number of fish caught with either one. Maybe the big one bit because the minner made the difference...who knows? The only time we consider using minners is during a tourney....for us they just don't make a big enough difference to justify using any other time.

Sorry to hear your shoulder is hurt bud. Glad y'all made it home in one piece. Thanks for the story. David I got minner patch for ya.

jw ,just fyi 7 of the top 10 was spiderrigen minners and the other 3 was single poling ???? MINNERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Thanks JJ Nice Pic

I need to get em the minner patch!

Thanks for the report, Steve, although it sounds like Murphy's Law gave you and David a double dose. I appreciate the effort you guys made. Really hate to hear about your shoulder though! I have what my orthopedist believes is a "slight tear" in my left rotator cuff and if this is a slight one, I sure don't want a full blown one, apart and aside from the recovery time it takes after a cuff repair! Hope that's not what yours is and that you receive a full recovery without surgery. I know that was not a pleasant report to have to give on yours and David's tourney experience, but thank you from all the rest of us here on the board.

Thanks for the encouragement Jerry! We ain't giving up...had a blast fishing the Tom Bigbee Waterway even though things didn't go as well as we had hoped....we'll know where to start next time anyway. I have about 40% function in my left shldr so far and I am doing my own "therapy" to try and help the healing process along as well as possible and prevent additional damage. Hopefully it is just a slight tear that will just be an inconvenience. We'll be making some more tourney's hopefully in the near future and want to enter some of the other MCC events along with the Washington tourney that we always try to fish. I wanted to try Wolf Lake this weekend but have too much going on and the shldr just ain't ready yet. Believe me....surgery will be the absolute last option. I've seen many rotator cuff repairs and you are right about being very painful and a Looong recovery time! I ain't got time for that, LOL!

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Originally Posted by ski trip

Thanks for the report, Steve, although it sounds like Murphy's Law gave you and David a double dose. I appreciate the effort you guys made. Really hate to hear about your shoulder though! I have what my orthopedist believes is a "slight tear" in my left rotator cuff and if this is a slight one, I sure don't want a full blown one, apart and aside from the recovery time it takes after a cuff repair! Hope that's not what yours is and that you receive a full recovery without surgery. I know that was not a pleasant report to have to give on yours and David's tourney experience, but thank you from all the rest of us here on the board.

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Great Job Steve and David...It was nice to see you all there and Hope your arm gets better, I was looking for you guys the second day...Didnt know you all went home. I just looked at the standings over 40 teams of the 141 teams didnt even bring one fish in. That waterway is tough to navigate even in the best weather. There will be better days ahead for both of us. and anytime you get to fish the Classic it's a blast. I always feel I get my money back no matter how well I did in the Tourney...with free sponsor products great meals and being with folks who love crappie fishing as we do. CrappieMasters runs a darn good Tourney and Classic.