This week on TV: You may think the bass aren’t home because you can’t catch them, but watch TWRA electro-shock around docks and wood on Cheatham Lake and you’ll have a change of attitude. Plus, Joe Haubenreich of Secret Weapon Lures discusses the history of spinner baits and gives excellent tips on blade selection.

On Radio This Week: Tentative: Boating Chief Ed Carter updates us on boating news for Tennessee, Doug will update changes made in the coming hunt seasons, and Dwayne Hickey will tell us about a special river (not the Collins) that he likes to fish with real bait. Fishing updates, too. The Center Hill bass are on fire.

Coming soon: Outdoors South TV will be available on Myoutdoorstv.com. More on this later, but this will allow anyone with Internet access to watch Outdoors South anytime they like. The show will continue to air on cable, but the same shows will now appear on Myoutdoorstv.com. If you are not familiar with this website, you are going to like it.

Website Choices: Also, you will now be able to get to this website by visiting either dougoutdoors.com or by visiting outdoorssouth.tv. The change is simply to reflect both TV and radio shows.

Humbling and Eye Opening: I fished the Edd Rogers Open tournament this past Sunday. I fished with Mike Bradley, a very good angler who has won his share of tournaments. I went down to Center Hill—Ragland Bottoms—not expecting to win anything but thinking I would have a respectable showing. After all, this is lake full of smallmouth and spotted bass and both like finesse baits. I’ve thrown a million casts with Charlie Brewer Worms, various grubs, and other small baits and caught my share of smallies. No problem. Watch out Edd Rogers.

Well, I think I nearly matched my career high for throwing finesse baits, giving the ole Shaky Head so many shakes that my arm quivered for an hour after my last cast. Mike did the same thing based on good tips from local guys.

While we fished and threw, changed baits, drank coffee and scratched our heads, we noticed that quite a few of the tournament anglers were fishing side-by-side on the bow of their boats within a few feet of the bank. So close it looked like they could grab a passing tree. Well, Mike and I didn’t do that but it did make us more determined to fish shallow and we continued to shake our baits, change our lures, call Billy Campbell for advice (I hope he’s not reading this), and darn near implode. After a while we convinced ourselves that the ole Edd Roger guys weren’t having all that a good a day. Boats coming and going, up and down the lake. Looking for fish. Don’t know why, but Center Hill is having a tough day on May 18th with the surface temperature at 68 degrees. Makes no sense to us.

“Shaky head ain’t working Mike.” 

“Nope, Doug—tough day for everyone.”

At 4 p.m. we headed back to the dock. I had to hitch a ride with two nice young anglers, because Mike’s engine had problems that caused him to have idle back to weigh in. Either that or he didn’t want to be seen with me. Anyway, after I thanked to the two young guys I asked if they caught any fish. “We got our limit,” said one of them. “We only had to cull two fish.” These guys might win, I thought to myself. I just picked a ride with the possible winners of this thing. Because I know the day was tough.

I will note here that when I called Billy he ended our conversation with something like the is Center Hill and you have to pay your dues. Not me, I though. I’m a finesse angler. Shaky, Shaky, Shaky.

Mike let me get back to the weigh in ahead of him because I wanted to video it for a feature I’m doing on Edd Rogers and tournament. When I arrived hardly an angler was at the tent and it confirmed that the ole Edd Rogers boys had had a tough day.

Then 20 minutes passed and a horn sounded officially ending the tournament. As I fiddled with my camera and tripod and the wireless mics that constantly befuddle me, I looked up to see a long line forming at the weigh in pavilion. It was a line without an end. Must be a lot of guys who think a small bag of fish has a chance today, I thought, in one last gasp of rationalizing my humbling experience fishing against some incredible sportsmen.  I hope I can get a few good shots of a decent fish or two, I said to myself in the final moments before reality came to stay.

One hour later Mike walked over to me and said that by his estimates, reading the board and counting out calculating pounds of fish, that the Edd Rogers guys had tabulated approximately 800 pounds of bass. 800 pounds!

“What happened to us,” I asked Mike. Mike is a tall guy and looked way down at me. “I don’t know he said.” But he knew. Doug needs to stick to the creeks. Even Billy Stanton would have been a better partner. I wish I could blame this on my boat motor, etc. etc.

What I found out on this day, because I always like asking questions (that I am pretty decent at doing) is that, and I quote, “the largemouth came in.” Sometime between when Mike and I had got our tips—basically to catch spotted bass and a few smallmouth—the largemouth bass decided to come shallow and were on a ferocious jig bite. That’s why the guys were standing side by side. They were tossing around rocks next to the bank and walloping largemouth on Center Hill Lake. One angler, Chris Snow, (finished third on this day) said that if you didn’t toss a jig around every rock you saw, you were missing a fantastic opportunity at a special day.

Now, had Mike had a partner more attuned to what was happening around him, and had he been able to fish the lake a time or two since the bottom dropped out of it, I know he would have done just fine.

What I took away from this day is a great respect for the guys who fish Edd Rogers, a lot of awareness that Center Hill is indeed a very good bass lake—and full of largemouth. And that tournaments will can get into your blood, but if you aren’t of a regular tournament mind, they can get into your pocket quicker.

As for Billy Campbell, he and his son Jason finished way out of the money and I would love to give them a hard time on radio this Saturday, but Billy and Jason managed a limit of fish and had a respectable weigh in of 11 plus pounds. Billy and Jason have earned a break. Short one.

And to make matters worse, I also fished the Murfreesboro Outdoors Open Tournament on Percy Priest the day before. I’ve already spilled enough blood for one posting, but I’ll talk about it another time---this weekend on radio. Randy Bolin has an excellent tournament and the fishermen who participate it are the best in Middle Tennessee.

As for me, I hear the catfish are biting.