West Point Lake Elite Series

Brent Chapman – Competition recap
Friday, May 3, 2013

Usually when I go to a lake like this, I like to pick apart a creek and get as familiar with it as I can. Both times we've been here, I just haven't gotten comfortable anywhere. I'd go into a creek and catch one or two and run to another creek and catch one or two. I've just never gotten comfortable here.

The big thing for me this week was the water being higher. Normally, when we got to a lake when the water's high, there are enough fish to sustain the amount of cover that's in the water. I'm finding out that there's just not a large amount of largemouths here and we hit it in a total funk. The weather got bad, the fish were spawning and the water got high. It's definitely one I'm ready to put behind me so I can get to focusing on the rest of the season.

The next four (events) definitely fit more into my comfort zone, especially the next two (Alabama River and Mississippi River) being shallow-water deals. That's my type of fishing.

This week, I caught fish on a prop bait on day 1 and I'd planned on catching them on a wacky worm or shaky-head, but couldn't even get bit on those. That threw me off yesterday. I didn't catch a fish off a dock in 2 days. That cloud cover really changed things and messed things up. I guess I didn't rebound enough with the weather change.

Today, with the clouds and wind, I picked up a spinnerbait and caught a keeper spot on my first cast, but didn't catch another keeper for a couple hours. Then I ran to a largemouth area and caught one on a Tightlines UVenko that was close to 3 1/2 pounds. I had my kicker fish and all I had to do was catch three more, but I couldn't do it.

Aaron Martens – Practice recap
Wednesday, May 1, 2013

This place is actually pretty decent, but that doesn't say much about the fishing. It's a challenging lake. There are not very many largemouth in it. You just don't catch a whole lot of them. It was better when we were here before. At least it was easier to catch largemouths. They were healthier. It's just not as good now.

There are a lot more spotted bass than I've ever seen in this lake, but they're small. I'm catching a lot of 11-inchers. You can go to almost any bank in any corner of the lake and catch them. The lake might be overpopulated with spots.

I'll probably fish for largemouths right away tomorrow and then see what happens. There's not a lot of them.

Brent Chapman – Practice recap
Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Not much has changed. This will be my second event here and I've never been so frustrated going into a tournament. I don't understand it. Usually, I can find areas that I'm comfortable with and get something going, but I just can't figure it out.

I feel like I've at least got an idea about where there are some fish to start at, but after I'm just going to go fishing. You always hear about the guy who has nothing going on in practice and just goes fishing and winds up doing well. I'm hoping that's me tomorrow. I've only been here twice and it's been tough both times. I'm not sure if it's the (post-spawn) funk or there's just not a lot of fish here. People said it was tough last time and they smashed 'em. It definitely has me baffled.

It does look like they've started to drop the lake (level) so maybe that'll help things. I'm just going to be junk-fishing. I'd love to have something else going, but I'll have an assortment of rods on the deck and just go fishing. I'm going to beat the bank and at least do what I have the most confidence in and hope for the best.

Brent Chapman – Day 1 practice report
Monday, April 29, 2013

It's tougher than it was the last time we were here. Needless to say, I didn't do that well the last time so it's kind of frustrating. The water's up quite a bit and you'd think there'd be quite a lot of fish up shallow with it. It just doesn't appear to be that way. I would guess (most of the fish have spawned), but I feel like if most of the fish have spawned, there'd be more fry around or fish guarding fry. I'm really just scratching my head at this point.

I'm going to go to a different area (tomorrow). I'm still trying to find an area that I can feel halfway comfortable with. Hopefully, I can find a creek or something that has a decent amount of fish in it where I could just settle down and go fishing.

A 3-pounder is like gold here, or at least it was (in 2011) and I at least had some bites the last time we were here. It just seems like it's a lot tougher now. The weather was actually beautiful. I thought we were going to be in for a nasty day from the rain we had Sunday, but it was actually pretty nice.

I saw (water temperatures) in the low 60s up in the rivers so I think it's all relative to where you're at on the lake. That's how it was last time we were here. We couldn't have picked a worse time to be here because it's in that transition period. The water's come up about 2 feet in the last few days. Had we been here 2 or 3 weeks ago, the fish were probably more in that spawning stage and now we're at the tail end of it. It should be an interesting one.