It is once in a blue moon you see a bag like this weighed in at Summersville, especially in a tournament situation. Johnathan Bailey and Dustin Riddle dropped over 14 pounds on the scale in a wintery feel tournament at Summersville in the Marathon Bass League out of Catlettsburg, Kentucky.
With the high of 30 on Sunday and the low of 28 when the field blasted off it was a day most people wouldn’t even think about fishing on Summersville. In addition to the harsh weather conditions, it came a good rain Friday night into early Saturday morning brought the lake level up almost 6 feet in a matter of a day. The Core of Engineers would start pulling the lake at 9,000 CFS Saturday evening to draw the lake back down. Which meant one thing … awesome fishing on Sunday.
Johnathan Bailey and Dustin Riddle would start their morning up the river by the 39 bridge on a boulder they claimed “had current ripping around it and they were absolutely stacked on it.”
“When we started Sunday morning the whole boat was covered in snow and I didn’t think the fishing would be that good,” said Johnathan. “This was the first time my partner Dustin had ever been on the lake too.”
Upon arriving at their first spot up the river they claimed to have caught a limit in the first 30 minutes of fishing and at this point were looking to upgrade as many times as they could.
“We stayed primarily up the river in the colder water, just alternating spots about an hour at a time,” Johnathan said. “We caught so many fish up there that I was shocked at how good it was.”
The duo relied heavily on two baits throughout the day. Primarily throwing a 304 Lures Twerk Shad on a drop shot rig and a Megabass 110+ jerkbait on the rock piles up the river to catch the fish.
“The 304 Lures Twerk Shad was the bait primarily in my hand, I do a little bit of modifying to give it a smaller and sleeker look,” said Johnathan. “It seemed like every cast I made on the first big boulder with the Twerk Shad I caught a fish in that first hour.”
Catching several fish throughout the day upriver, culling their way up to about 12 pounds or so, Dustin and Johnathan decided to head back to McKee’s creek later in the day before check-in.
“I truly felt like with 11 or 12 pounds we had a true shot of winning the tournament so I came back to McKee’s creek a little early,” Johnathan said. “Dustin had no idea of how good a 12-pound bag is on Summersville because it was his first time there and I kept explaining to him that a 12-pound bag is huge here.”
While fishing down one last stretch in McKee’s Creek, Dustin would throw a new bait 304 Lures hasn’t released yet and catch their biggest bass of the day, a dandy 4 pound smallmouth. That 4.19 would cull out a 2-9 at the time.
“When Dustin caught that 4.19 and we culled out a two and a half pounder, I told him we are putting this thing on the trailer,” said Johnathan.
The duo would win with a total weight of 14.24 pounds. Full tournament results can be found by clicking here
