FAYETTE COUNTY, W.Va. — If you asked Tim Isaacs about his pre-fishing on Lake Murray in South Carolina for the most recent Kayak Bass Fishing event, he would probably not have a lot of good things to say. Isaacs, who is from Clifftop, West Virginia fished the B.A.S.S. event on Lake Murray with his son and couldn’t get anything to work right.
“I was down there the entire week and was on good fish, but I just couldn’t get them in the boat,” said Isaacs. “I didn’t get back down there until Thursday of the following week.”
He was back on the lake for the KBF event and went to the same area. He fished some Thursday and got a few bites during his pre-fishing. Friday was a complete washout with rain pouring all day. The area got about an inch of rain which elevated the lake level and stained up the water. Still, Isaacs had confidence in the area he had selected.
“I got to my ramp and there was nobody there, not even a bass boat trailer. When that happens you think this was a really good idea or a really bad idea. Turns out it was a good one,” he explained on West Virginia Outdoors.
Isaacs took the advice of his son and a friend and headed straight to a series of docks not far from his ramp. Both had advised there were fish on the structures and in spite of the heavy rain could be caught.
“My son fished the ramp I put in, he told me there’s fish on those docks. Another guy who fishes with us fished them and caught some good ones. Anybody that knows me knows I’ll travel three miles to fish one dock. I love fishing docks and Lake Murray has a ton of them,” he laughed.
It didn’t take long for him to dial in on exactly how to catch some big fish staging on those structures. Isaacs concentrated on the docks and found that the first post off the bank and the last post from the bank seemed to be holding the fish as competition started. He boated nine keepers on day one and finished with a total of 95.75 inches. The toal earned him a first place finish. Sunday was a completely different tournament, but the result was almost identical. Isaacs returned to the same set of docks and hammered the big bass for a second day for a total of 94.75 inches and a second win in as many days.
“It was just a dream weekend. I could pull up on a dock and I figured out the pattern about 10 o’clock on Saturday morning. I just kept hitting every dock I could and hitting those posts. You don’t get to many weekends where everything works out perfectly, but it did,” he said.
The wins put Isaacs in a strong position headed into the rest of the KBF fishing season.