Hey Hall of Fame family,
I hope you all are doing well! I have recently started a new job, meaning I will not be traveling for work any longer. I'm feeling bittersweet, as I know I'll miss traveling the country and fishing new places. However, I'll be home way more often, get to spend more time with family, and have more time to work on this business. In this blog post, I wanted to write about the very last work trip I went on, where I fished at two different military bases on back to back weeks, those being Maxwell Air Force Base and Columbus Air Force Base. Columbus seemed much busier, even though I think its a smaller base than Maxwell.
I spent the first week of my work travels at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. It's a large base with a ton of woodlands, numerous lakes, and is located on the Gun Island Chute of the Alabama River. There was much more water on base than I had time to fish, so I just focused on a few ponds. The first night after work, I stopped at the first Fam Camp pond on base. There are three or four total Fam Camp ponds on base, plus a bunch of other lakes and river access. The first pond I fished was the largest of the Fam Camp, but I don't think it was very deep. There was thick, weedy grass around the edges of most of the lake, with several cyprus trees, few laydowns, and a drain. I fished my way around the lake in about an hour, throwing a rainbow trout colored Whopper Plopper. I almost immediately caught two dinks on back to back casts off the grassline. These were my first topwater fish of the year! I was happy to catch fish, but now wanted something bigger. After running out of sunlight and working my way around the entire lake, I called it a day. I caught 6 or 7 bass that night, nothing larger than 10 ounces. I left the lake wondering if any of the other lakes had larger fish.
The next morning before work, I fished the second Fam Camp pond. This pond was similar to the first one, but had a peninsula jutting out into the middle. It was also smaller, and had a bit more woody cover. I saw a ton of gar while fishing this lake; I didn't want to catch any. After a quick 30 minutes or so, I caught another few small bass on a discontinued Gary Yamamoto Chikara squarebill. In a morning and evening of fishing at Maxwell AFB, I'd caught several fish, but nothing of size at all. The following morning (Wednesday), I went back to that same second Fam Camp pond, throwing the same Yamamoto crankbait. I quickly caught 2 more bass before a spotted gar came out of nowhere, smoking my bait. I set the hook and fought it for a few seconds, only to have my 12 lb. fluorocarbon snap when I tried flipping the fish onto the bank. I desperately tried grabbing the fish, but to no avail. I saw it swim away with my discontinued squarebill (one of my favorites lures, too) in its mouth. Disheartened, I stopped fishing and immediately went on Ebay and purchased three more of those baits.
I didn't fish on base again until the Friday of that week. I did fish Thursday, but I got skunked at a public park off base in Montgomery. That Friday, I fished both of the same two Fam Camp lakes I'd already fished, catching another 5 or 6 bass at the first lake and another 3 or 4 at the second. Nothing of size, though. I was throwing a wake bait, wacky rig, and Jackhammer chatterbait, mostly catching on the worm and chatterbait. I sadly snagged that Jackhammer in an offshore brushpile (big RIP!) I caught around 20 bass at Maxwell Air Force Base that first week of travel, but all were under 1 pound. I even spoke with an active service member while fishing, and he said the largest bass he's ever seen caught at Maxwell in a year was 2 pounds on a frog. That didn't raise my expectations for the other lakes on base.
After fishing on Friday, I had the entire weekend to fish before reporting to Columbus Air Force Base in Columbus, Mississippi on Monday morning. I spent the weekend fishing all around central Alabama and eastern Mississippi, near Tuscaloosa, Pickensville, and Lowndes Lake. Not on Air Force bases, but I did catch a couple more little bass throughout the weekend.
Columbus Air Force Base has much less in terms of fishing access, only one pond to be exact. SAC (Strategic Air Command) Lake is a nasty drainage puddle where most of the base runway and flightline drains into. The lake, more of a pond, is clear and shallow, with not much for cover besides the occasional grass patch on the bottom. There are signs warning people that the water is toxic, and to wash your hands after fishing. The signs advised against eating any of the fish in SAC lake, and prohibit swimming and wading. Just thinking of all the PFAS, heavy metals, and other nasty things that could be in that water, I almost expected to see an oil slick on the surface...
I fished SAC Monday through Thursday every afternoon that week, the entire thing takes no longer than 30 minutes to fish. It was hot every day, but I managed to continue catching small fish. I only caught 1 to 3 bass each time, but I never got skunked. All the ditch pickles were small, all coming on a wacky rig. I found that most of my bites came when the worm was on the fall. Throughout the week at Columbus, I couldn't replicate the numbers of bass I caught at Maxwell. I think the bass at Columbus were somehow smaller, too. I don't think I even caught 10 bass in the four days I fished at SAC Lake. I wouldn't be surprised if the toxicity played a role in my success. However, I also fished a lot of public water while in Columbus. I found fish at Columbus Lake and the Tombigbee River on a chatterbait, but that's not on a military base.
All in all, I caught a bunch of bass over that two week trip. Every single one of them was small, but it was such a cool experience to have fished on those two bases and caught so many fish. All of the fish I caught in Alabama were caught on base at Maxwell, while most of them I caught in Mississippi were off base on public water. I was really upset to lose that discontinued crankbait to a stupid gar at Maxwell, but I've already caught fish on it's replacements. Losing that Jackhammer also wasn't great, but hey, that's part of fishing. I was pretty stoked to catch my first topwater fish of the year, and its tough to beat watching planes take off next to your fishing spot! The largest Fam Camp pond at Maxwell ended up being the most productive of all the on base spots I fished. If I ever have the unlikely chance to revisit Maxwell Air Force Base, I will probably broaden where I fish and search for new water within the installation. As far as Columbus goes, I might just stay off SAC Lake and hit those public spots again. Thanks for reading!
Tight lines,
Erik Hoffman, Hall of Fame Outdoor Co