Charlie Carter always expects to catch fish when he casts or trolls a Cotton Cordell Super Spot, but even Carter was surprised when he and his grandson, Ryan Forehand, caught a pair of double-digit-weight largemouths from a lake near Carter’s Oklahoma home.
Forehand’s big bass, the first of the pair, tipped the scales to 11 ½ pounds. Carter’s, which came not long after, weighed an even 10 pounds. Both fish hit in the middle of the lake, where bass follow big schools of shad throughout the warm months, but they were at opposite ends of the lake.
During the hottest part of the summer, Carter catches the bulk of his fish from the open water, where he trolls Super Spots among the baitfish to target the game fish that follow the roaming buffet.
"It would be difficult to find those fish by casting," Carter said about summer bass in his favorite lake. "There aren’t even stumps out there and the fish aren’t holding on anything. They’re just out there eating shad. By trolling, we are able to find them."
During other times of the year, Carter switches to casting; however, he tends to stick with his Super Spot, which imitates a shad extremely well and beckons fish with its loud rattles no matter how it if fished.
"I stick with these lures because I believe in them," Carter said. "They continue to produce fish for me day after day."
Carter typically catches good numbers of bass during mid-summer days, and he’ll commonly come across some catfish and crappie in the process. In fact, he and Forehand had already caught bass, crappie and cats when Forehand’s 11 ½-pounder struck. After Carter added his 10-pounder, they figured they’d accomplished enough for one day and decided to call it quits.
Carter uses a variety of Super Spots to match forage sizes and colors, appeal to bass under different conditions, reach various levels of the water column and simply to discover which specific offerings the fish favor any given day.
He caught his 10-pounder on a ½-ounce Gray Shad Super Spot. His grandson’s lunker hit a Suspending Super Spot, which is the same length as the ½-ounce version but slightly lighter.
Carter, who is 70 years old and retired, ranks his fishing equipment among his most important possessions. Especially valuable are those Cotton Cordell Super Spots, which continue to put big bass in the boat!