Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament on Lake LBJ

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament over the weekend Saturday on LBJ. The weather was typical for April, cloud cover and scattered rain showers. Water temps at 70 degrees and water clarity was about 12 inches or less on the upper end and clear to 4 ft on the lower end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with Eric Chandler a new Texas Classic Bass Club member.

The Tournament:

I woke up to the sound of the alarm on Saturday morning, but I was ready to fish as soon as my eyes popped open. I had a feeling it was going to be a great day of fishing since the weather was going to be nice after the storms passed and the weekend before I had caught good fish while fishing with Zachary.



Eric and I met at 5:30 AM and we drove out to the lake and idled the boat the first spot I wanted to fish and set to work. It was dark and rain was pouring down off and on. I started fishing on a point and worked my way into a creek. Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by thunder rolling across the lake. As we made our way in, I missed a few fish flipping to the shore with a baby rattle snake worm. Eric was fishing with a spinner bait. I stopped the boat at a spot where I'd caught a 5 lb fish the weekend before and made about 10 casts when I felt pressure on the lure, I set the hook and boated a nice 2 lb bass which I believe was a male that was guarding a bed. We fished on into the creek and I caught a short bass about 13 inches just a few feet into the creek. Lightning struck and Eric got down in the bottom of the boat, said something a long the lines of, "Man I don't like that!" Eric is over six foot, so he would be the highest point on the boat. :-P Any rate I was catching bass and wanted to cover the creek before considering a break. A short time later I caught another keeper bass flipping the worm to the bank. We made out way to the end of the creek and it stopped raining, so Eric started fishing again. I had a solid fish pull off at the back of the creek, but couldn't get another bite in the area. A few casts later I caught another short bass about 10 inches on the way back out of the creek. Eric put his first fish in in the boat a few casts later flipping a stand up jig to the shore. We fish all the way out and no more bites and it starts raining on us again. We fish into another creek and I set the hook on a big fish, I'm ready to go crazy Mike Ike style when I realize it's not a bass. It turns out to be a 4+ lb drum or gaspergoo. It was fun to catch it but frustrating at the same time. Eric got a good laugh out of it watching me fight the fish. A few more casts into the creek and I catch a white perch on the same lure, actually I caught all of the fish on the exact same worm. :-) Unfortunately the smallest fish usually do the most damage to a plastic worm and it was time to retire this one, but I still had 9 more in the pack where that one came from. Watermelon Grandebass Baby Rattle Snakes, they're great lures. We get into the back of the creek and I catch our 3rd keeper on the worm, just barely 14 inches long. Eric goes on a roll after that flipping a stand up jig and catches 4 or 5 short bass two of them out of the same boat slip on back to back casts while talking on the phone with this uncle. That's multi-tasking bass fishing style. :-)





We fished around there for another hour and no other takers, so we headed up the lake to a few different places, trying to locate fish. We hit some more creeks that should have fish on beds. A short ways into the third creek I flipped into a clump of grass in a foot of water and hooked into a fish about 13 inches long. Fishing our way back into the creek I catch another short fish out of a boat dock and Eric follows up with another fish out of slip. We get to the back of the creek and Eric flips the jig to the back of the creek and catches a nice 2 lb bass. I flip into the same area and catch a large perch. We fish out of the creek and decide to fish another spot. We stop off at the bridge pilings and I catch three bass one of which was a solid keeper giving us our 5th keeper to fill our limit. We move on and fish more creeks, burning a lot of time, while catching many short bass between Eric and I. With 45 min left in the tournament we head down the lake to a creek near the weigh-in. I take the boat into a creek where I'd catch a 3 lb bass on a bed the weekend before and it's not home, on the way back out I see a new bass bed and a 5 lb bass is sitting on it. Unfortunately Eric and I can't get it to bite before time runs out and we arrive at weigh-in with 15 seconds left on my GPS before the end of the tournament. We were almost DQ'd for being late to weigh-in.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 30 bass or more over the day. Most of the fish were caught on watermelon baby rattle snake and a watermelon stand up jig. Eric and I caught five keepers going 8.12 lbs putting us in 6th place.

We didn't take any pictures from the tournament, below is a picture of a bass Zachary caught.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my family for letting me take a Saturday to do some fishing.

Texas Classic Bass Club March Tournament on Lake Falcon

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club March Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake Falcon with Steve Bethea. The tournament didn't go as we had hoped, but we had a great time. For the third time this season, there was 30 mph winds the day of the tournament.




Here's how it went down.

I drove down to the dusty, but growing little town of Zapata Texas that sits on the edge of Texas and Mexico. There isn't much there, but oil/gas fields and the lake. In the last two years though, the town has become more of a bass fishing destination as it has opened several new hotels, two new fishing tackle shops, one with a boat dealer. The lake became famous recently for the high numbers of big large mouth bass caught in BASS and FLW tournaments held on the lake. Falcon lake is a little different than most because it's surrounded by retama trees and mesquite that are covered in thorns. Not only are the fish mean, but so are the trees! Let me try and paint a clear picture of how lake looks, the bass are swimming around in 7 to 10 ft of water which was dry land a few months ago. In 10 ft of water the trees are sticking up about two feet out of the water and the shallower you go the higher the trees stick up. It looks more like you are fishing in a jungle than a lake with all the green trees filled with yellow flowers and loud colorful birds fluttering from tree to tree. Other guys in the club, reported seeing snakes, but we never saw any.

Weather was very cloudy, temps in the lower 90's, and wind blowing 30+ mph all night and day, both days. Water temps ranged from 68 to 71 degrees depending on where you were in relation to the wind and the water dept. We arrived at Tiger Island boat ramp at 5:30 AM, but instead of launching right away, we had a little trouble getting the boat off the trailer. One of the boat buckles wouldn't release. We spent an hour trying to get the buckle to release or at least get enough slack to unhook the boat. When faced with not fishing or cutting the strap, I had to cut the strap, but we were finally on the water. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but I really wanted to fish down the lake near the dam, so I headed out to the main lake. We stopped at the island to judge the wind and waves, and also did a little fishing. No, bites and I decided it was going to get rough on the main lake, so we headed back into the Big Tigers creek. I had to drive the boat through a few hundred yards of the stuff you see in the photo above only with lots of wind blowing. Once I got the boat in the very back and into about 6 ft of water I dropped the trolling motor and started blazing a new trail through the stuff. My goal was to find 2 ft of water where bass may be spawning. After a few casts I felt a hit next to the boat and looked down in time to be startled by the sight of a large gar following behind the lure. Two casts later I made a short cast between a few tree tops and as I retrieve the lure a few feet from the boat a 5+ lb bass charges out of the brush and inhales the lure. "Get the net! Get the net!" That is all I could say as the fish made a run back into the brush. I fought it back out and it made a few more runs, but Steve netted the fish as soon as it got close to the boat. Caught it on a white chatterbait, just like the fishing reports said I would. It pays to do your home work before going out to the lake. From there we navigated our way through a maze of thorny brush fishing, but four hours later we had absolutely nothing to show for our efforts. I'd gotten us into unfished areas of the lake, gotten the boat completely stuck and free again. While driving home, Steve admitted that at one point he was concerned we might not get the boat back out of there, especially when we were stuck. I'd found only one small bass on a bed and it wasn't willing to bite. I took a break to chug a Diet Dr Pepper and eat a Snickers.

The break gave me a chance to think about that first fish and what we were doing wrong. Time to move back out to deeper water. I made run out of the brush and up the lake to a small creek that feeds into Big Tigers. Once we got in the creek, we found the brush to not be quit as thick but standing in deeper water 12 ft and shallower. About 30 yards into the brush, we found a pipeline or old road bed running across the creek. I decided we'd fish it to the shore and try to locate bedding fish again since we were closer to the main lake. We fished all the way in an nada, only a large carp in the shallow water. On the way back out I started throwing the chatterbait again and set the hook. "Fish! It's a good one, going 3 or 4 lbs probably. Get the net!" After one good run, the bass rolled over and slid into the net. Steve said, "Man, that fish is 6 lbs easy. You caught it in 10 ft of water." At this point we've got about 2 hours left to fish and only two keepers going about 11 lbs. A little while later I set the hook and land a 3 lb fish on the chatterbait. I stop fishing and dig out another chatterbait and give it to Steve to fish with. A few minutes later and I hear all heck break loose on the back deck and Steve has a nice 3 lb fish on the line. With 3o minutes left in the tournament I see a bass chasing shad within casting distance and throw the chatterbait to it. It bites and I land our fifth and final catch of the day.

This is the picture of the 6.59 lb bass from day one.

Day 1 results, we're in 1st for the classic tournament with just over 19 lbs and 2nd place over all. One of the non-qualifier teams brought in 21+ lbs. The 6.59 bass I caught turned out to be the biggest bass of the tournament.

Day 2:

We launch the boat on Sunday morning and head out to a dear stand I'd hear some of the guys talking about that sounded like the spot I'd caught fish before. Well we found the blind, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't the same one. We didn't catch anything in the area so we headed back to the creek we had finished the tournament in the day before. Not long after we begin fishing Steve sets the hook and lands a nice 3 lb bass on the white chatterbait. That fish cost us a little because clouds rolled in and the wind let up which seemed to change the mood of the fish. We spent the next 4 hours fishing chatterbaits with no bites and found ourselves in the same spot all over again. Very little time left and we needed to figure out the fish in order to stay in the game. We decided to move out to the outside edge of the brush in deeper water. Not long after we started fishing here, Steve sets the hook on a 5 lb bass flipping a 6 inch watermelon lizard. After putting that fish in the livewell, new hope is born, the goal to catch 3 more bass sets in. We fish the edge for a while longer with no success and I decide to make a move to the wind blown side of the lake since the winds have let up. I take the boat into a new creek and find another road bed to fish. Steve and I had decided the sun and wind were necessary to get the fish interested in biting a chatterbait, so he flipped a lizard and I put on a 10 inch zoom worm, pumpkin/ with purple and gold flakes. We fish down the road bed with two hours left in the tournament. A little way down the road and I set the hook on a nice 3 lb bass. Now there's only an hour and half left and we still need two fish to have any shot at winning this tournament. Ten minutes later I drag the worm from the brush into the road and bam, fish on! Turns out to be a little swimmer just over 14 inches, but he ate it and fought hard. We continue fishing the road till it comes to an inter section with another road. We only have an hour left so we decide to fish our way back toward the main lake, so we're not late getting back. At this point the clouds have broken up a little and the wind is blowing again, so I tell Steve I'm going out chatterbait style. 5 minutes later, Steve is standing on the back deck of the boat and begins to prey out loud. "Lord please, give us just one more 5 lb bass!" I finish my lure retreave and on the next cast with the chatterbait our prayers are answered and a 5 lb bass crushes the lure. It goes crazy fighting and jumps next to the boat, but stays on. We get the fish in the live well and still have 10 minutes to fish. We do our best to try for one more, but come up empty, time to head in for weigh-in, but we have a limit so we're excited. After the fish are weighed, we find out we have over 15 lbs of fish and take first place! We are the Texas Classic Bass Club 2009 Classic Champions!

Tournament in Review:

We caught 7 bass on white chatterbaits in 6 to 10 ft of water in small creeks or drains. The other fish were caught on the edge of brush on soft plastics. We weighed 10 fish for 34+ lbs.

I have to explain this photo. In our club the pose I'm doing is called, "The Larry." Push your fish way out, smile big, and tilt your head - that's "The Larry."

If you want to see more big fish pics and various club members performing "The Larry" - click here - http://www.tcbc.net/page24.html *scroll down. :-)

Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake LBJ. The tournament didn't go as we had hoped, but we had a great time. I watched the wind reports all week and was ready for the worst.

Here's how it went down.

At 5:45 AM I met up with my partner for the tournament Jason St. Peter on the way to the lake. Weather was very cloudy, temps in the upper 40's, and wind blowing 30+ mph over the day. We launched and headed out to Thunder Birds or Morgans creek to start our trip. We started fishing and within about five casts I hooked into what would have been our first keeper, after a short fight the fish jumped completely out of the water and shook free of my spinner bait. We moved back into the creek where I flipped a jig to a lay down and was trying to pop the lure free of a limb when a nice bass exploded on the lure ripping the jig trailer off, but missing the hook. We spent a while there trying different lures on the tree hoping the fish would return and bite again, no such luck. I saw a splash in the middle of the creek and threw a senko to the area, let it flutter down a bit and the line stopped moving, so I set the hook on a 10 inch bass. We started fishing our way out and Jason set the hook on our first keeper of the day, a nice 15 inch bass. About this time the front hit and the wind jumped from a slight breeze to 30 mph with dust and drizzle mixed in. It was nasty!!!



We went back out and tried fishing a big point that someone had marked. That didn't work out so we move back out where I lost the fish early and tucked the boat behind a fish house out of the wind to rest a bit. While tucked up behind the fish house Jason caught our second keeper of the morning on a crank bait, a good 16 to 17 inch bass. We moved out onto a point and fish along the protected shore for a few hours with Jason catching a short fish and nothing else biting. We went back to the point with the marker and Jason caught our third keeper, a Guadalupe bass on the same crank bait he'd caught the other fish on. We then proceeded to kill a lot of time fishing windy banks, protected banks, bluffs, flats, and nothing seemed to work. We even tried jigging in deep water over schools of bait. I decided at that point it was time to fish in Silver creek, even though I knew the boat ride was not going to be fun.



We hit the main lake going about 45 mph, bashing two and three ft rollers white capping, and I had the boat running dead into the north wind. Instead of getting beat to death, I decide the waves were close enough together that we could just skip over them going faster, which worked really well at 60 mph. The down side to that was, it pretty much scared the life out of Jason who didn't appreciate my tactic for handling the rough water. I fished a lot of tournaments and ran in much worse conditions, but forgot to take into account Jason's perspective when I made the run. Looking back I know exactly how Jason felt, because I've been there many times fishing tournaments as the co-angler in BFL, TTT, and FLW tournaments. From his perspective and my previous experiences, we were flying across the lake with very little of the boat actually touching the water, which seems to be on the very edge of out of control and all you can do that point is hang on for fear of fly out out. Most men in these conditions find religion if they didn't already have it. "Lord, please get us there safely..." or something along those lines ends up running through our minds. At any rate, Jason let me know he would like to take the ride back and brave the pounding vs skipping the waves. :-P Lucky for us, the winds died down to about 15 mph and the waves were not as bad on the way back.



Back to the fishing, once inside Silver creek we set to work fishing down the bank. I decided to switch up and tie on the kicker fish bait, a 3/4 oz red craw rat-l-trap. We fished the marina, rocky banks, log jams, and some points with no luck. In the last hour of the tournament, we fished along a stump covered point, where I hooked our fourth keeper, on the trap a nice 17 to 18 inch bass. We decided to work the point a few more times and Jason put our final keeper in the boat a 14 inch bass that filled our limit. He caught another little 10 inch bass and in the final minutes, I lost a good fish. That's part of rat-l-trap fishing, you can't get every fish you hook with those things in the boat.

Tournament in Review:

Frontal conditions with high winds all day made for a long fishing trip, but we managed to put good sack of keepers in the boat. We took 4th place with 9+ lbs. First place had a successful trip in all the wind and were able to catch 14 lb of bass, with a 5lb kicker.

Fishing with Zachary on Lake Austin.

Zachary and I got out today and did a little fishing this morning for about 3 hours and picked up a few fish. One of them nearly pulled him out of the boat! First picture is Zachary holding a 4 lb bass we caught flipping a brown jig in some boat stalls on the lower end of the lake. The second picture is Zachary hooking the big one out front of Chuy's Hula Hut on Lake Austin.

Look at the smile on his face. It's priceless.

This one nearly pulled Zachary out of the boat. He has it hooked, and the wind blew the boat back while I was taking the photo. So when the line became tight, he wouldn't let go of the rod and couldn't think fast enough to press the release button.

Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament on Lake Travis

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake Travis. Well the tournament didn't go as we had hoped, but we still had a great time. I didn't get to prefish which didn't help since I didn't have a real feel for what the fish were going to be biting and where they were staged.

Here's how it went down.

At 6:00 AM I met up with my partner for the tournament Regan Vaca at Mansfield Dam Park on the lake. Weather was very cloudy, temps in the upper 30's, and wind blowing 20+ mph. We launched and headed out to Cypress creek to start our trip, only we had a few near misses on the way. The lake is very low, there are islands and points where there would normally be water. I tried running in the dark by GPS map and it was a little scary looking back. I ran up in very skinny water twice before making it to Cypress creek. Last time I go running up the lake in the dark like that again, just not worth the risk. We started fishing and the first point we visited didn't have any active fish on it. We moved into the marina where I caught a white bass and two short large mouth bass, but the wind was blowing to hard to fish in there effectively. We went back out and tried some bluffs, but came up empty. We moved out onto a point and I picked up two bass on a drop shot that were about 13 inches long. We fished around the point and Regan caught our first keeper Guadalupe bass on a water melon jig. I caught five more bass that were 10 to 13 inches long in this spot on a c-rig with a 4 inch watermelon senko. We moved out and fished some more bluffs and points with very little success. I decided to leave Cypress and head up to Devil's cove. Once we got in there I switched to a cotton candy colored jig I'd made that I thought would be good for Travis fishing. After about five casts I caught our second keeper Guadalupe bass of the day on the jig. Several casts later I caught another keeper Guadalupe bass, so turns out the jig I made was pretty good. :-) Regan caught a two more short bass in the mean time while fishing docks and I caught our 4th keeper Guadalupe bass of the day. Unfortunately, I'd lost one of the jigs earlier and later lost the second jig I'd made. I tied on another jig, but wasn't able to get a bite the rest of the day. We hit a few main lake points with no success and that was it for the day. Fortunately, the ride back to the ramp was a lot less eventful since the winds hand lessened down to about 10 mph and we could see where we were going.

Tournament in Review:

Post frontal conditions are the worst fishing conditions, but we managed to put four keepers in the boat, which I consider a success regardless of the out come. The official results haven't been posted yet, we were probably in the middle of a 9 boat field with 3.3 lbs. First place had a successful trip throwing gold rat-l-traps early in all the wind and were able to catch two 4 lb bass.

Jackpot Tournament on Fayette County Lake

Texas Classic Bass Club put on a small jack pot tournament on Fayette County Lake on Dec 20th from 6:45 AM to 3:15 PM. We had some pretty strong winds early on that were blowing a good 15+ mph sustained, and air temps in the mid 60's. Fayette is a power plant lake that has a hot water discharge from the power plant that keeps the lake warm in the winter so the water was 66 degrees around most of the lake, but it was 75 degrees in the discharge area. We fished down the dam rip rap throwing cranks and dragging worms with no success. We then hit a point near the dam and Regan caught our first fish of the day out of about 15 feet of water that weighed about two pounds. We drifted over the point a few more times and decided to run over to the hot water discharge area. We got there and joined the crowd and I caught a 3+ lb fish on a spinner bait fishing the rocks on the left side. Then a few minutes later I broke off a 2 lb fish that hit a small crank bait. The fish rubbed the 10 lb florocarbon line on the rocks after the hook set and broke it almost instantly, but it jumped several times trying to shake the lure free so we got a good luck at him. I got tired of fighting the current and the crowd and decided to try some new water so we ran around to the cold water intake area. I switched lures to a Mann's Little George and started catching fish almost instantly. My first hook set and short fight would have been the big fish of the day, but it pulled free after a good fight. Two casts later I set the hook on a big bass and landed a bass over 4 lbs, didn't weight it, but it measured 19 inches in length. The picture above is my big bass of the day. I proceeded to catch another 3 lb fish and short keeper several casts later. At that point I offered one to Regan and he started catching bass also. We caught another 15 bass that were probably 2 to 3 lbs each. With a little time left in the day we decided to fish over by the boat ramps and Regan suggested we flip some trees he'd fished before. We hit a couple of trees and Regan set the hook on a nice 4.8 lb, 19 inch bass pictured right. We ended the day with three keepers and took 2nd place in the tournament. We had a great day on the lake and I can see why people like to get there and fish on this little slot lake.

The one that didn't get away yields long-lost ring

Every once in a while I read a fishing related article and I feel like I need to share it with everyone I know. Below is a story that falls into this catagory.

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BUNA, Texas – The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.
"My first reaction was — you gotta be kidding," he said Wednesday.
The fisherman who discovered the tarnished ring inside his catch contacted Richardson on Nov. 28 in Buna, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, after tracking him down with help from the Internet.
His fisherman hero asked to remain anonymous.
Richardson, 41, said he lost the ring about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. His mom had bought it for about $200 and wasn't pleased when it went missing.
As a mechanic, Richardson said he doesn't wear jewelry so he tucked the undamaged ring away.
"I have not cleaned it," he said. "I told my wife I don't want to clean it."

Food for thought -

Lake Sam Rayburn is the largest lake in Texas, it's surface area covers 114,500 acres and is 80 feet deep in places. That is a lot of room for a bass to hide!

Original story - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_fe_st/odd_ring_in_fish