First Tournament of 2005
Chris and I fished in the Texas Class Bass Club January tournament over the weekend and got a second place finish. I also set my personal best for Lake Belton the day before the tournament..
I fished on Friday before the tournament and caught the 5 lb large mouth in the pic and I also caught a 4 lb small mouth, but didn't get a picture of it. The large mouth looks bigger than a 5 lb fish, but it was a skinny fish and had claw marks from an eagle or osprey trying to catch it. My guess would be that the fish was attacked while feeding at or near the surface, and then went into a dormant state loosing weight while recovering from the injuries, then my spinner bait came along about the time it started feeding again. If you look closely at the picture of the fish, it's stomach is a bit shrunk in. Most fish pictures people have of bass show the belly bulged outward. You can't see the claw marks in the picture though.
Anyway, during the tournament it was a totally different story all together from my prefishing. There was no wind on Friday and it was nice and warm, Saturday morning about 7:30 a cold front blew in with 25 mph winds that never let up. The wind kept most people tucked into pockets of the lake protected from the wind. Our first four fish of the morning two of which were keepers were caught on a white spinner bait and then the rest of the day was made up of Chris and I just throwing our tackle boxes at them. It went something like this, short fish on a watermelon/white senko, keeper on a crank bait after observing an osprey catching one from the same area, keeper on a lime rattle trap, and the final keeper on a different crank bait. All the fish were in 1 to 5 foot of water. We had a number of fish pull off after a brief hookup, Chris was practicing his LDR - that's, Long Distance Release. It wasn't until I told him to cut it out that he put our final two keepers in the boat, they were bigger than my three keepers, so I can't rib him to much. He did think the small mouth he caught was a crappie until I got it in the net, hehe, so he does deserve some. I enjoyed getting to fish with Chris again since we usually go as boaters and don't get to fish together. But on the random occasions where one of us goes as a non-boater and we get paired together, we've caught fish and placed in the money. Look forward to doing it again sometime Chris.
Robert and Marlin took first place; Congratulations again guys, those were some nice small mouth bass you guys caught. Pics of the fish are here… http://tcbc.net/photoalbum/2005/2005.html
Tournament results are posted at file://www.tcbc.net/
I fished on Friday before the tournament and caught the 5 lb large mouth in the pic and I also caught a 4 lb small mouth, but didn't get a picture of it. The large mouth looks bigger than a 5 lb fish, but it was a skinny fish and had claw marks from an eagle or osprey trying to catch it. My guess would be that the fish was attacked while feeding at or near the surface, and then went into a dormant state loosing weight while recovering from the injuries, then my spinner bait came along about the time it started feeding again. If you look closely at the picture of the fish, it's stomach is a bit shrunk in. Most fish pictures people have of bass show the belly bulged outward. You can't see the claw marks in the picture though.
Anyway, during the tournament it was a totally different story all together from my prefishing. There was no wind on Friday and it was nice and warm, Saturday morning about 7:30 a cold front blew in with 25 mph winds that never let up. The wind kept most people tucked into pockets of the lake protected from the wind. Our first four fish of the morning two of which were keepers were caught on a white spinner bait and then the rest of the day was made up of Chris and I just throwing our tackle boxes at them. It went something like this, short fish on a watermelon/white senko, keeper on a crank bait after observing an osprey catching one from the same area, keeper on a lime rattle trap, and the final keeper on a different crank bait. All the fish were in 1 to 5 foot of water. We had a number of fish pull off after a brief hookup, Chris was practicing his LDR - that's, Long Distance Release. It wasn't until I told him to cut it out that he put our final two keepers in the boat, they were bigger than my three keepers, so I can't rib him to much. He did think the small mouth he caught was a crappie until I got it in the net, hehe, so he does deserve some. I enjoyed getting to fish with Chris again since we usually go as boaters and don't get to fish together. But on the random occasions where one of us goes as a non-boater and we get paired together, we've caught fish and placed in the money. Look forward to doing it again sometime Chris.
Robert and Marlin took first place; Congratulations again guys, those were some nice small mouth bass you guys caught. Pics of the fish are here… http://tcbc.net/photoalbum/2005/2005.html
Tournament results are posted at file://www.tcbc.net/
posted by Previous Guide Clint Bridges at 7:35 AM
0 comments
