August Texas Classic Bass Club Tournament

I fished a tournament on Stillhouse Hollow on the 20th of this month. I paired up with Larry Pederzani for this tournament. The tournament hours were from 7:00PM till 3:00AM.

This tournament felt like a train wreck in slow motion. Let's see, where to begin. The lake was up 3 feet or so from floods the week before. Larry, Zachary and I tried to prefish the night before, but the wind made it practically impossible to hold the boat on the water we wanted to fish. Larry managed to tag a few nice keeper size fish on a fluke. I did well to stand on the front of the boat and hold a rod at the same time. Zachary caught about 8 perch in 15 minutes of fishing, so he had a great time.

Tournament day/night:

I met up with Larry at home about 4:00PM. We spent an hour getting tackle ready and setting up C-rigs for the tournament. At 5:15 we gassed up the boat and headed off to the lake. We launched with about 45 minutes to mess around before the official tournament time. We headed out to the south side of the island, weather was hot & sunny with a good 5 to 10 mph breeze. I did see some topwater action, but couldn't get a bite on a rattle trap or spinnerbait. 7:00PM we headed over to the East side of the island to start the tournament off. Larry tagged our first keeper on a pumpkin senko fished nearly weightless over the grass in 10 feet of water about 8:00PM. A few minutes later I set the hook on a nice fish using a DD22, but it dives into the grass and pulls free. We fished around with C-rigs and senkos till dark with nothing biting. We fished over to the South East side of the island late about 10:00ish and Larry tagged another keeper off a stickup. We made another pass and Larry tagged another bass, but it wouldn't stretch. I cast a watermelon senko to another set of stickups in the area and set the hook only to have the fish wrap up in the tree. I hold pressure on the fish hoping it will unwrap and come out while gunning the trolling motor to the site. We get there in time for Larry to shine a light on the fish and see it dive for bottom of the lake. I reposition the boat and we can see the fish tangled in the top of the tree, so Larry makes a few attempts at netting it and the bass disappears, but I can still feel it on the line or at least I think I can, the wind is whipping us around pretty bad. We make a few attempts at unwrapping the line using the tip of my rod and a push pole with no luck. A split second later I'm in the lake diving down to unwrap it by hand as Larry fights the wind and waves while holding my rod and the light. In the process of unwrapping the line, the fish gets excited and it unwrapps enough that we can see it again suspended above the tree. I get back in the boat, Larry holds the light and my rod, I grab the net, reposition the boat and scoop up the fish, breaking my line all in one fluid motion. After placing the fish in the live well, Larry and I agree we've never worked so hard at getting a fish in the boat before. Even with the line broken on one end I still can't get my rod free and have to break the line a second time, that fish really did a great job of wrapping itself up, but 20 lb Berkley Big Game held on. That probably took us about 15 minutes, but seemed like an hour had gone by. We head around to the back side of this cluster of trees and Larry fights a nice keeper size bass only to have it pull free. A cast or two later and Larry tags another short fish on the senko. We fish around the island and pound the old road bed for another few hours and decide it's time to fish somewhere else. 1:00 AM now and it appears everyone else is moving off the main lake and fishing closer to Union Grove. We pull up on the island across from Union Grove and fish a weed line there, where I tag another short fish on the senko. With 30 minutes left we make another change and fish a spot near weigh-in that's always good for a few fish. Larry tags another keeper and a short fish in the last few minutes of the tournament.

Tournament in Review:

Overall we finished up with 4 keepers for 6.8 lbs. Much thanks to Larry for those results. :-)
That was good enough to get us 6th place out of 13 teams.
Tournament results posted here: http://www.tcbc.net/results/aug05.htm
Congratulations to Brian Davey and Brent Davey on a first place finish and congratulations to my buddy Dudley for tournament big bass of 5.37 lbs.