Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament on Lake Belton.

The Texas Classic Bass Club January tournament was held Jan, 21st 7:00AM to 4:00PM on Lake Belton. This was a draw tournament and I drew Mike Amescua at the clubs January meeting. Mike is one of the club founders and a really great guy to fish with. A series of cold fronts rolled through the week leading into the tournament and the day before the tournament which cooled off the air and brought in strong winds the day of the tournament. Even though the air temperature did not fall into frigid temperatures the change in pressure shut down the bite.

This is how the tournament went, I woke up five minutes before the alarm was set to go off to the unusual sound of turkeys calling in the distance. Kelly, the kiddos, and I were camping at Cedar Ridge Park where the tournament weigh-in would be held.

I met Mike at 6:40 AM at the ramps to launch the boat. We motored across the channel to the first spot I'd planned to fish that day. The lake is several feet low due to the lack of rain for the past few months by the way. We fished a few more spots with no luck and killed an hour or two when Mike suggested fishing a point on the other side of lake from us with sun light on it. We fished the pocket and out onto the point when Mike picked up our first keeper on the point with a spinner bait. We fished the point hard and couldn't find another fish in the area. We ran up the lake hoping to find warmer water protected from the wind with sun light shining down on it. To our suprise we only wound up getting flagged down by duck hunters wanting us to leave the area. We left and gave them some room to hunt. Actually we moved across the channel to a cove and flushed a flock of ducks from the cove...
We moved out to a few other spots with no luck. I took a break to eat lunch and decided to drag a fluke in the hopes of the slow presentation getting a bite. I missed a fish and on the next cast caught a 13 inch bass with the fluke. Drug the area a few more times with no luck and moved on. We fished all kinds of wood cover with no success and finally ended up on a shallow point where I caught our second keeper on a spinner bait. We worked the area over with nothing else biting, so we moved back down the lake near the weigh-in site. I caught one more short fish before the tournament ended. We should have joined the fisherman jigging for the white bass that had schooled up just outside cedar ridge. At least they were getting some action. The rest of the tournament field had the same stories we had. The front had put the fish into "lock jaw" mode.

Tournament in Review:

Post front weather conditions made for really tough fishing conditions. The fish that were caught were in 2 or 3 feet of water and caught on spinner baits. There were no 5 bass limits brought to the scales for weigh in.

January 21, 2006 Tournament Results from Lake Belton:
http://tcbc.net/results/jan06.htm.







Mike and I bringing in our catch for weigh-in.







Kiddo's helping dad load the boat.

Start of the 2006 Season

It's a new year which means new opportunities. This year I'm fishing in three tournament trails: Texas Classic Bass Club, Wal-Mart BFL, and Basschamps I-Match. This season will be pretty busy, so if you're interested in booking a guide trip on a weekend, then you need to let me as soon as possible. I have 15 weekends scheduled for tournaments, plus one more weekend booked for a guide trip. I'm available on week days as well with two weeks advance notice.

First Tournament of the Season:

Texas Classic Bass Club will hold it's January tournament on January 21st on Belton Lake. Prefishing has provided some indication that small mouth bass will be the deciding factor on who wins this tournament in my mind. Last years top two teams had solid small mouth bass catches.