Wal-Mart BFL Tournament on Cedar Creek Lake April 8th 2006.

I fished the Wal-Mart BFL over the weekend on Saturday April 8th, 2006. This is the third of five qualification rounds for the 2006 season. I was paired up with Michael Howell for this event. There were 88 boaters and non-boaters entered in the event and the top 17 places were paid out. I placed 14th with two nice bass for 5 lbs 10 oz getting a small check for my catch. It was a challenging event due to two cold fronts blowing in just ahead of the tournament. Weather was cloudy with 25 mph winds, 55 to 80 degrees.

The Tournament:

Kelly, the kiddos, and I arrived on Friday afternoon in Log Cabin City, Texas in time to setup camp and eat dinner before the pretournament meeting. I went to the meeting and along the way the second front blew in with 60 mph winds. I met up with Mike after the pairing was announced. Mike had prefished for three days and fished in the Texas Tournament Trail there the weekend before, and said he had some spots that would hold fish. Saturday morning we met up at 5:00 AM. We sat in the boat and talked about fishing and stuff waiting for the take off to begin at 7:00 AM. Boat 16 was called and we headed out to begin the morning on the water. We passed under a bridge, headed out for the main lake and met three to four foot waves rolling down the lake due to the high winds. The boat ride wasn't too bad since Mike has a 22 foot Ranger boat, we never took on water or speared waves running at 40 mph across the lake. The same can't be said for everyone else trying to get across the lake in other boats. We pulled into a small creek where I started with a white spinner bait and caught a 13 inch bass on the second cast. I fanned the area with the spinner bait quickly with nada, so I switched to a white senko and picked up my first keeper after two or three casts. Ten or fifteen minutes later I caught my second keeper on the white spinner bait. We fished out the creek and Mike caught a five inch bass on a spinner bait. Mike had been fishing a fluke until he saw another competitor put a keeper in their boat using a spinner bait. This was also after I'd caught my second keeper. We hit a few other creeks and killed a lot of time with nothing to show for our efforts. We fished out onto a flat with some boat docks that had brush tied all around them where I caught two 13 3/4 inch bass on a white senko. About 12:00 we hit Mike's honey hole he'd talked about all day and the bass were right where he said they would be. We pulled up on his spot and within three casts Mike caught a nice keeper, 3 lb 12 oz on the watermelon fluke he started the day with. Mike and I caught few more short fish in the area and we had to head back across the lake. With two hours left in the tournament Mike takes us to a creek across from the weigh-in site where 10 boats are within feet of each other trying to hide from the wind and hopefully catch one more fish. I still can't believe we spent an hour in there fishing, weaving in and out of the boats. Anyway maybe it's a good spot, but at the end of the day with all that traffic, I think it was a waist of time to fish that creek. We move out of the creek to fish some docks near the weigh-in site and call it a day.

Tournament in Review:

The weather played a huge factor in the fishing and messed up everyone's plans for the tournament. Mike said he wasn't able to get to a few of the spots he wanted to fish because of the high winds and big waves on the main lake. I caught two fish on a white spinner bait and six more on a white senko. I brought in two keepers that weighed 5 lbs 10 oz for a 14th place finish. Mike caught three fish all day and only one of them was a keeper. One of the things I believe that helped me catch fish vs Mike... I was putting Fool-a-Fish on my lures. That may sound like a commercial, but it's the truth. Most of the day Mike threw white senkos or spinner baits and I was fishing behind him catching bass with the same lures. I think the difference was that I was spraying the baits with Fool-a-Fish.

Special Thanks -Thanks to Kelly, and my kids for coming along to support me in this event. Thanks to Fool-a-Fish for providing me with a great product that allowed me to catch more fish.