I fished the
Texas Classic Bass Club July tournament on
Lake Belton with Dudley Allen, 12:00 AM Friday night to 9:00 AM on Saturday July 15th. We got first place, and gained on the clubs points leader. There was some light wind most of the night, a full moon, and the water was 85 degrees. With very little cloud cover it made for a great night of fishing and I saw three shooting stars while fishing. It was also kind of strange to see the bright flashes in the distance and hear loud explosions as the natives were restless over at Fort Hood.
The Tournament:At 9:30 PM I met Dudley at the Cracker Barrel on 35 and we headed off to Belton. After driving around in circles for an hour we finally found Rogers Park. If you've never been to that park I'll be the first to tell you, it's hard to find it in the dark!!! The signs leading to the park are really hard to follow.
We launched on time and puttered down the bank a 100 yards to start fishing at 12:00 AM. After an hour and nothing going on we decided to hit the boat launch since there are some bright lights in the parking lot, but right as we started fishing a few boats decided they wanted to load up and head home, so that didn't work out. I decided to hit a point down the lake that has some trees on it in deep water. I made two passes over the area and Dudley caught three non-keepers on a watermelon lizard rigged Texas style. I caught a 2 lb catfish on a little george and caught the big bass of the tournament on the second pass on a black spinnerbait at 2:30 AM. I set the hook on that big bass and reeled it about 15 yards with not even the slightest struggle and when I brought it to the surface the bass took one look at the boat and decided it was time to make like a submarine, Dive! Dive! Dive!. After a few exciting minutes of the fish making runs under the boat the fish finally rolled on it side and Dudley scooped it into the net. I told Dudely we had a pretty good shot and big bass of the tournament and just needed to put a few fish with it to win.
We fished alot of water and picked up a few short fish here and there on varios lures. About 4:30 AM I set the hook and picked up a solid 2 lb fish with the black spiner bait. Later, I set the hook and lost a small mouth bass as it jumped and shook the hook free. About 5:30 AM I had a small mouth bass follow the spinner bait to the boat, but not hit. Dudley kept casting to the area as the boat passed through the area and set the hook on a 14 inch small mouth bass. Same fish? Possibly, but we'll never know. Dudley said he thought about the follower I missed and decided to pause his spinner bait and that's when the bass hit. Dudley decided he was going to pitch a jib into some of the trees in the area we were fishing and had a bass follow the lure to the surface and hit at the last second only to tear up his trailer and miss the hook completely. We caught a few more non-keeper size bass and the tournament was over.
Tournament in Review:The sky was clear with a full moon all night. We probably caught 10 or 15 bass and one catfish all night with most of our fish caught on a black spinner bait. Three of those fish were keeper size bass and one that weighed 4.90 lbs being the tournament big bass. It was a pretty tough tournament, since no team brought in a tournament limit. Tournament results are posted at
http://www.tcbc.net/results.php
