Texas Classic Bass Club December 2008 Tournament

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club December Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake LBJ. There was near perfect fishing weather a little cloud cover and 60 degree temps. Water temps in the 60s and water clarity was about 18 inches or less on the upper end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with my lovely wife, Kelly Bridges.

The Tournament:


I woke up at 6:00 AM and let Kelly sleep in while I launched the boat and started fishing at 7:00 AM when the tournament started. I fished the rip rap on the dam for a while and only had one bite when Kelly called me to let me know she was ready to go fishing around 8:00 AM. I picked her up and we idled across the lake to the first spot I wanted to fish and set to work. After fishing around some docks Kelly felt a tap on the line and proceeded to start reeling in her first fish, only she forgot to set the hook and it pulled off after a little fight. It didn't take long and I missed a fish on a spinner bait. On the next cast to the same spot I caught our first 15 inch keeper. We worked our way down the bank fishing around boat docks. We fished the area a little longer and I caught a short bass about 13 inches. We made a long run up the lake to a new area and started fishing docks. A few docks and I hooked into a large bass that wrapped up on something in the water and broke off. We fished a while with no other bites and we decided to run up the lake and try some other areas. We moved on from there and hit all the bridge pilings over the next few hours and I caught another 15 inch bass.

With time running out for us, we headed to a spot back down the lake and hit one of my favorite main lake points, I think Kelly made one cast and set the hook on a 15 inch bass to give us three keepers in the box. High fives were due since that was Kelly's first tournament keeper, ever. A few casts later I caught a 10 inch bass, which got a, "That's a little one," comment from Kelly, which made me laugh. The 15 inch fish she caught a few minutes before was her first tournament bass, but she's already talking smack like some of the pros. :-)

A few minutes later Kelly caught another short fish around 12 inches. We had worked the point pretty well and decided to run down the lake to hit one more spot. Kelly caught two more short fish on this point and time was up. We loaded up and ran down to Cottonwood Marina to weigh in the fish with 15 minutes to spare, so we fished out the tournament fishing near the ramps. It didn't work out for us, must have been bad luck.

Tournament in Review:

I'm not sure I accurately accounted for all our bass, but we probably caught 10 over the day. We threw a lot of different stuff that caught fish. Kelly and I caught three keepers going 5 lbs were 8th out of 10 teams. I think 5 teams weighed in a 4+ lb bass and everyone reported good fishing. It could be argued that our bad luck was due to the banana Kelly brought on the boat. Kelly learned, bananas on boats are bad luck! And before you ask, yes I've read this article - Banana Myth. It's ok sweetie, we'll catch'm next time. :-)





Congratulations!





This post wouldn't be complete without telling Mike Amescua congratulations for pulling off the 3rd place finish in the tournament which earned him one more point in Angler of the Year standings than the leader. Congratulations Mike on earning the 2008 Angler of the Year title.

Mike holding two 8 lb bass from Choke Canyon, October tournament.