Texas Bass Fishing with Clint Bridges

Texas Classic Bass Club August Tournament on Lake LBJ

2009-08-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club August Tournament over the weekend Saturday on LBJ. The weather was typical for August, HOT!!! Water temps at 80 degrees and water clarity was clear to 4 ft. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with Bill Gibbson from the club. The tournament hours were 3:00 AM to 10:00 AM.

The Tournament:

Bill and I met at 2:00 AM and we drove out to the lake and idled the boat the first spot I wanted to fish and set to work. It was dark with zero moon light, I started fishing on an underwater light in the marina. We fished around there for another hour and no other takers, so we headed over to the back of the marina and fished the grass. There was quit a bit of top water action, so I tied on a top water frog and started fishing. A few casts later a large explosion resulted in my frogs disappearance, I reeled up to feel for the weight of the fish and when I felt it, I swung hard to set the hook and the link broke. From the weight of what I felt I'm pretty sure it was a big fish and I never even turned it's head. I tied on a new frog and shook it off. A few casts later I put our first keeper in the boat with the frog. 30 minutes later I caught our second keeper on the frog and a little while later I caught a released a 13 inch bass. At that point Bill decided he wanted to borrow a frog from me since he hadn't packed any. We fished them for a while longer and then decided to hit another spot.

I pulled up on a shallow underwater light in front of some boat docks and made a single cast with a crank bait which was slammed as soon as it entered the soft glow of the light under water. After a brief fight, a 3.11 lb large mouth was put into the live well for our third keeper. We made a few more casts, but no takers. We moved on to the next underwater light and on the first cast to it I hooked into another large bass, it jumped and fought to the point that it pulled off at the side of the boat before we could net it. Bill hooked up next with a crank bait and caught our third keeper. A cast later I caught our 4th keeper from the light and on the next cast caught a 13 inch bass from the light. I let the boat float over the light while measuring the short fish and it pretty much killed the bite there, so we moved on down the bank. We fished some grass with no takers on the frogs and then back to an underwater light. I caught our 5th keeper at that point and it was 5:30 AM when we filled our limit. I only say that because several of the teams in the tournament decided to wait and not fish until 6:00 AM because they were convinced the fish were not biting in the early hours of the night.

We left that area and hit a point with some grass on it. On the first pass around the point we had to big blow ups on the frogs, but couldn't get the bass to take the lures. On the second pass Bill had a fish blow his frog about 2 ft into the air when it hit, but again, no luck getting it hooked up. We one or two more missed opportunities and I decided to try another area where I'd caught a 5 lb fish the weekend before.

We arrived and fished all around the area, but I was only able to manage one short fish about 6 inches long. Unfortunately the school of fish that had been there before were long gone. I decided we should move and hit another spot that had produced the weekend before as well. We arrived to fish another point and started throwing Carolina rigs on the point. After a few drifts across the point I hooked up with a short fish. A drift or two later I caught our 6th keeper and culled out a small fish. A few more drifts along and Bill caught our 7th keeper, but no enough to help improve our weight. A little while later I caught another short fish and then we ran out of time.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 10 bass or more over the morning. Most of the fish were caught on crank baits and frogs. Bill and I caught five keepers going 9.5 lbs putting us in 3rd place. A few missed opportunities kept us from second and possibly 1st place, but that's fishing for ya.

We didn't take any pictures from the tournament, below is a picture of the fish I caught the week before.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my family for letting me take a Saturday to do some fishing.

Texas Classic Bass Club July Tournament on Belton

2009-07-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club July Tournament Saturday July 11th on Belton. The weather was typical for July, HOT! Water temps in the high 80's and water clarity clear to 4 ft. I fished with Adam DeLeon from the club.

The Tournament:

Since it's been 100 plus on a daily bases, the club voted to fish at night from 12:00AM to 8:00AM. We had clear sky's and a nearly full moon which made for a great night of fishing. We launched at Cedar Ridge park on Belton lake and start fishing the marina. We killed an hour in there and nearly lost a few lures flipping around the boat stalls, but not a single bite. I decided to run down the lake to a main lake hump or sunken island and see if any fish would bite there. We arrived to find lots of bait and white bass hitting the surface, but after an hour of fishing there, no bass. We moved to a creek and fished all the way to the back and I picked up a 12 inch bass on a black spinnerbait. We fished around there for a while, but no other takers. We moved from there to a main lake point and fished around it, making our way into a creek. I caught another short fish on a Texas rigged black brush hog. A short time later Adam set the hook and the fight was on. After a near disaster when the fish wrapped up on a stick, I was able to net his 5 lb small mouth bass! We fish around the area until daylight when I switched to a spinnerbait. After fishing with it for a while, I felt a tug on the line and saw a large bass following my lure to the boat. Unfortunately it doesn't take the lure and spooked away. I switched lures a short time later and hooked into a keeper size bass using a Scrounger. The fish jumps and goes crazy trying to throw the lure. Adam makes a few attempts to net the fish, but misses on the last try and the fish shakes free. Needless to say that hurt just a little bit since we have only an hour and half left in the tournament. We try another spot and I catch one more 12 inch bass on a watermelon brushhog before time runs out on us.

Tournament in Review:

We did not catch a lot of bass which is typical for a night time tournament, but Adam was able to catch a bass of a lifetime when it comes to Texas small mouth bass. It weighed in at 5.04 lbs and was the second largest bass of the tournament. The lake record smallie is 6.42 lbs, so Adam's was a trophy fish. We got 4th place in the tournament with just the one fish.

Congrats to Adam again on his catch! I'm a little jealous since I've caught several 4+ lb smallies from Belton, but haven't gotten one over 5 lbs.

Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament on Lake Belton

2009-05-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament few weeks ago Saturday on Belton. The weather was typical for May, cloud cover and scattered rain showers forecasted. Water temps near 80 degrees and water clarity clear to 4 ft on the lower end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with Bill Gibson from the club.

The Tournament:

I woke up ready to fish as soon as my eyes popped open. I had a feeling it was going to be a great day of fishing since the weather was going to be nice after the storms passed. Bill and I met at 5:30 AM. I started fishing on a point and worked my way into a creek. As we started fishing we notices shad were spawning along the shoreline by the hundreds. I picked up a spinnerbait and started catching white bass to 18 inches on cast after cast. At some point as we worked our way into the creek I suggested Bill put on a popper and see if he could get a bass to hit it since we were seeing the bass bust the schools of shad along the shore. Bill made a few casts with the popper and it disappeared in large explosive splash as a 4 lb bass inhaled the lure. After a short fight I scooped the fish up in the net and we were really excited about our first keeper, so high fives were exchanged then we got back to fishing. I proceeded to catch white bass using a combination of the spinnerbait and a top water popper while Bill alternated between his popper and a grub rigged on a jig head. Bill saw a bass hit a shad out in the middle of the creek and threw the grub at it. Seconds after the lure enter the surface he felt a tug on the line and Bill caught our second keeper. We made our way to the back of the creek and continued catching bass and white bass, but nothing that we could bring to weigh-in. We started making our way out of the creek and Bill caught a nice 3 lb small mouth bass on the popper. A short distance later Bill hooked another large bass with the popper, but it was able to jump and shake the lure free. It looked to be a small mouth bass about 3 lbs. We fished around in the creek for another hour and the bite seemed to slow down. On another trip into the back of the creek Bill threw his popper to the head of the creek where a small mouth bass hit the lure as soon as Bill twitched the line. We fished out of the creek and the shad had all disappeared into the deeper waters of the lake. I decided to try a jig for a while and was able to get a bass to hit the lure. It felt like a large fish, but pulled off after a short fight. I decided at that point that we needed to change locations and hit another creek on the other side of the lake. We fished into the back of the creek and on the way back out Bill caught another small mouth bass to fill our limit. I saw some schooling action off the end of point and threw a weightless senko to the spot. After letting it flutter down a little, the line began to run off to the side, so I set the hook on my first keeper size bass of the day, but it was smaller than the bass we had in the live well. We tried several other places and killed a lot of time. With just an hour and a half left in the tournament we decided to load the boat and trailer to the weigh-in location. We arrived with an hour left in the tournament and decided to launch the boat at Cedar Ridge park. I caught 3 short bass out of the marina on a grub pretty quickly and with just 5 minutes left in the tournament I sent the hook on one last keeper size bass, but it wasn't large enough to help our total weight.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 30 bass or more over the day, didn't keep count of white bass. We caught our fish on a combination of lures, but most of the keepers were caught on the popper Bill used. Bill and I caught five keepers going 12.36 lbs putting us in 3rd place.

Bill and I fishing in the creek. Photo by Kelly Bridges

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my family for letting me take a Saturday to do some fishing.

Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament on Lake LBJ

2009-04-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament over the weekend Saturday on LBJ. The weather was typical for April, cloud cover and scattered rain showers. Water temps at 70 degrees and water clarity was about 12 inches or less on the upper end and clear to 4 ft on the lower end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with Eric Chandler a new Texas Classic Bass Club member.

The Tournament:

I woke up to the sound of the alarm on Saturday morning, but I was ready to fish as soon as my eyes popped open. I had a feeling it was going to be a great day of fishing since the weather was going to be nice after the storms passed and the weekend before I had caught good fish while fishing with Zachary.

Eric and I met at 5:30 AM and we drove out to the lake and idled the boat the first spot I wanted to fish and set to work. It was dark and rain was pouring down off and on. I started fishing on a point and worked my way into a creek. Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by thunder rolling across the lake. As we made our way in, I missed a few fish flipping to the shore with a baby rattle snake worm. Eric was fishing with a spinner bait. I stopped the boat at a spot where I'd caught a 5 lb fish the weekend before and made about 10 casts when I felt pressure on the lure, I set the hook and boated a nice 2 lb bass which I believe was a male that was guarding a bed. We fished on into the creek and I caught a short bass about 13 inches just a few feet into the creek. Lightning struck and Eric got down in the bottom of the boat, said something a long the lines of, "Man I don't like that!" Eric is over six foot, so he would be the highest point on the boat. :-P Any rate I was catching bass and wanted to cover the creek before considering a break. A short time later I caught another keeper bass flipping the worm to the bank. We made out way to the end of the creek and it stopped raining, so Eric started fishing again. I had a solid fish pull off at the back of the creek, but couldn't get another bite in the area. A few casts later I caught another short bass about 10 inches on the way back out of the creek. Eric put his first fish in in the boat a few casts later flipping a stand up jig to the shore. We fish all the way out and no more bites and it starts raining on us again. We fish into another creek and I set the hook on a big fish, I'm ready to go crazy Mike Ike style when I realize it's not a bass. It turns out to be a 4+ lb drum or gaspergoo. It was fun to catch it but frustrating at the same time. Eric got a good laugh out of it watching me fight the fish. A few more casts into the creek and I catch a white perch on the same lure, actually I caught all of the fish on the exact same worm. :-) Unfortunately the smallest fish usually do the most damage to a plastic worm and it was time to retire this one, but I still had 9 more in the pack where that one came from. Watermelon Grandebass Baby Rattle Snakes, they're great lures. We get into the back of the creek and I catch our 3rd keeper on the worm, just barely 14 inches long. Eric goes on a roll after that flipping a stand up jig and catches 4 or 5 short bass two of them out of the same boat slip on back to back casts while talking on the phone with this uncle. That's multi-tasking bass fishing style. :-)

We fished around there for another hour and no other takers, so we headed up the lake to a few different places, trying to locate fish. We hit some more creeks that should have fish on beds. A short ways into the third creek I flipped into a clump of grass in a foot of water and hooked into a fish about 13 inches long. Fishing our way back into the creek I catch another short fish out of a boat dock and Eric follows up with another fish out of slip. We get to the back of the creek and Eric flips the jig to the back of the creek and catches a nice 2 lb bass. I flip into the same area and catch a large perch. We fish out of the creek and decide to fish another spot. We stop off at the bridge pilings and I catch three bass one of which was a solid keeper giving us our 5th keeper to fill our limit. We move on and fish more creeks, burning a lot of time, while catching many short bass between Eric and I. With 45 min left in the tournament we head down the lake to a creek near the weigh-in. I take the boat into a creek where I'd catch a 3 lb bass on a bed the weekend before and it's not home, on the way back out I see a new bass bed and a 5 lb bass is sitting on it. Unfortunately Eric and I can't get it to bite before time runs out and we arrive at weigh-in with 15 seconds left on my GPS before the end of the tournament. We were almost DQ'd for being late to weigh-in.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 30 bass or more over the day. Most of the fish were caught on watermelon baby rattle snake and a watermelon stand up jig. Eric and I caught five keepers going 8.12 lbs putting us in 6th place.

We didn't take any pictures from the tournament, below is a picture of a bass Zachary caught.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my family for letting me take a Saturday to do some fishing.

Texas Classic Bass Club March Tournament on Lake Falcon

2009-03-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club March Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake Falcon with Steve Bethea. The tournament didn't go as we had hoped, but we had a great time. For the third time this season, there was 30 mph winds the day of the tournament.

Here's how it went down.

I drove down to the dusty, but growing little town of Zapata Texas that sits on the edge of Texas and Mexico. There isn't much there, but oil/gas fields and the lake. In the last two years though, the town has become more of a bass fishing destination as it has opened several new hotels, two new fishing tackle shops, one with a boat dealer. The lake became famous recently for the high numbers of big large mouth bass caught in BASS and FLW tournaments held on the lake. Falcon lake is a little different than most because it's surrounded by retama trees and mesquite that are covered in thorns. Not only are the fish mean, but so are the trees! Let me try and paint a clear picture of how lake looks, the bass are swimming around in 7 to 10 ft of water which was dry land a few months ago. In 10 ft of water the trees are sticking up about two feet out of the water and the shallower you go the higher the trees stick up. It looks more like you are fishing in a jungle than a lake with all the green trees filled with yellow flowers and loud colorful birds fluttering from tree to tree. Other guys in the club, reported seeing snakes, but we never saw any.

Weather was very cloudy, temps in the lower 90's, and wind blowing 30+ mph all night and day, both days. Water temps ranged from 68 to 71 degrees depending on where you were in relation to the wind and the water dept. We arrived at Tiger Island boat ramp at 5:30 AM, but instead of launching right away, we had a little trouble getting the boat off the trailer. One of the boat buckles wouldn't release. We spent an hour trying to get the buckle to release or at least get enough slack to unhook the boat. When faced with not fishing or cutting the strap, I had to cut the strap, but we were finally on the water. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but I really wanted to fish down the lake near the dam, so I headed out to the main lake. We stopped at the island to judge the wind and waves, and also did a little fishing. No, bites and I decided it was going to get rough on the main lake, so we headed back into the Big Tigers creek. I had to drive the boat through a few hundred yards of the stuff you see in the photo above only with lots of wind blowing. Once I got the boat in the very back and into about 6 ft of water I dropped the trolling motor and started blazing a new trail through the stuff. My goal was to find 2 ft of water where bass may be spawning. After a few casts I felt a hit next to the boat and looked down in time to be startled by the sight of a large gar following behind the lure. Two casts later I made a short cast between a few tree tops and as I retrieve the lure a few feet from the boat a 5+ lb bass charges out of the brush and inhales the lure. "Get the net! Get the net!" That is all I could say as the fish made a run back into the brush. I fought it back out and it made a few more runs, but Steve netted the fish as soon as it got close to the boat. Caught it on a white chatterbait, just like the fishing reports said I would. It pays to do your home work before going out to the lake. From there we navigated our way through a maze of thorny brush fishing, but four hours later we had absolutely nothing to show for our efforts. I'd gotten us into unfished areas of the lake, gotten the boat completely stuck and free again. While driving home, Steve admitted that at one point he was concerned we might not get the boat back out of there, especially when we were stuck. I'd found only one small bass on a bed and it wasn't willing to bite. I took a break to chug a Diet Dr Pepper and eat a Snickers.

The break gave me a chance to think about that first fish and what we were doing wrong. Time to move back out to deeper water. I made run out of the brush and up the lake to a small creek that feeds into Big Tigers. Once we got in the creek, we found the brush to not be quit as thick but standing in deeper water 12 ft and shallower. About 30 yards into the brush, we found a pipeline or old road bed running across the creek. I decided we'd fish it to the shore and try to locate bedding fish again since we were closer to the main lake. We fished all the way in an nada, only a large carp in the shallow water. On the way back out I started throwing the chatterbait again and set the hook. "Fish! It's a good one, going 3 or 4 lbs probably. Get the net!" After one good run, the bass rolled over and slid into the net. Steve said, "Man, that fish is 6 lbs easy. You caught it in 10 ft of water." At this point we've got about 2 hours left to fish and only two keepers going about 11 lbs. A little while later I set the hook and land a 3 lb fish on the chatterbait. I stop fishing and dig out another chatterbait and give it to Steve to fish with. A few minutes later and I hear all heck break loose on the back deck and Steve has a nice 3 lb fish on the line. With 3o minutes left in the tournament I see a bass chasing shad within casting distance and throw the chatterbait to it. It bites and I land our fifth and final catch of the day.

This is the picture of the 6.59 lb bass from day one.

Day 1 results, we're in 1st for the classic tournament with just over 19 lbs and 2nd place over all. One of the non-qualifier teams brought in 21+ lbs. The 6.59 bass I caught turned out to be the biggest bass of the tournament.

Day 2:

We launch the boat on Sunday morning and head out to a dear stand I'd hear some of the guys talking about that sounded like the spot I'd caught fish before. Well we found the blind, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't the same one. We didn't catch anything in the area so we headed back to the creek we had finished the tournament in the day before. Not long after we begin fishing Steve sets the hook and lands a nice 3 lb bass on the white chatterbait. That fish cost us a little because clouds rolled in and the wind let up which seemed to change the mood of the fish. We spent the next 4 hours fishing chatterbaits with no bites and found ourselves in the same spot all over again. Very little time left and we needed to figure out the fish in order to stay in the game. We decided to move out to the outside edge of the brush in deeper water. Not long after we started fishing here, Steve sets the hook on a 5 lb bass flipping a 6 inch watermelon lizard. After putting that fish in the livewell, new hope is born, the goal to catch 3 more bass sets in. We fish the edge for a while longer with no success and I decide to make a move to the wind blown side of the lake since the winds have let up. I take the boat into a new creek and find another road bed to fish. Steve and I had decided the sun and wind were necessary to get the fish interested in biting a chatterbait, so he flipped a lizard and I put on a 10 inch zoom worm, pumpkin/ with purple and gold flakes. We fish down the road bed with two hours left in the tournament. A little way down the road and I set the hook on a nice 3 lb bass. Now there's only an hour and half left and we still need two fish to have any shot at winning this tournament. Ten minutes later I drag the worm from the brush into the road and bam, fish on! Turns out to be a little swimmer just over 14 inches, but he ate it and fought hard. We continue fishing the road till it comes to an inter section with another road. We only have an hour left so we decide to fish our way back toward the main lake, so we're not late getting back. At this point the clouds have broken up a little and the wind is blowing again, so I tell Steve I'm going out chatterbait style. 5 minutes later, Steve is standing on the back deck of the boat and begins to prey out loud. "Lord please, give us just one more 5 lb bass!" I finish my lure retreave and on the next cast with the chatterbait our prayers are answered and a 5 lb bass crushes the lure. It goes crazy fighting and jumps next to the boat, but stays on. We get the fish in the live well and still have 10 minutes to fish. We do our best to try for one more, but come up empty, time to head in for weigh-in, but we have a limit so we're excited. After the fish are weighed, we find out we have over 15 lbs of fish and take first place! We are the Texas Classic Bass Club 2009 Classic Champions!

Tournament in Review:

We caught 7 bass on white chatterbaits in 6 to 10 ft of water in small creeks or drains. The other fish were caught on the edge of brush on soft plastics. We weighed 10 fish for 34+ lbs.

I have to explain this photo. In our club the pose I'm doing is called, "The Larry." Push your fish way out, smile big, and tilt your head - that's "The Larry."

If you want to see more big fish pics and various club members performing "The Larry" - click here - http://www.tcbc.net/page24.html *scroll down. :-)

Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament

2009-02-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake LBJ. The tournament didn't go as we had hoped, but we had a great time. I watched the wind reports all week and was ready for the worst.

Here's how it went down.

At 5:45 AM I met up with my partner for the tournament Jason St. Peter on the way to the lake. Weather was very cloudy, temps in the upper 40's, and wind blowing 30+ mph over the day. We launched and headed out to Thunder Birds or Morgans creek to start our trip. We started fishing and within about five casts I hooked into what would have been our first keeper, after a short fight the fish jumped completely out of the water and shook free of my spinner bait. We moved back into the creek where I flipped a jig to a lay down and was trying to pop the lure free of a limb when a nice bass exploded on the lure ripping the jig trailer off, but missing the hook. We spent a while there trying different lures on the tree hoping the fish would return and bite again, no such luck. I saw a splash in the middle of the creek and threw a senko to the area, let it flutter down a bit and the line stopped moving, so I set the hook on a 10 inch bass. We started fishing our way out and Jason set the hook on our first keeper of the day, a nice 15 inch bass. About this time the front hit and the wind jumped from a slight breeze to 30 mph with dust and drizzle mixed in. It was nasty!!!

We went back out and tried fishing a big point that someone had marked. That didn't work out so we move back out where I lost the fish early and tucked the boat behind a fish house out of the wind to rest a bit. While tucked up behind the fish house Jason caught our second keeper of the morning on a crank bait, a good 16 to 17 inch bass. We moved out onto a point and fish along the protected shore for a few hours with Jason catching a short fish and nothing else biting. We went back to the point with the marker and Jason caught our third keeper, a Guadalupe bass on the same crank bait he'd caught the other fish on. We then proceeded to kill a lot of time fishing windy banks, protected banks, bluffs, flats, and nothing seemed to work. We even tried jigging in deep water over schools of bait. I decided at that point it was time to fish in Silver creek, even though I knew the boat ride was not going to be fun.

We hit the main lake going about 45 mph, bashing two and three ft rollers white capping, and I had the boat running dead into the north wind. Instead of getting beat to death, I decide the waves were close enough together that we could just skip over them going faster, which worked really well at 60 mph. The down side to that was, it pretty much scared the life out of Jason who didn't appreciate my tactic for handling the rough water. I fished a lot of tournaments and ran in much worse conditions, but forgot to take into account Jason's perspective when I made the run. Looking back I know exactly how Jason felt, because I've been there many times fishing tournaments as the co-angler in BFL, TTT, and FLW tournaments. From his perspective and my previous experiences, we were flying across the lake with very little of the boat actually touching the water, which seems to be on the very edge of out of control and all you can do that point is hang on for fear of fly out out. Most men in these conditions find religion if they didn't already have it. "Lord, please get us there safely..." or something along those lines ends up running through our minds. At any rate, Jason let me know he would like to take the ride back and brave the pounding vs skipping the waves. :-P Lucky for us, the winds died down to about 15 mph and the waves were not as bad on the way back.

Back to the fishing, once inside Silver creek we set to work fishing down the bank. I decided to switch up and tie on the kicker fish bait, a 3/4 oz red craw rat-l-trap. We fished the marina, rocky banks, log jams, and some points with no luck. In the last hour of the tournament, we fished along a stump covered point, where I hooked our fourth keeper, on the trap a nice 17 to 18 inch bass. We decided to work the point a few more times and Jason put our final keeper in the boat a 14 inch bass that filled our limit. He caught another little 10 inch bass and in the final minutes, I lost a good fish. That's part of rat-l-trap fishing, you can't get every fish you hook with those things in the boat.

Tournament in Review:

Frontal conditions with high winds all day made for a long fishing trip, but we managed to put good sack of keepers in the boat. We took 4th place with 9+ lbs. First place had a successful trip in all the wind and were able to catch 14 lb of bass, with a 5lb kicker.

Fishing with Zachary on Lake Austin.

2009-02-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

Zachary and I got out today and did a little fishing this morning for about 3 hours and picked up a few fish. One of them nearly pulled him out of the boat! First picture is Zachary holding a 4 lb bass we caught flipping a brown jig in some boat stalls on the lower end of the lake. The second picture is Zachary hooking the big one out front of Chuy's Hula Hut on Lake Austin.

Look at the smile on his face. It's priceless.

This one nearly pulled Zachary out of the boat. He has it hooked, and the wind blew the boat back while I was taking the photo. So when the line became tight, he wouldn't let go of the rod and couldn't think fast enough to press the release button.

Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament on Lake Travis

2009-01-25T11:42:00.001-08:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament over the weekend on Saturday at Lake Travis. Well the tournament didn't go as we had hoped, but we still had a great time. I didn't get to prefish which didn't help since I didn't have a real feel for what the fish were going to be biting and where they were staged.

Here's how it went down.

At 6:00 AM I met up with my partner for the tournament Regan Vaca at Mansfield Dam Park on the lake. Weather was very cloudy, temps in the upper 30's, and wind blowing 20+ mph. We launched and headed out to Cypress creek to start our trip, only we had a few near misses on the way. The lake is very low, there are islands and points where there would normally be water. I tried running in the dark by GPS map and it was a little scary looking back. I ran up in very skinny water twice before making it to Cypress creek. Last time I go running up the lake in the dark like that again, just not worth the risk. We started fishing and the first point we visited didn't have any active fish on it. We moved into the marina where I caught a white bass and two short large mouth bass, but the wind was blowing to hard to fish in there effectively. We went back out and tried some bluffs, but came up empty. We moved out onto a point and I picked up two bass on a drop shot that were about 13 inches long. We fished around the point and Regan caught our first keeper Guadalupe bass on a water melon jig. I caught five more bass that were 10 to 13 inches long in this spot on a c-rig with a 4 inch watermelon senko. We moved out and fished some more bluffs and points with very little success. I decided to leave Cypress and head up to Devil's cove. Once we got in there I switched to a cotton candy colored jig I'd made that I thought would be good for Travis fishing. After about five casts I caught our second keeper Guadalupe bass of the day on the jig. Several casts later I caught another keeper Guadalupe bass, so turns out the jig I made was pretty good. :-) Regan caught a two more short bass in the mean time while fishing docks and I caught our 4th keeper Guadalupe bass of the day. Unfortunately, I'd lost one of the jigs earlier and later lost the second jig I'd made. I tied on another jig, but wasn't able to get a bite the rest of the day. We hit a few main lake points with no success and that was it for the day. Fortunately, the ride back to the ramp was a lot less eventful since the winds hand lessened down to about 10 mph and we could see where we were going.

Tournament in Review:

Post frontal conditions are the worst fishing conditions, but we managed to put four keepers in the boat, which I consider a success regardless of the out come. The official results haven't been posted yet, we were probably in the middle of a 9 boat field with 3.3 lbs. First place had a successful trip throwing gold rat-l-traps early in all the wind and were able to catch two 4 lb bass.

Jackpot Tournament on Fayette County Lake

2008-12-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

Texas Classic Bass Club put on a small jack pot tournament on Fayette County Lake on Dec 20th from 6:45 AM to 3:15 PM. We had some pretty strong winds early on that were blowing a good 15+ mph sustained, and air temps in the mid 60's. Fayette is a power plant lake that has a hot water discharge from the power plant that keeps the lake warm in the winter so the water was 66 degrees around most of the lake, but it was 75 degrees in the discharge area. We fished down the dam rip rap throwing cranks and dragging worms with no success. We then hit a point near the dam and Regan caught our first fish of the day out of about 15 feet of water that weighed about two pounds. We drifted over the point a few more times and decided to run over to the hot water discharge area. We got there and joined the crowd and I caught a 3+ lb fish on a spinner bait fishing the rocks on the left side. Then a few minutes later I broke off a 2 lb fish that hit a small crank bait. The fish rubbed the 10 lb florocarbon line on the rocks after the hook set and broke it almost instantly, but it jumped several times trying to shake the lure free so we got a good luck at him. I got tired of fighting the current and the crowd and decided to try some new water so we ran around to the cold water intake area. I switched lures to a Mann's Little George and started catching fish almost instantly. My first hook set and short fight would have been the big fish of the day, but it pulled free after a good fight. Two casts later I set the hook on a big bass and landed a bass over 4 lbs, didn't weight it, but it measured 19 inches in length. The picture above is my big bass of the day. I proceeded to catch another 3 lb fish and short keeper several casts later. At that point I offered one to Regan and he started catching bass also. We caught another 15 bass that were probably 2 to 3 lbs each. With a little time left in the day we decided to fish over by the boat ramps and Regan suggested we flip some trees he'd fished before. We hit a couple of trees and Regan set the hook on a nice 4.8 lb, 19 inch bass pictured right. We ended the day with three keepers and took 2nd place in the tournament. We had a great day on the lake and I can see why people like to get there and fish on this little slot lake.

The one that didn't get away yields long-lost ring

2008-12-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I read a fishing related article and I feel like I need to share it with everyone I know. Below is a story that falls into this catagory.

****************************************************************************
BUNA, Texas – The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.
"My first reaction was — you gotta be kidding," he said Wednesday.
The fisherman who discovered the tarnished ring inside his catch contacted Richardson on Nov. 28 in Buna, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, after tracking him down with help from the Internet.
His fisherman hero asked to remain anonymous.
Richardson, 41, said he lost the ring about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. His mom had bought it for about $200 and wasn't pleased when it went missing.
As a mechanic, Richardson said he doesn't wear jewelry so he tucked the undamaged ring away.
"I have not cleaned it," he said. "I told my wife I don't want to clean it."

Food for thought -

Lake Sam Rayburn is the largest lake in Texas, it's surface area covers 114,500 acres and is 80 feet deep in places. That is a lot of room for a bass to hide!

Original story - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_fe_st/odd_ring_in_fish

Texas Classic Bass Club December 2008 Tournament

2008-12-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

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.

A friend catches a 12 lb bass on Choke Canyon lake.

2008-11-06T19:58:00.000-08:00

For the Texas Classic Bass Club October tournament, the club voted to repeat last years success and fish on Choke Canyon. Once again the club showed how awesome a lake Choke Canyon is to fish on. All teams caught fish and most produced a bass over 5 lbs in the two days of fishing, but one special fish stood out above all. It was caught by a friend of mine from the club, Bill Ellis.

The story behind the fish:

Bill and Mike caught two 8+ lb fish the day before fishing a tank dam on the upper end of the lake on the first day of the tournament and returned first thing in the morning on day two of the tournament. Around 6:15 AM in the dark, Bill cast out a watermelon/red jig and set the hook on a bass of a life time. She made several runs and came to the surface for a good head shake trying two throw the jig, but it was locked into the corner of the mouth perfectly. All Bill and Mike could do was wait for the fish to give up and put her in the livewell, which seems like forever under the conditions. To their credit, they took extra care over the day to keep the fish comfortable as possible and it was in perfect health swimming away after her photo shoot at the scales. Congratulations Bill on your new personal best and congratulations to Mike and Bill for the win with a two day total, 9 fish that weighed over 40 lbs.

By the way, Mike is backup guide for Big Texas Fish. If you want to fish with Mike, give me a call and I can set you up with a trip. Choke Canyon lake is 3 hours south of Austin by the way, so there will be extra expenses for booking a trip down there.

Water Spout on Lake Buchanan

2008-10-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, been through some trying times lately. We all have our crosses to bear in life. At times I feel like I should have a tatoo that says, "I'm with Stupid." followed by an arrow that turns back on itself. I'm finally getting back in the grove and inspired to write again. For my return post, I thought I'd share some very cool pictures. A friend of mine sent me these pictures of a storm that generated a water spout, they are truly scary and beautiful all at the same time if you ask me. They should serve as a reminder that our God is an awesome God, truly. When a storm blows in and you're on the lake, be ready to head to the shore!

Rednecks are creative people... :-)

2008-06-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sure a Google search will turn up all kinds of "redneck" photos that make you laugh. These are a few fishing related ones that I've been sent that make me laugh. Enjoy!

Red Neck Measuring Tap!

Red Necks fishing from porch when the river came up!

Red Neck Yacht! It sleeps 6, 8 if you include the floor space and has outdoor plumbing! Second floor includes diving platform, beer trough, fish cleaning station and outdoor AC.

Red Neck Bass Boat complete with trolling motor!

Laguna Madre - South Padre Island

2008-05-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

I took a trip down to South Padre Island for the weekend with my family and a bunch of friends. Eric Chandler booked us a guide trip on the Laguna Madre. Two boats, 6 people with two expienced fisherman (myself and my buddy) with 3 of my buddies relatives that rarely fish and one close friend. We kept 19 keeper specs, and a 25 inch redfish.

I lit up the trout with Berkley jerk shad on a jig head. Color didn't seem to matter, but some colors worked better than others. White with a pink stripe on the back got the most action, but we ran out and had to fish other colors. I personally caught 30 plus fish using jerk shad, mostly spec trout. My catch included 4 pinfish(perch), 3 skip jacks (18", 22", 24"), one snook that jumped off at the net, the guide estimated to be 24 to 26" and 10 keeper spec trout with the largest being 21 1/2". Fun trip... for me anyway. Some of the other guys on the trip didn't fair as well since they stuck to fishing live shrimp on a popping cork. The rest of the guys caught an average of 5 trout apiece that were mostly under size and had the big one that got away story to take home. The redfish hit a white/blue back Berkley jerk shad on a 1/4 oz jig head. The big trout I caught definately put up the same fight you'd get from a big bass only without the jumping. The skip jack are like mini tarpon, they make runs and then jump while wiggle like crazy, fun stuff.

The Fishing Crew

The Fish

Eric with a nice redfish!

Me with a nice trout!

Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament

2008-05-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Buchanan. There was perfect fishing weather, a little cloud cover and 80 degree temps. Water temps at 70 degrees and water clarity was about 3 inches or less on the upper end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with Jouhn Hackney from the club.

The Tournament:

I woke up late, never heard the sound of the alarm or that I can remember anyway on Saturday morning. I was ready to fish as soon as my eyes popped open at 6:00AM. I ran through he house and called John as soon as my feet hit the floor. Luckily John hung out at our meeting spot. I think I got dressed and was out the door in record time. In all of the tournaments I've fished over the last 8 years I think I've been late twice.

John and I met at Wataburger at 6:20 AM, I was a little disappointed in myself to say the least for sleeping past the time I told John that I'd meet him. We got to the lake at 7:15, 45 minutes late and were about to launch when I reached for the boat keys in the console of my truck and my heart nearly stopped. The keys were not there. I thought that was where I'd left them after my last guide trip on Travis a week before, but turns out I left them in the pocket of my jacket back at home. Called the wife to see if she would be our hero and bring the keys or meet us halfway, but no chance. John said, "lets fish and make the best of it," so that's what we did. We launched an hour late and only had the trolling motor as a means of getting around for the day. We fished from Burnet county park to Morgans creek and back from 7:30ish to 3:30. We caught some 30 bass and four large perch. We ended the day with 4 keepers weighing 5.8 lbs. Not bad for a days worth of fishing with only the trolling motor to get around. We caught most of our fish on cotton candy worms all day on drop shot and shakey heads.

To top our day off, as if it were not bad enough, we ran into a rather uneducated home owner while out on the lake. We are fishing near a boat dock when a lady came charging out of her home screaming, "Excuse me, excuse me! Can I help you? Hello! What are you doing?" That was pretty much all without taking a breath or waiting for a response. I replied that I was fishing. Now her husband, stops his yard work and comes out to the shore and tells me I'm trespassing on his land and I need to leave. I told him I was floating on public water and was not trespassing and that if he wanted to call the police I'd lend him my cellphone to make the call. He ran into the house and came back with a phone and pad of paper, which he wrote my TX numbers down and then proceeded to make a call or pretended to anyway I'm not sure. He said he called in on me for trespassing and the cops would be there in 30 min and advised I should be gone before they arrive. I said, "Lucky for you I gotta go or I'd stay to prove you wrong." If I'd had my boat keys, John and I agreed we would have waited for the police to arrive. We couldn't stay or we would have been late for the tournament weigh-in. We left and never heard from anyone until we got to the weigh-in. We told our story about the jerk home owner and one of the other teams had been harassed by the same home owner except he went a step further and circled their boat on his jet ski until the left the area.

I haven't decided yet, but I may pay this home owner a visit every time I fish the lake from now on in hopes that he does circle my on his yet ski, and next time I'll have more time. I'll call the police myself and stay, so that I can file harassment charges on the home owner. Home owners may own the land and the docks, not the water and they can't stop fisherman from fishing around a dock.

Location of the offending home owner: See Red circles.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 20+ bass or more over the day. Most of the fish were caught on cotton candy trick worms. John and I caught four keepers going 5.8 lbs putting us in 5th place. Congrats to Rick on the big bass of 7.7 lbs edging me out of the big bass of the year.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to Kelly and the kids for letting me take a Saturday to do some fishing.

The Kelsea and Zachary take 1st in Fishing Tournament.

2008-05-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

On Saturday May 10th the Knights of Columbus held a family picnic and the activities included a fishing tournament to be held on the bank of Old Settlers Pond in Round Rock. We started fishing at 3:30 after lunch. I took Zachary and Kelsea down to the preselected are which included the fishing dock on the pond. Zachary quickly located a school of perch fishing from the dock and called for Kelsea and I to join him to catch fish. Guess I should explain the rules for the tournament, catch the most or the biggest fish in your age bracket. I had baited the kids lines with Berkley crappie nuggets and the perch around that little dock were loving them. Kelsea and Zachary each caught 3 perch a piece before everyone else caught on to the fact we were on a good school and had the right bait. Kelsea's first fish caught was a nice big one, 6 & 1/2 inches long and held out to be the big fish for her age bracket. They caught perch on the Berkley nuggets for a while and then someone showed up with a grilled hot dog and the perch went into a feeding frenzy over the bits of greasy hot dog put on a hook. When the hot dog ran out, we switched back to nuggets and earth worms someone else had provided later. At the end of the tournament at 5:30, Kelsea had caught and released 20 perch. Zachary had caught and released 17 perch. Both received first place trophies for their age brackets.

Congratulations to Kelsea and Zachary on their first tournament wins. I also need to congratulate Isaiah Chandler for 1st place in his bracket with a 6 inch perch and Eric Chandler for first place in his bracket for a nice 3+ lb bass caught with 5 min left in the tournament on a black power worm.

Kelsea and Zachary prefishing at Williamson County Park on Thursday before the event.

Mother's day was a sad day in fishing news - Dottie the only known world record bass passed on to the big lake in the sky.

2008-05-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

World-record class Dixon Lake bass "Dottie" dies and ends era for three old friends

Jed Dickerson had just left Dixon Lake exhausted and was about to sit down for lunch when he got the call from Jim Dayberry, one of the Ranger supervisors with the park's lake division.
"You might want to come back down here," Dayberry told Dickerson at around 11:45 a.m. PT on Friday. "We just found Dottie floating on the north side of the lake."
There was a group of Rangers, including Dayberry, waiting for Dickerson on the dock, shaking their heads. Dickerson picked up the 19-pound dead bass and looked for the spot on her gills that had famously earned her the nickname "Dottie."
"Yup, that's her," Dickerson said. "It's over."
What Dickerson held represented almost a decade of commitment, putting him on a journey that labeled him, in certain people's eyes, as both a record holder and a fraud. It began with old friends Mac Weakley and Mike "Buddha" Winn and ended with new friend and former Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green.
This was the third time he'd held Dottie, and for the third time, it didn't accompany the title he wanted so badly — largemouth bass world-record holder. George Washington Perry's record mark of 22 pounds, 4 ounces, set on June 2, 1932, at Montgomery Lake in Georgia, dodged the biggest bullet of its nearly 76-year-old life on Friday, and Dickerson, Dottie's most devoted hunter, will finally get some rest.

"In my opinion, this is one of the greatest days in bass fishing history," said Dickerson, who had spent the week with National Geographic, working on a documentary on bass. "It's the end of an era and Perry's record lives on. I don't think anyone is ever going to break it."
Chasing Dottie
Dickerson, Weakley and Winn all grew up fishing together on Dixon Lake in Escondido, Calif., but they started their career hooking trout. Then one day they all watched as a guy stayed in one area all day, staring at one fish (sight fishing). Eventually he hooked a huge pregnant female and at the same time, hooked three kids on chasing bass.
But it wasn't until the late '90s that they realized their chase for big green bass would turn into a chase for the biggest green bass. A rumor and then a sighting of, at that point, a nameless, massive female bass, ended up defining their lives.

Tim Schick, ESPNOutdoors.com
Jed Dickerson loads Dottie into a bag for the Game and Fish Department. Dottie was put in a freezer to be examined later."We just think it's really bizarre — kind of like it was meant to be," Weakley said. "The three of us grew up in that area, and that's the lake we used to fish out of every day when we were 6- and 7-years-old.
"And it turns out there was a world-class bass swimming in that lake three miles from our houses."
They devoted every minute of their free time to catching Dottie, which they believed would be large enough to score them the most coveted and historic record in bass fishing.
Dickerson was the first to realize the dream in 2003, and he thought the record was officially broken when he picked her off a spawning bed. He said the three friends immediately weighed Dottie at around 23 pounds, but it took the Game and Fish three hours to get to the lake to verify it as a record. By that time, they said, it was stressed and had lost a lot of its weight.
She officially weighed 21 pounds, 11 ounces, which still holds as the fourth largest largemouth bass ever recorded. That's when they noticed the spot on the gill and declared the race for "Dottie" and the record officially on.
They didn't pull her in again until 2006 when they again spotted her on a spawning bed and Weakley went to work. He eventually was able to set the hook, but when he got her to the boat, they noticed she had been foul hooked (not hooked in the mouth). Against his friends' wishes, Weakley decided not to try and make the record official with the Game and Fish.
Before releasing her, they weighed Dottie at 25 pounds, 1 ounce, shattering the record, took some photos. Weakley said he wasn't prepared for the scrutiny that followed.
The three were pounded by the media with requests for interviews and scolded by some conservation agencies and even other anglers about the way they handled Dottie. They were told by many that they had all but buried Dottie and some anglers even reported finding her dead.
"After all the scrutiny we've taken over the fish, people can see the truth now," Weakley said after seeing Dottie for himself on Friday. "Even though the fish was foul hooked, which sucked, I think it was good because it showed what the fish was in her prime.
"If we hadn't caught her in between Jed's catch in 2003 and her death today, people might have thought she topped out at 21 pounds."
Weakley and Winn backed off from the hunt after 2006. Winn eventually took a job that moved him away from Dixon and Weakley felt like the deed was done. But Dickerson wasn't finished. He wanted to see Dottie officially go down in the record books.
"I looked at it like the final chapter in that book had closed, but Jed didn't see it that way," Weakley said. "He wanted to keep pursuing it and get the official record. I think it became a personal thing with him, while for me, I kind of felt like I had been there, done that."
Dickerson said it went beyond just wanting to see his name in the books. Because of the time invested he felt like Dottie was his (along with Weakley's and Winn's), and he didn't want any "one-time angler" to come to Dixon, a public lake, catch Dottie and claim the record. He wanted to make sure it stayed close to home. And, according to Dickerson, they were coming from all over the U.S., and even some from Japan to try and put their name above Perry's in the book.
Meeting Dennis Green
Dickerson didn't have any luck with Dottie in 2007, but he spotted her in Dixon three months ago, with the females in the early stages of the spawn. A few days later he met an unexpected new friend and business partner, Green.

Tim Schick, ESPNOutdoors.com
Jed Dickerson and Mac Wheatley compare Dottie to her mounted self."I heard he was on the dock, but I didn't want to get into his business," Dickerson said. "But when I got back, I found out he was looking for me."
Green, who lives 45 minutes from Dixon in San Diego, said he knew Dickerson's story and thought he'd take his 9-year-old son Zach to check it out for himself. They struck up a quick friendship and Dickerson starting guiding for Green and Zach, both of whom love to fish.
"Talk about the biggest bass is always part legend and part myth," Green said. "Sometimes that giant bass doesn't really exist, but everyone talks about it."
A few days after that, Green and son Zach witnessed something he described as "unbelievably beautiful."
"When we saw her — it was just unbelievable," Green said. "She had two males swimming beside her — I called them her security guards — and she was more confident than any fish I've seen in my life.
"She was doing her thing, man. We think of a big fish as a fish that's lazy, but she was moving with a purpose."
Green was so enamored with the chase for the record and the mystique that followed it, he signed Dickerson on to be represented by his new business, Dennis Green Sports Marketing.
"Jed's a great fisherman and a great guide, and I think fishing is the future," he said.
Dickerson, balancing time with his job banking for a casino and his family, spent about eight hours a day, every day, looking for Dottie this spring, but the next time he saw her was when he held her on Friday.
Life after Dottie
He had all but given up hope of catching Dottie this spring when he got the call from Dayberry, but surprisingly, he said the first feeling he had after hearing Dottie had been found dead was relief.
"Now I won't wake up every morning, worrying that someone else was going to catch her," he said. "It's cost me an arm and a leg, and my family has been very, very understanding through this process.
"I'm just totally exhausted."
Weakley had a similar reaction. Tired of the scrutiny and attention, he was glad that the hunt was over and happy how it ended.
"I think it's great that she didn't end up in an aquarium or on somebody's table or on a mount," he said. "It's good to see that she lived her life out and came back to visit us one last time so people can really see just how big this fish is. And now we get to share her and let other people see her."
Green said he couldn't think of a better ending to Dottie's story. One of the most impressive bass in recorded history spawned one last time and passed away on Mother's Day weekend.
"Dottie was spawning just like a 3-pound fish," he said. "As a big fish, she still was into spawning. When they found her today, she was totally spawned out.
"She did what she had to do, and she did it on Mother's Day weekend. And her legend as the biggest fish ever goes on."
Editor's Note: Dickerson is a guide on Dixon Lake. He can be contacted at lunkers@cox.net.

Source of the story - http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?page=world_record_bass_dies

My 100th post and I'm a bass-attic!

2008-05-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

How do you know when you're addicted to bass fishing?

For me it was today while driving home on the freeway I noticed a large white bass sticker on the rear windsheild of a car a few cars ahead of me. I swear it looked just like a bass silhouette jumping out of circle of ringed ripples on the waters surface. After a little while I caught up to the car in traffic and realized it wasn't a white sticker of a bass, it was a big glob of bird crap.

I'm not sure I could pass an ink blot test if I had to go for a psyc study or something. What does this look like? A bass. And this? A bass. And this... a share lunker.

Don't laugh, true story.

A Few First's for the Bridges crew

2008-04-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

Took the kids out fishing yesterday. I didn't bring along a camera, but wish I had now that the trip is over. Zachary caught his first bass from a bed. We found a little male guarding a bed in a foot of water and Zachary wanted to catch it. I tied on a white hair jig and flipped it on the bed for him. He would shake it as I coached him and after about the 6th cast the bass picked up the jig and blew it out of the bed before he could set the hook. The fish got really annoyed by the jig in the bed from there on and Zachary was really anxious about getting the fish because he could see the fish moving in on the bait and blowing it out of the bed. A few casts with the bass just nipping at it and finally it inhaled the bait. Zachary set the hook and played the fish like a pro and he was just as excited as anyone winning a tournament when we got it.

The other first of the trip was little Emily kissing all the fish we released. I don't know why, but she decided any fish caught need a kiss before being released. Guess she's watched to many of the Saturday morning fishing shows with me. Funny stuff, especially knowing how girly she can be. Before all the fishing picked up Emily was telling me she was ready to go home because she was sweating and fishing was yucky. She's such a little princess.

Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament on Lake LBJ

2008-04-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament over the weekend Saturday on LBJ. There was perfect fishing weather a little cloud cover and 80 degree temps. Water temps at 70 degrees and water clarity was about 3 inches or less on the upper end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with Steve Bethea from the club.

The Tournament:

I woke up to the sound of the alarm on Saturday morning, but I was ready to fish as soon as my eyes popped open. I had a feeling it was going to be a great day of fishing since the weather was going to be so nice and the Bass Champs tournament the weekend before had good fish brought to the scales.

Steve and I met at the ramp at 6:15 AM and We idled across the cove to the first spot I wanted to fish and set to work, but no body home. So we fished another spot in the marina, but nada there as well. Then we moved over to the far end of the dam to fish the riprap. We worked our way down the bank fishing. Steve caught our first large mouth that was about 13 inches long throwing a shaky head out in 10 feet of water. 10 minutes later I hooked into a small bass that was about the same size on a cotton candy wacky worm rigged up on a dropshot. There were several boats on the dam with us, but as we worked our way down the shore they all left, but one. Don Steussy & John Hackney who were putting on a show in front of us catching small bass every other cast. Lucky for us the other boats left because as we fish past Don and John and then about a 100 yards down I set the hook and boated our first keeper, 7.36 lbs. That fish fought really hard, ran all the way under the boat and out the other side while stripping drag off my reel. When it finally stopped, the fish then jumped out the water trying to throw the hook, but luck was on our side and we got her in the net after a hard fought battle. She didn't go quietly into the net. Good thing big girls like cotton candy. :-)

We fished around there for another hour and no other takers, so we headed up the lake to a few different places, trying to locate fish. That killed a few hours when I finally decided to go up river and hit some of the creeks that should have fish on beds. We found a creek with a few small males guarding beds and picked off a few here and there on senkos rigged Texas style. I managed to put a 14 inch fish in the boat after while and decided to hit another creek after fishing that one out. A short ways into the second creek I flipped into a clump of grass in a foot of water and hooked into a 6 lb fish. We were sitting in 3 ft of water, so it was like catching a red fish, she shot out of the grass and headed up the creek peeling drag off my reel until I was able to turn her. The fight was far from over though, once to the boat the fish jumped, ran under the boat, and I had to stow the trolling motor to keep her from wrapping up on it. We fish out the creek and boat several more short fish and Steve caught one short fish that should have been a keeper if it would have had all of it's tale fin. With just an hour left to fish we decided to head back to the dam, but on the way I decided to stop over in a cove that I knew fish spawned in the back of in years past. We fished our way in and caught a few short fish, but once we got to the back of the cove I flipped my senko to a stump and set the hook on a 4 lb bass. We had 13 minutes left to fish after I put the fish in the live well. We ran on down to the ramp and decided to call it a day with only four keepers, one fish shy of a limit.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 15 bass or more over the day. Most of the fish were caught on senkos and a few on cotton candy trick worms. Steve and I caught four keepers going 18.36 lbs putting us in 1st place. I also took big bass honors with a 7.36 lb bass to anchor our win.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my family for letting me take a Saturday to do some fishing.

Pics from weighin:

Spring is hear - well in the bass fishing world it is anyway.

2008-03-02T06:57:00.000-08:00

Took the kids out to Old Settlers park on Saturday morning for a little bass fishing trip. While walking the bank I spotted a rather large white circle under a willow limb extending over the water. When I climbed into the tree I could see down on the bed and sure enough a nice 3 lb bass was sitting on the middle of the circle. I flipped a Kinami twin tail grub on the bed with a 1/4 oz sinker and got her to look at it, but she wouldn't pick up the lure. After a few casts, I then switched to a Big Bite YoMama rigged weightless and cast past the bed about 4 ft. The bass watched it flutter slowly to the bottom and on the first twitch it charged off the bed and sucked it up. After a short fight I had the fish in hand on the bank and my kids were chanting, "Daddy got a big one!" over and over so that everyone in the park knew. We caught a few large crawfish along the bank as well so it appears the mudbugs are on the move. They were dark colored, nearly black with red specs on them. When I say large the two that I caught were good eating size, and my 7 year old said, "Wow, a lobster!" when I pulled the first one out of the water. We had a good time out there.

Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament

2008-02-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Stillhouse Hollow. There was near perfect fishing weather if it wasn't for the 20+ mph winds blowing down the lake and a cold front blew in the day before dropping the air temp into the 30's over night! Water temps in the lower 50s and water clarity was about 1 foot or less. The lake is at normal pool, but clearly still recovering from last years flooding. I fished with a new guy checking out the club Greg Moon.

The Tournament:

Greg and I met at 6:00 AM at Union Grove park . We launched and we ran out to my first spot on the main lake out by the island. We started fishing on the road leading across the back of the island where I'd caught some bass on Monday that were all over 2 lbs on a white spinnerbait. We fished there for a few hours and had several peck at the spinnerbait, but not grab it. Water temps on Monday were 58 degrees and Saturday they were 56. Those two degrees and the added wind must have turned the fish off the spinnerbait bite. I slowed down throughing a swim bait, but couldn't get any takers. Greg thew a spinnerbait and a rat-l-trap, but no takers. About lunch time I decided that was enough of that and the wind was starting to get stronger, so ran down to the dam and picked up a fish nearly 14 inches long on a drop shot. Then I moved us out to a hump that was exposed to the wind to see if we could get a big post spawn fish, but nobody home or at least they didn't want to bite a spinnerbait or rat-l-trap anyway. I decided at that point it was time to slow down and drag a c-rig on points, first stop and I picked up a 15 inch bass right away on the same drop shot. We let the wind blow us across that point several times over the next hour and not a single bite. Decided to hit another spot and ran up the lake to the Dana Peak area where Greg was able to pick up his first keeper, 15 inches, dead sticking a spinnerbait while picking a back lash. At that point, we'd take luck over skill. :-) We fished the area for a few hours and again, no other takers. We moved up the lake to a few protected pockets to fish and nothing bit there, so with 30 minutes left we ran back down near the ramp and I picked up another 14 inch keeper dead sticking a brush hog the same Greg and caught his, so luck smiled on us twice in one day. Man it was tough fishing for a really nice day except for all that cold wind blowing.

Tournament in Review:

We caught 4 bass over the day. The fish were caught on luck. Greg and I caught our three largest going 4.82 lbs putting us in 6th place. Congrats to Mike Amescua & Don Steussy, who won with 13 lbs and big bass.

Fishing Tournaments by Guide and Bass Tournament Angler Clint Bridges

2008-02-05T20:56:00.001-08:00

I get asked this question a lot and usually answer it pretty much the same way, but was recently inspired to write up my own article when I read an article on another website on this topic that I didn't agree with entirely. I'm going to take the foundation provided and improve upon it, enjoy.

How do I get started fishing bass tournaments?

If you're reading this article, chances are you're just beginning to fish tournaments, or are curious about fishing tournaments because it looks like a lot of fun on TV. You are probably a bit unsure about what to do, what to bring, what to wear, et cetera. Here's a guide to help you get started, feel confident, and give you the needed confidence needed to get started.

Pick your tournament level: Entry, Moderate, Advanced, HardCore

Finding a tournament appropriate to your interests and experience level. Most of us have already found a few guys we are comfortable fishing with, but for those who have not, here's a quick rundown. This step is far more important than most may think. If your first few tournament experiences are with a group of "hardcore" anglers and you are looking to just learn a bit and get on water once a month, chances are, you'll be turned off before you give tournaments a chance. On the flip side of the coin, there are what I call "entry level" tournaments where it's more about sipping a few coldies and bragging about the fish caught in the tournament, these people are very laid back - for those of us who are more competitive and really want to learn a lot, these anglers do not compose the group you'll want to join long term, but they do offer a great starting point. Case in point - AustinBassFishing.com has come together to put on a loosely run, show up an fish or "jackpot" tournament called the HHJ Tournament. The rules are posted on the site, tournament dates and results are posted to the Tournament section of the Forum. Everyone has a great time, well except HHJ, he seems to always get the short end of the fish, err stick. Read the forums and that may make you laugh. :o) Make no mistake about the "Entry level" title, these guys can fish and will gladly take your entry fee to support their fishing! The problem with this tournament style is if you're wanting to get into more competitive fishing, they only fish one or two lakes over and over again.

The best advice I can give you is to email the club presidents or tournament managers and simply ask what their philosophy embodies. A simple Web search will turn up many clubs in your area ranging from local dealership tournaments, to BASS Federation, to American Bass Anglers draw trail, to the Wal-Mart BFL and EverStart Pro-Am events. If you are looking for an occasional tournament and are after more fun than competition, I'd stick with local tournaments run by people in your area like Texas Classic Bass Club, which I'd call a "Moderate level" tournament. TCBC runs on a point system, pays out cash at each event, and recognizes an Angler of the Year and Big Bass of the Year. Top competitors compete in a Classic tournament at the end of the team. Tournaments are very structured, well organized and run by monthly meeting with officers. The club is not affiliated with any major tournament circuit which cuts down on the level of competitiveness within the club and the tournaments are organized to foster sharing fishing knowledge. (http://www.tcbc.net/) The club fishes most of the lakes in the area that are less than a two hour drive from North Austin, but does travel to lakes outside the area for it's two day touranments.

ATX BassMasters (BASS) and Lone Star Bass Club (FLW) tournaments are more of the Moderate to Advanced level of bass tournament. They're affiliated with major tournament circuits with some or all of the members hoping to work their way through the ranks and win a national title some day. They are at times border line "hardcore" level or very competitive. This is not the place to learn about fishing tournaments. It can be done, but I'm sure you'll learn a few lessons the hard way cutting your teeth here. They are tightly run clubs with local and national memberships and rules to consider. Tournament payouts are generally pooled to fund the top 6 sent to the state level tournaments. They are generally very tight lipped about successful fishing patterns and very serious about fishing all the time.

"Advanced level" would be the Wal-Mart BFL tournaments, which are Pro-Am meaning you will only compete against other "amateurs" (non-boaters). These are great learning events once you are on the boat, but the hustle and bustle of a large tournament can be a turn-off of these events; there will be a large 100+ boat field capping out at 200 boats, meaning a possible 400 total anglers. As a first tournament, it can be a bit overwhelming. Additionally, these events require a lot of travel and advanced planning to be successful (see http://www.flwoutdoors.com/ for locations). Upper levels of the FLW and BASS Federation events have the most variance between moderate and a hardcore composition of anglers - http://www.bassmasters.com./ Fishing as an amature with these guy you'll just a likely to draw a real Bass fishing Pro or some knuckle head that lives down the street that happened to have this weekend off. I also recogmend avoiding any events that occur during the spawn as you're twice as likely to be "front ended" in these events. Being "front ended" means the "Pro" is on fish, likely the a single big fish that he'll position the boat so that he has the only good cast or chance at catching it. There is also the problem of the fish being staged on a point pre-spawn and the "Pro" will put the boat in a position making it nearly impossible for the amature to reach the point the fish are located on.

What Fishing Equipment Should I Bring?

The most important advice I can give you regarding equipment, is that you must always remember you are fishing out of another individual's boat. Chances are their boat cost them thousands of dollars and they DO NOT want to see it messy, cluttered, and treated poorly by someone they hardly know and people they know well for that matter. With that in mind, you still have a job to do, namely catch bass. In terms of rods, I'd recommend no more than five. The number of rods is highly conditional: if you use only spinning gear, I'd only bring 3-4 rods. If you prefer to use casting outfits, 5 is plenty. Most boaters will allow you to use the rear pole ties; these ties typically hold about rods with no problem. You do not want to be running across the lake without your rods tied down, or laying loose - you will lose your equipment, damage the boat (hooks wind up in the seats), or worse yet, injure yourself with unsecured equipment. I also once jumped a wake and my non-boater flew up in the air, came down on one of this loose rods and snapped it in half.

In terms of rod types, personally I try to use 4 utility rods and 1 flipping/pitching stick. Keep in mind factors such as high wind, dense cover, water clarity, and methods such as finesse fishing, or frogging. Ultimately these factors will pick your rods for you.

7 ft MH Casting, Fast Tip - 14-20 lbs. mono for casting spinnerbaits, and larger crankbaits.
7 ft MH Casting, Extra Fast Tip 10-15 lbs. floro line for spinnerbaits, crankbaits, general worming/plastics.
7 ft to 7 ft 5 in Medium action, Casting, Extra Fast Tip 17-20 lbs. mono/braid for Top water, casting into pads, mats & weeds, shallow running crankbaits, Carolina Rigs (with 12 lbs. fluorocarbon leader)
7 ft Heavy action Casting, Fast Tip 20-25 lbs. mono or braid Flipping, pitching applications.

I recommend American Rodsmiths rods, such as any of the Ultra H3's, simply because of the engineering, fabrication and performance of such rods is unparalleled. In terms of reels, I prefer Abu Garcia, solid durable reels and overall performance is awesome.

In terms of tackle, again adapt to the type of lake or river you are fishing. Personally, I tend to check Web postings, reports, weather forecasts including wind direction/speed prior to a tournament. If you post a question on a message board regarding what lures to use and explain that you're new to the tournament scene, someone will help you out. A better idea is to call a local bait shop or guide. Do not be the guy to bring 2 gigantic tackle boxes onto a boat and pick and choose all day long, it's unproductive fishing. I highly recommend a simple soft-sided tackle system that can fit 3-4 tackle trays. Make sure one tackle tray can handle several spinnerbait/buzzbaits as these lures often create the most headache in storing. Bring the lures you have the most confidence throwing! Most of the guys on the FLW tours will share lures and sometimes even rods with the non-boaters. Again, research into water clarity and conditions will dictate color schemes and lure selection. Plastics are invaluable and are small enough to fit into the side pockets of soft-sided storage systems - find out what locals recommend and you can never go wrong with watermelon/red! Keep in mind that you are fishing with a partner, and you need to fish something similar in presentation speed, but different than what they choose to throw (unless of course, they are lighting it up). As a side note, a culling system can be a helpful tool, but generally a curse for the first few tournaments you bring it too as you won't need it. I use the simple systems that have the colored floats attached. Also, lure covers will save you worlds of time from having to unhook all your rods after a long run. I personally don't use them. The boater will have a measuring bar, and maybe a culling balance, so there's no need to tote those along.

What Clothing Should I Bring?

You are thinking "why in the world is he writing about this? I'm no idiot!" There is nothing worse than being too cold to tie a lure on! The air temperature at 50 degrees per the weather forecast will feel at least 10 degrees cooler on the water and the if it's colder then subtract 10 and a few more degrees. Once that boat hits the water at 65mph, and the chop is flying and you are getting wet, you'll thank me for this section. At 55 degrees and below, several layers are recommended, particularly if you are going to run a ways. If there's chop, you'll get wet. I always bring water resistant bibs and a windproof/waterproof jacket if the temperature is hovering around the 50s or colder. You'll want the jacket to have a secure hood to keep your head warm. If the water is not choppy, you can leave these items in your truck. Once you begin fishing, you can always shed layers (ask your boater where you can place your bibs and jacket if there's not a passenger side console to place them under). Do NOT sit on them and think they'll stay, first wave you jump they'll fly out and you'll never know until it's tooo late! There is nothing worse than being too cold to tie a lure on! Yes, that's written above, but it needed to be said again. During the warmer months, I prefer to wear pants that have removable bottoms, essentially converting from pants to shorts, GAP/Old Navy make some great cargo pants with big pockets with zip away legs. There are more expensive types made by fishing related companies. These are usually UV proof and dry quickly after a wet run. Go with what fits in the budget. In terms of eye-protection, and fishing vision, definitely bring two pair of polarized sunglasses; keep backup in your tackle bag. One set could blow off or get broken; you'll feel blind at the end of day of fishing without eye protection. Also, I find that a pair of skiing goggles makes a run in high chop or rain much easier on the eyes. Fishheadz are the trendy alternative, but a cheap motorcycle helmet from Wal-Mart for $40 is the best. Water or ice hitting your face at 65mph is not fun. Lastly, always remember to bring your own lifejacket! Do not depend on your partner to provide you with this, especially if you're a big boned feller. You should arrive as a self-sufficient angler minus a boat.

Insider Tips and Etiquette

Remember to offer to help your partner launch and pull the boat in any way you can. They'll understand if you can't back a trailer down a ramp, but offer to hold the boat to the dock while they park the truck. True, they could easily tie it off, but this way you are showing you want to help out. Offer to pull the truck off the ramp once they've loaded the boat. Always offer to help wipe down the boat, and clean out the interior. Remember to offer your partner money for gas and ramp fees. $20 is considered average, but adjust this pending on how much you run, ramp costs, etc. If fishing in a local tournament that is a team event, you should plan to pay half or all of the gas/launch expenses. Never fish in front of your partner unless they give you explicit permission to do so, this is more of an unwritten rule that most follow. There's no quicker way to be in an uncomfortable situation if you throw infront of a "Pro" and stick a fish! Instead, keep a close eye on where your partner has thrown and try to hit different spots. Throw a lure that is presented at a similar speed, or a faster speed than what your partner is throwing. The boat will move according to the type of lure they are fishing. You need to make sure you are not trying to fish a slow worm presentation when your partner is burning crankbaits. You'll want to throw something that acts differently than what your partner has just shown the fish. If he doesn't get the reaction strike off the crankbait you probably won't either, so show the fish chatterbait or a spinnerbait. When all else fails, throw a carolina rig into the deepest water around the boat. Pre-rig anything you can. Don't show up without lures on your rods. If you're not sure what use, go with your 5 favorite lures or avoid this by asking your partner what to use at the pre-tournament meeting. If you forget to ask, at least have something on to get started. Often times, first light is the most productive part of the day. Don't waste this precious time tying on lures. If you need to change lures, try to do so while you are idling between locations and idling is also a good time to devour/chug something to keep your energy up. Know where all your tackle is stored, and even write on the boxes if necessary. Simply stated, be over prepared. Once you've hooked your lure to your pole, wrap the line from your lure to the tip around the pole once or twice - this will help keep your rods from becoming intertwined. Lastly listen for cues from your partner, when he's ready to move you should be ready. If he has to wait for you to buckle your life jacket, any time you move, it's likely you're not to make his Christmas card list.

VERY IMPORTANT - Read the tournament rules closely to the point you've memorized them all.

If you have any questions regarding tournament tactics, or other issues, please email me at clint_bridges@yahoo.com or reply to this post in the comments section.

PS: Thanks to Bassresource.com for inspiring me write my own modified version on this topic. http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/guide_to_tournament_fishing.html

PPS: Thanks for the feedback from the ABF crew.

Williamson County Park 2-3-08

2008-02-04T16:35:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd post a little story about a warm Sunday afternoon fishing with the kids. Kelsea, Zachary and I walked down to the park with rods in hand for a few hours of fishing. We arrived to find that we were the only people fishing. I threw a weightless 6 inch worm redbug color. Kelsea threw a 1/8 oz strike king spinner bait and Zachary threw a white 1/8 oz Fox inline spinner. I caught two 10 inch bass on the worm and Zachary managed one 4 inch bass on the spinner between rock throws and stick fights with Kelsea. We had a great time before heading back to the house to watch the Super Bowl. The point of this post was to commerate Zachary's first bass catch that was completely unassisted. Unforatuately I didn't take a camera with us.

Crazy looking bass

2008-01-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but I would put one of these on my wall. :-)

Houston Boat show with American Rodsmiths

2008-01-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

I went down to the Houston Boat show a few weeks back and thought I'd post a few pictures taken while helping out at the American Rodsmiths booth.

Me lifting an 8 lb anchor with the ARS Ultra Titanium.

Regan is a Junior Prostaff member that lives here in Austin and is a fellow member of the AFB crew.

Buescher State Park 12/29 and 12/30

2007-12-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

The kids and I had a great time fishing. Well the kids fished anyway and I did my job of keeping bait on the hooks and releasing fish. Tout were hitting corn or yellow crappie nuggets fished on the bottom. Even with the dingy colored water, they were still very line shy. Perch were hitting corn and bits of hotdog. Perch bite was fast paced, but the trout seemed to hit once every 30 minutes so it was kind of slow. People were getting their 5 fish limits though, it just took a while to get it.

I did make the occasional cast of the Lake Fork swim bait, but no luck. I also threw a 3/4 oz perch colored spinner bait slow rolled with no luck. Didn't see a bass or see anyone catch a bass either day and there were a lot of people fishing around us.

Trout pics

Perch Pics

I kept forgetting the camera at camp or would have had more pictures.

Last bit of info about fishing the park. No fishing license required to fish in the park because you pay the park entry fee, so you don't need to buy a trout stamp or anything special to go out there and fish.

Good Luck,
Clint

It's coming, can you feel it?

2007-11-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

While I have fished a lot of bass fishing tournaments, none of the have been BASS events. Just thought I'd throw that out there. :-) I do however treat the BASS Masters Classic like football fans treat the super bowl.

Click the play button.

Mike catches a big Lake Austin bass.

2007-11-05T06:30:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Mike Amescua on taking big bass honors at the HHJ Bass Tournament on Lake Austin with a 8lb largemouth bass.

Texas Classic Bass Club October Tournament on Choke Canyon.

2007-10-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

I fished Choke Canyon in the Texas Classic Bass Club October two day tournament over the weekend, Oct 20th & 21st, with John Hackney. We got second place, and had one of those fishing tournaments that neither of us will ever forget.

Day One: Weather - Clear with 10 mph winds from the SE.

John and I woke up at 5:00 AM, loaded the boat and launch at Callihan park at 5:45 AM while counting shooting stars. The night sky is really clear out there and there must have been 5 or 6 six shooting stars before sun rise. We fished there with a few missed bites until safe running light and then made a run across the lake to four fingers only to find it covered up with boat traffic. We found a spot that suited us and went to work on a small stretch of grass between two other boats as the spot is pretty well known on the lake for holding fish. I decided to go with my confidence bait for fall fishing which is a 10 inch plum worm rigged Texas style with a 1/4 oz weight. I told John, "I'm going big or going home." as I was putting the worm on the line. As usual I also applied Fool-A-Fish and SpikeIT to the lure as well. John took a different approach and went with a 4 inch Robo Worm in purple with a yellow tip rigged on a shaky head. John went to work with his fairy wand of a fishing rod and the magic began. He quickly pulled out our first 1.6 lb keeper and a short fish on back to back casts seemingly. A short while later he set the hook and put another 1.8 lb bass in the boat. John commented, "I'm gonna get a limit and you get the big one." A short time later I set the hook on our big fish of the day, 6.16 lbs. She didn't put up to big a fight, just made a few hard surges for deep water and then just gave up. At that point the two boats that were near us had left out of frustration of watching John work magic on the back of the boat. Nobody was getting bit, but John seemed to be sticking fish on every other cast. Not all of them keepers but he was catching fish. Nobody saw us catch the big one. After we settled down from the big fish, we were on our 4th or 5th trip down the same grass line, John's line jumped and this time when he went to lift the rod to set the hook it didn't move. Lucky for us the fish ran for deeper open water rather than dive into the grass edge it had been hiding in before biting Johns bait. After a minute of prayers and John fighting the fish, we got it in the net and it turned out to be a solid 4+ lb fish. On the next cast I set the hook with the big worm and put a 1.8 lb fish in the livewell. It's about 9:00 AM at this point in the morning and the wind goes from dead to a slight breeze about 5 mph steady. The rest of the day is a little fuzzy from there as we wind kicked up to 10 mph and we continue to work that grass line catching bass. Around lunch time we decided we shouldn't over fish our spot and left one of our club members was fishing in the area and saw us catching bass, but didn't move in behind us when we left. We ended up catching a few more keepers making the two smallest bass in the live well weighing 1.8 lbs when we were able to cull out. At that point we loaded the boat, went and grabbed some drinks and snacks at the store on the way to Southshore Park for the weigh-in. We still had two hours to fish, so we launched to fish the area at the boat ramp and on the last cast in full view of the rest of the club I caught another 1.8 lb fish. We ended the day with a 5 fish limit for 15+ lbs and the tournament lead. We caught 11 keepers and John caught caught almost as many short fish as well. I'd say we had a heck of day on the lake.

Day Two: Weather - Cloudy with 10 mph winds from the SE.

We work up early, I'm not sure what John set the clock for, but we broke camp and headed for the lake. I remember seeing the clock show 6:00 AM when we were launching the boat and we had another shooting star show for the morning but I think there were more the second day. This time I had a trail on the GPS to follow to our spot, so I waisted no time in running the lake to our spot. We made our first pass down the grass line when one of the first boats launching out of Southshore crossed the lake and ran straight to the same grass line we were fishing. Turns out it was Bryan Cotter and his sister. John worked some magic with his spinning rod and brought a 2 lb fish to the boat and I quickly followed up with a 2 lb fish of my own. Bryan's sister boated a small keeper and then both boats hit an hour long dry spell. Team Cotter decided to leave and find their own spot finally leaving the area to us to fish. We made a few passes down the grass line while playing boat chess with other people outside of the club wanting to fish the grassline with us and I felt my line make a jump thump. I set the hook and said, "Fish on and it's a big one." The fish dove for deeper water and stripped drag off the reel. I fought back and a few seconds later the fish surged for the sky and jumped completely out of the water while trying to throw the hook. At that point John and I were in full on get the net and bring this monster to the boat mode. I think I stopped breathing and my heart skipped a few beats at the sight of this huge fish. If you've ever caught a big fish and got the shakes you know exactly what I'm trying to say. It stripped more drag and this time tried to head back into the grass, but I kept it out by adjusting the drag while reeling. A minute or two later and we had it in the boat. John walked to the back of the boat picked up his rod and set the hook. Another keeper about 15 inches long and John said he was glad it was just a little one, because he probably would have passed out from all the excitement. One of the other guys in the club was fishing in the area and said he saw the whole show from hook set to landing and said it looked like a lot of fun. The bass weighed 7.42 lbs and was the day two big bass. A while later the wind kicked up to 12 mph and blew steady, so we decided to hit some other spots. In the last 15 minutes of the tournament John set the hook on a fish in the grass only to have the knot in his line slip after a brief fight. We ended the second day of the tournament with 13+ lbs and had the day two big bass of 7.42 lbs, but only four keepers to weigh-in.

Tournament in Review:
The wind was dead in the mornings and blew 10 mph in the afternoons on both days. It made for extremely tough fishing, because the boat was never sitting still. We caught our fish on purple worms 10, 6, and 4 inches long. Most of the fish we caught were in three to ten feet of water on the edge of grass next to deep water. We got second place with 28+ lbs and just missed 1st by less than a pound. We had the bite to win it, but couldn't make it happen. Congratulations to Team Cotter on the come from behind win even if it was by crowding the guys in the lead. Official Results posted on http://www.tcbc.net/.

Texas Classic Bass Club September Tournament

2007-09-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club September Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Lake Austin. There was perfect fishing weather, a little cloud cover and 80 degree water temps with water clarity about 3 feet on the upper end. The lake is fishing very well lately. This tournament was a draw and I drew Rick Webster from the club for this event as my non-boater.

The Tournament:

I woke up before the sound of the alarm at 3:00 AM and never really fell a sleep from the night before. I was so excited it was impossible to sleep, all I could think about was the big fish we were going to catch in the tournament. I took four hours out of my Friday to prefish on Lake Austin and saw a school of large bass I can only describe as a wolf pack of big bass. They were schooling on a main lake point. Most looked to be about 3+ lbs with some being lunker size. I caught two bass from the school on back to back casts and guess the weight of each fish being 4+ lbs. That was enough to get me all fired up for the tournament the next day. I called Rick at work to tell him the good news and give advice on what tackle to bring. Then I called a few friends to tell them what I'd found, I was so excited.

I met Rick at Quinlan park to launch the boat and start our trip. We loaded up the boat and set out into the dark. I said prayers there would be no other boats in the area I found the fish in because there were four tournament being held on Lake Austin Saturday. Those prayers were answered when no boats were seen as far as the eye could see, we had the point all to ourselves. For the moment anyway, we started fishing at 4:00 AM and made a few passes through the area with Rick and I each catching some 13 inch bass. An hour later and I caught our first keeper on a toad lure fishing it just under the surface, "waking" it. The bass was way off the end of the point, so I wouldn't say it was part of the school I was looking for on the point. Getting closer to daylight more boats were starting to show up and a few even moved in to fish the point with us. None of the boats that moved in on us caught fish, but as soon as they left I made a cast on the money spot or "the sweet spot" as it's known on ESPN BASS. If you know Zona, tell him I found the "sweet spot" on Lake Austin. :-P I set the hook only to have a large fish pull off.

It about 7:00 AM now and a few casts later I set the hook and Rick netted our first 4+ lb fish. I looked at Rick and said it's just getting started, there moving up to feed now. I almost left the area to, because we'd fished for hours with little more than a few short strikes and two or three short fish. Thankfully I listed to Rick and ignored those voices in my head telling me to move to another spot. 15 minutes later Rick sets the hook and proclaims, "Fish on." I said, "How big?" Rick's rod had a good bend in it, but it was only a medium heavy action, so a small fish feels big on that rod. A minute goes bye and I say, "Rick it sure is taking you a long time to get that fish up." About that time we get our first look at what turned out to be a 6.7 lb bass stripping drag off Rick's reel. As the fish nears the boat and I'm about to net the fish I see more big bass just out from the big one. They were part of the school and followed the fish to the boat. The same thing had happened the day before when I'd caught the two 4 lb fish. At this point Rick and I are both shaking all over we're so excited. 15 to 30 minutes later Rick sets the hook and says, "Get the net!" I reply. "Oh yeah! Way to go Rick!" I net another 6 lb bass and it's high fives all around, but we basically sneak the bass into the livewell as not to alert any of the boats in the area how well we're doing. Another 10 to 20 minutes passes and Rick says, "Get the net as he's slamming it to another big fish." As I'm standing up looking in the direction of the "spot" I see a huge bass jump and go completely air born trying to shake free of Rick's line. Another jump and a last minute surge at the boat and the fish breaks Rick's line. I'd just said, "Easy, don't horse it." but I was about 30 seconds to late for adjusting the drag. :-( There went a bass that would have gone 7 lbs most likely. An hour passes without any action and I decide to switch from a brush hog to a swim bait after seeing a large bass follow two 12 inch bull shad across the point. First cast and I set the hook to fill our limit with a 2 1/2 lb bass. At this point it's 10ish and the ski boats are starting to run us over, we can see large bass on the point in the clear water, but can't get them to bite anymore. I decide we shoulde to go flip the thick grass hoping to cull out the smallest bass we had since the school had broken up and the fish were not as active on the point. We caught a few short fish and called it a day.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 15 bass or more over the day. All of the fish were caught on watermelon plastic worms, but we threw a lot of different kinds to keep showing them different stuff. Rick and I caught five keepers going 20.98 lbs putting us in 1st place. Rick also took big bass honors with a 6.7 lb bass to anchor our win. After checking the results of the other tournaments, Rick and I had the best catch out of all four events.

Rick and I with 4 of the big fish in our winning stringer.

Special Note:

The "wolf pack" produced two 4's and another 6 lb bass along with numbers of smaller bass a few days after the tournament.

The 2nd Largest Bass of the FLW Tour 07 Season

2007-07-31T19:51:00.000-07:00

When National Guard pro Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., caught an 8-pound, 12-ounce bass on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas, at the first stop of the 2007 Wal-Mart FLW Tour, he knew he had a shot at winning the tournament’s Snickers Big Bass Award of $1,000 in addition to winning the day’s big bass award of $750. Little did he know, however, that the heavyweight fish would ultimately rank as the biggest bass caught on the FLW Tour in 2007. As such, the bass earned Martin an extra $5,000 as the Snickers Big Bass of the year. “I didn’t think that my 8-pound, 12-ounce bass would win the Snickers Big Bass Award, but I knew that if I was going to catch a big bass, it would be on Lake Travis,” Martin said. “The funny thing is that I looked at this ledge during practice but never fished it until day two of the tournament, and that’s when I caught the big bass.” Martin said he caught the Lake Travis beauty on a 7-foot Kistler rod spooled with 12-pound-test Berkley Vanish Fluorocarbon. He was working a 3/4-ounce All-Terrain Tackle Jim Moynagh jig in 25 to 30 feet of water near a steep ledge. “I didn’t realize how big it was until I reeled it closer to the boat,” Martin said. “At first, I thought it was a 5-pound bass, and when I finally pulled it in, I knew it had to be at least 8-pounds.”

Rounding out the top five contenders for the award were co-angler Clint Bridges of Round Rock, Texas, with a 7-pound, 11-ounce Lake Travis bass. Clint said, “I've fished the same area for years and never caught a bass that size there before. I was very blessed today with a big fish and a great partner for the first day of the tournament.” Clint said he caught the Lake Travis beauty on a 7-foot G-Loomis rod spooled with 12-pound-test Berkley Vanish Fluorocarbon. He was working a 1/4-ounce Carolina rigged Luck "E" Strike watermelon ring worm in 25 to 30 feet of water near a steep ledge. “When the fish bit, I thought I had hung on a rock, because I set the hook and the line didn't move, when it swam for deeper water I thought I had a big striped bass or catfish on the line,” Clint said. “I took my time wearing the fish down, because I wanted to see what I'd caught. It took four or five minutes fighting the fish from deep water, I knew it was going to be a big fish, but a dream came true when the bass surfaced. I hear the tour will return to fish Travis in 2009 and I can't wait!”

Co-angler Chad Hicks of Rockville, Va., who also caught a 7-pound, 11-ounce bass on Lake Travis; Snickers pro Chris Baumgardner of Gastonia, N.C., who caught a 7-pound, 6-ounce bass on the Potomac River; and BP pro Shinichi Fukae of Mineola, Texas, who caught a 7-pound, 3-ounce bass on the Potomac. Snickers awards $750 ($1,000 at opens) to the pro and $375 ($500 at opens) to the co-angler who catches the heaviest bass on each of the first two days of competition in Wal-Mart FLW Tour regular-season events. Snickers awards an additional $1,000 to the pro or co-angler who catches the heaviest overall bass during the first two days of competition, and at the end of the season, Snickers awards another $5,000 to the pro or co-angler who caught the heaviest bass of the year.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Ranger Owners Tournament Championship Series.

Lake Austin is open again.

2007-07-31T06:09:00.000-07:00

Got out and fished Lake Austin for fun with Mike Amescua now that it's back open. Mike called and asked me to hit the lake with him since it was going to be a full moon and the weather looked good. We got out there around 8:30 and fished till 2:00ish because the fish were biting. I caught the big fish of the night seen in the picture above on a brushhog Texas rigged.

Texas Classic Bass Club June Tournament on Lake LBJ

2007-06-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club June Tournament over the weekend Saturday on LBJ. There was near perfect fishing weather a little cloud cover and 80 degree temps. Water temps in the 80s and water clarity was about 3 inches or less on the upper end. The lake is fishing very well lately. I fished with John Magee from the club.

The Tournament:

I woke up to the sound of the alarm and heavy rain on Saturday morning. John and I met at 4:30 AM at Whataburger and grabbed some breakfast. We downed breakfast and hit the road talking about fishing. We took 1431 out of Round Rock out to Marble Falls which is a very bad idea considering it was raining. Remember I said it was raining when I woke up, well it must have been raining for most of the night and there is a low water crossing out in the middle of nothing on 1431 about 10 miles outside of Marble Falls. John and I were talking about fishing and I was driving the speed limit - 55 to 60 mph when we round a corner, started down the hill and we could see three sets of head lights. We didn't really know what was going on until it was to late, In seconds my headlights were shining on what looked like a white water rapids flowing over the street and three vehicles on the other side in various stages of turning around to head back to Marble Falls. I hit the breaks long enough to realize we were never going to stop before hitting the water and decided it was better to step on the gas. We were very blessed, because it was by Gods mercy that we planed across a very swollen and swift running creek with out any trouble. There were any number of things that could have gone wrong, but didn't. It took us a while to get past the experience and disbelief before we joked, "At least we had a boat with us." We arrived at the boat launch on the Colorado River bridge about 6:15 AM in the morning which put us a little late, but very thankful to have made it. :-)

We idled across the lake to the first spot I wanted to fish and set to work. It didn't take long and John caught a small white bass and we missed a few strikes. We worked our way down the bank fishing around boat docks. I caught two large mouth on back to back casts that were about 13 inches long. A few docks and 10 minutes later I hooked into a small bass that wrapped up on something in the water and broke off. We saw the bass jump a few minutes later with my spinnerbait hanging out of his mouth. While I was rigging up a new spinnerbait, John made a long cast with a spinnerbait to the bridge pilings and caught our first keeper bass about 14 1/4 inches long. On his very next cast to the same spot, he caught a 4 lb drum. We decided to run up the lake and try some other areas. We caught a few more short fish fishing waterwillows and docks before we decided to return to the first set of docks we started on. John flipped a shakey head watermelon worm under a dock and set the hook on a 2 lb fish making our second keeper of the day. We moved on from there and hit all the bridge pilings over the next few hours and caught a bunch of small fish using various lures.

At one point I switched to a small crankbait in a shad pattern and set the hook on a bass. My initial reaction to the bite was, "Fish on." John asked, "Need the net?" "I don't know how big it is," or something like that. After a very brief and uneventful struggle the monster rose to the surface and showed it head long enough for us to see it was big. The fish dove and disappeared into the murky water and I shouted, "Get the net." John's response was something like, "Oh yeah! You're going to need the net for that one." The next few seconds seemed like minutes before it came back up and slide into the net John had waiting. High fives all around and we probably looked like those guys on Saturday morning TV. We guesstimated the weight at 6 to 7 lbs. We continued catching small bass for the rest of the day until time ran out for us. We loaded up the boat and trailered around to Cottonwood Marina to weigh in the fish with 20 minutes to spare. We decided not to launch again and just let the tournament time run out.

Tournament in Review:

We think we caught about 25 bass or more over the day. Most of the fish were caught on a white spinnerbait and on crankbaits, but we threw a lot of different stuff that caught fish as well. John and I caught three keepers going 9.42 lbs putting us in 1st place. I also took big bass honors with a 6.3 lb bass to anchor our win.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my family for letting me take part of the Fathers Day weekend to do some fishing. Also thanks go out to John's Fiancee for letting him take a break from wedding and moving plans to go fish with the TCBC gang one last time. Good luck and best wishes on your future John!

Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament on Buchanan

2007-05-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Buchanan. There was near perfect fishing weather a little cloud cover and 80 degree temps. I could have used a little more of a breeze but it was welcome calm after the last tournament. Water temps in the lower 70s and water clarity was about 3 inches or less on the uppper end and a foot or less on the lower end. The lake is all messed up from flooding, there are trees and limbs floating all over the lake, it's very dangerous. I fished with Bill Gibson from the club.

The Tournament:

Bill and I met at 5:00 AM at Whataburger and grabbed some breakfast. We downed breakfast and hit the road talking about fishing and car wrecks on HW29. We launched at the Buchanan out of Burnett Country park #2 about 6:45 which was 45 minutes after official start time, but no big deal since it was just light enough to see the floaters on the lake, so no hurry. We ran across the lake to Bill's spot on a point near a little marina. We started fishing on the point and Bill tagged our first fish, non-keep on the second cast on a smallie beaver. A few minutes later I caught a near keeper on a spinner bait. Bill followed up quickly with another fish on the beaver and then things slowed down a little. On the second or third trip around the point I picked up our first keeper on a beaver in watermelon/ red. Long skinny fish unfortunately, I bet it didn't weigh half a pound. We pouned the point for a while longer before deciding to cross the channel and try a new area. It was full of gar spawning, they were flipping up on the shore and going crazy in the shallows. We killed an hour in there, but no luck so back to the point to give it another shot, I picked up several more fish on the spinnerbait and had a keeper pull off in the brush unfortunately. We decided to move and check out Silver creek. We got there to find out the water looked like hot chocolate, white foam and all. I've never seen the water that muddy up there. We fished there anyway and killed a lot of time fishing water that is normally very productive. Running out of time I gave into Bill's request to head down the lake to find clear water. We arrived to find green/ clear water and started catching fish on points that had bait on the graph. I caught a catfish, a drum, and spotted bass while drop shotting on the points and Bill caught our second keeper on a Tiki stick in watermelon / white. I moved out on a rock pile on the main lake in the last few minutes of fishing and hooked into a big fish that made a hard run and snapped my line before I could react. Unfortunately a client from a recent guide trip hand turned the drag all the way down, so that it was never going to slip and I hadn't checked it before the tournament. Lesson learned, check your drag before making the first cast. :-(

Tournament in Review:

We caught about 15 bass over the day. Most of the fish were caught on a white spinnerbait and beaver style lure. Bill and I caught two keepers going 2.04 lbs putting us in 3nd place. Congrats to Bryan Cotter and Rick Webster who won with 14 lbs.

Stillhouse is a great lake to fish! 10+ lb Bass

2007-04-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

One of the guys on the forums asked me to post. :-)

Lake Austin Big Bass of the Spring Season

2007-04-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Saw this posted to Austin Bass Fishing Forum and had to share it hear.

Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament on Stillhouse Hollow.

2007-04-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club April Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Stillhouse Hollow. There was near perfect fishing weather if it wasn't for the 30+ mph winds blowing down the lake! Water temps in the lower 60s and water clarity was about 1 foot or less. The lake is about 4 to 5 feet high from flooding. I fished with a new guy checking out the club and he works for Dell, Lyn Parks.

The Tournament:

Lyn and I met at 5:00 AM at Whataburger and grabbed some breakfast. We downed breakfast and hit the road talking about how much fun it was going to be on the lake fishing in all the high wind. We launched at the Stillhouse Marina about 6:45 which was 15 minutes after official start time, but no big deal since it was just light enough to see and there were 4 foot waves rolling down the lake, so no hurry. We ran out of the creek and jumped a few good waves before reaching my first spot, two little pockets on the main lake that were protected from the wind. We started fishing on the point leading into the pocket and Lyn hooked into the first fish on a spinnerbait, but it was just short of being a keeper. We kept fishing into the pocket and both of us picked up keepers with in about 10 yards of each other in the back of the pocket on spinnerbaits. We started back out to the next point and picked up a few short fish on the way. When we made it to the tip of the point there were two other boats in the pocket. One anchored in the back and one on the other side working to the back. The guy fishing in the back of the pocket picked up two nice fish on back to back casts. We fished in a little and then back around to the pocket we started in and picked up two more keepers. At 8:30 we finished our limit of five keepers, we guessed the weight at the time being 9 lbs and just needed one good 3+ lb kicker to put us in 1st or second. I moved us out to a hump that was exposed to the wind to see if we could get a big post spawn fish, but nobody home or at least they didn't want to bite a spinnerbait or rat-l-trap anyway. We then ran up the lake jumping waves and taking spray over the nose of the boat to Dana Peak hoping to find an upgrade, but it was trashed from the flooding. The water was muddy and lots of logs have washed into the area from up the river. I was told a 6 lb fish was caught in the area the day before, but we couldn't manage a single bite there. We then moved to the opposite shore and around the other side of the point behind the island and fished the brush line on the bank that was slightly protected. That's where we saw Bryan Cotter fishing and as soon as he saw us coming down the bank he moved and anchored his boat to secure the area. We gave him room and went down the bank and managed to catch two bass, one being a bass that should have weighed 5 lbs, but it was very skinny and obviously post spawn, so it only weighed 3.54 lbs. I should have taken a picture, but didn't. We fished the back side of the island and ran back to the marina killing a few hours and decided to go back to our starting spot. At 3:49 I slung my 1 oz rat-l-trap out into 20 feet of water and declared last cast. I reeled it back into about 15 feet of water and a 2+ lb bass hit and culled out a 1.3 lb fish in the livewell. 3:50 now, so it was time to go weigh the fish and call it a day. Just seemed like a perfect day if it hadn't been for all the dang wind and waves bigger than I've ever seen on Stillhouse. Lyn learned the hard way on the ride back, wearing a waterproof jacket sometimes isn't enough. Wear water proof pants in rough water even if it's not raining, because we took a good sloshing over the side and he was soaked.

Tournament in Review:

We caught about 15 bass over the day. Most of the fish were caught on a white spinnerbait and a few solid keepers were caught on a 1 oz chrome/ blue rat-l-trap. Lyn and I caught our five largest going 12.89 lbs putting us in 2nd place. Congrats to Bryan Cotter and his buddy who won with 16 lbs.

FLW Tour On Lake Travis

2007-02-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

I fished in the FLW Tour tournament held on Lake Travis on February 15th through the 19th and finished the tournament in 10th place out of 200 anglers. This was one of the most amazing tournaments I have ever fished in and will be something I never forget. I'll just go ahead and apologize now for how long this post will be since I'll include photos from the event and tournament details. Hopefully it turns out to be a good read. :-)

Day One: I drew Sam Swett for the first day of the tournament and was very blessed to have been paired with Sam. Sam has been fishing professionally for a while now, married and has a three month old little girl on the trail with him. Sam is a really nice guy and represents Fuji Film well. Sam if you read this post, best of luck in your fishing career and thanks for putting us on the fish.

We fished the whole first day of the event up in Cypress creek fishing on a point that I have fished I don't know how many times over the last eight years of fishing tournaments on Lake Travis. The day started out cold, 21 degrees cold, and it was tough just making a cast, let alone reeling in a fish until 11:00AM when the temp would finally get above freezing. Well that was the case for most of the field, I on the other hand did not feel the cold. I was bundled up like I was about to go climb Mt Everest and I was feeling no pain, because my second keep of the morning was 7+ lbs. I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me paint a better picture.

We pulled up on the point in Cypress Creek, half frozen from the boat ride in freezing temps, cold enough that ice was forming on the guide eyes of the rod when the line was reeled in. Our first spot was on the edge of a point that quickly drops from 8 feet to 25 feet. We started catching fish right from the start, not all of the them were keepers, but we were catching fish. Sam threw a drop shot with a green pumpkin 6 inch shaky worm and I threw a modified drop and Carolina rig (c-rig) with a purple worm on the drop shot and a watermelon ring worm on the c-rig. I dipped the tail of each in garlic SpikeIt and sprayed them with Fool-A-Fish. I'm certain the combination of those helped get me a few extra bites over the day and also helped get the big bass to bite. I caught one keeper up shallow and I think Sam had two when we decided to move out on the end of the point that was 25 feet deep and dropped to 40 really fast. I felt my line just stop and I set the hook, but the line didn't move. I then said, "Hang on Sam, I'm hung up," and shook my rod trying to free the hook when the line pulled back after I shook it, then the excitement started. "Sam, it's not hung. I got a big fish, but I don't think it's a bass." The fish pulled and pulled with steady pressure, taking a little drag out from time to time, it stayed down on the bottom which is odd for bass. They usually want to run for the surface, but the cold must have kept her from acting like most bass. I fought the fish for five minutes making sure to wear it down and not risking pulling the hook out or breaking the 12 lb fluorocarbon line I was fishing with. Once I got the fish to the surface I shouted for the net, the bass just lay over on it's side and glided into the net without the slightest struggle.

Once I put the bass in the well I experienced a flood of emotions and the end result was I nearly threw up on Sam's boat or fed the fish anyway. It didn't happen, but I was really close to it, when Sam looked at me and said, "Congratulations, you just made it to the top 10." It's hard to comprehend making the top ten when it's something I'd been dreaming about for last four months and it was only two hours into the first day of the tournament. Sam and I went on to fish, each catching our limit of bass and culling a few times over the rest of the day. Sam also used a drop shot to catch a few of his keepers in the tournament. Just incase you can't tell, that's me putting the big one into the livewell, picture by Jason St Peter a free lance photographer working the event. Credit to Sam for my success one the first day, I've fished this same point, but usually just the part where we were catching the vast majority of our fish, but I've never fished the end of the point which is nearly in the middle of the lake. I learn something new every tournament I fish as a coangler, even when it's a lake in my back yard.

Day Two: I drew Andy Morgan for the second day of the event and met him out at Point Ventura to launch from a private ramp up there where he had stayed for the weeks leading up to the tournament. We launched and made a long freezing run down to the take off site in Sandy Creek then only to turn around and run back up there somewhere. I'm sure Andy is a great fisherman, something about how he fished the tournament on the second day didn't feel right. Andy spent the first day of the event catching bass on a drop shot and shaky head worm in Devil's Cove and then heard about the success of some of the fisherman in the upper part of the standings and changed (adapted) fishing methods to see if he could get a bigger sack of fish. He told me he had caught 20+ keepers the first day of the event and same for his co-angler. I don't get why he changed up to fish a float'n fly. I can only equate it to a golfer's strategy laying up when faced with a par 4 hole and not wanting to take any risks.

What did he change? Well he used the float'n fly method used by a lot of fisherman in the North East when the water temps drop below 50 degrees. Something about a small hair fly slowing falling and then coming to a sudden stop to suspend that draws a bite when everything else is failing. What is it, well it's a lot like perch fishing, you have a bobber and a small jig 1/16 oz in this case and a long rod with light line. You tie the jig about 8 feet below the bobber and flig in out to a bluff bank and wait for the jig to fall, a minute or two later you reel in a repeat until you see the bobber go under then you reel in the fish in that case. I have to say, "fish" in that statement because a lot of drum (gaspergoo) are caught using the method as well. It pretty much took Andy all day to catch his 5 fish limit. I tried it for about two hours, but Andy was pretty much casting his rig and leaving very little room between casts, so he was picking up all the fish that would hit that rig. I fished the drop shot and c-rig that had worked well the day before with only a few short fish hitting in the 4 hours I put into throwing that. I did try something new at one point, switched to a shaky rig, put on a eight inch smoke worm and stuck a nice 2 to 3 lb fish, reeled it to the surface to have it talewalk and pop free about a foot from the dip net. If you use a Lake Fork shaky head jig, set the hook hard, because they don't seem to be sharp enough to push through the roof of the mouth on a larger bass. That was my one chance at bringing a fish to the scales for day two. End of the day, Andy had 5 and I zeroed, but it wasn't for the lack of effort. I tried to talk Andy into hitting some more productive spots, but he responded by saying, "Quit you're whining, you've already made the top 10 cut." Andy was focused on making sure he cashed a check and it seemed to be even at my expense. I can see both sides of the coin. Overall standings at the end of Day 2, I slipped from 1st to 5th despite not bringing in a single keeper. Andy did stay in the top 75 and cashed a check for his efforts, but did not make the top 10.

Day Three: Day three was something I'd only dream about for the last 15 years of my life. Standing on the big stage, camer's rolling, lights shining, it's a day that will be with me forever. I drew Ron Shuffield for day three and could not have asked for a nicer guy to fish with. At the end of Day 2 when we got paired up and were given a chance to talk about fishing the third day, Ron said, "I'm fishing by the seat of my pants. I got lucky and caught a big fish that put me in the top ten and I'm not sure where we are going to fish tomorrow, but I'll be throwing a jig all day." True to Ron's word, we did just that, but I'm getting ahead of myself again.

The day started off with all of the top 10 anglers meeting up at the Austin Convention Center at 5:00 AM. We were provided tow vehicles and boats by the FLW for the final days. We even had a driver, and were escorted to the lake and back again by Austin police. My driver was a friend, Bill Ellis. Bill drove the PTSI tow vehicle down to Travis and then met us back there to take us back after the tournament ended for the weigh-in at the convention center. When you are in the top 10, they treat you like bass fishing royalty. At take off, breakfast was provided, lunch, and drinks as well. I forget who, but someone with a nice voice sang the National Anthem, and we were off. First class all the way, and I can only describe it as "good times." :-)

First stop was a five minute ride up the lake to a long deep point where Ron caught his 7+ lb fish on the second day of the event. I caught a spotted near the minimum 12 inch required length about 15 minutes into the tournament on my c-rig and thought it was going to a great day of fishing, but about 15 minutes later the wind started picking up and it never stopped. Ron and the camera boat following us got to the point they couldn't hold the boat on that windy point, so we started covering new water. That was pretty much the beginning of the end for me. It tried serveral bait changes, methods and nothing worked all day. Ron caught two keepers over the day and a few short fish. The funny part of this story is one of his keeper fish was caught in the last 30 minutes of the day fishing a bluff in Hippy Hollow, a nude beach on Lake Travis. It was 55 degrees at 3:00 in the afternoon and there were a few naked guys standing on the cliffs watching us fish. I tried to warn Ron, and his response was, "Is it off limits?" I said, "Well... no, I suppose you found some fish that definately do not receive a lot of fishing pressure!" The look on Jeff Cook's face (camera boat driver) when we pulled up and stopped in Hippy Hollow was priceless. The guys in the camera boat with the boom camera got a good laugh as well, they didn't realize it was a nude beach until to late. They came zooming in to get some last minute footage, but saw the naked guys on the bank, laughter errupted from the boat and they did a 180. Nope, no last minute footage being shot, they would just go sit at the ramp and film people loading boats instead. Can't say that I blame them, haha.

Below are several pictures taken over the course of the event by Jason St. Peter a freelance photographer. Here is a link to Jason's site - http://www.mjsphotographyonline.com/gallery/2482234#130231690.

Me Fishing on Sam Swett's Boat on Day 1.

Have a look at this 7 lb beauty, I'm going to Day 3!

Clint's got a good sack, have a look at the screen. :-)

Tell us about your day Clint.

Show the fishing fans what a Lake Travis bass looks like.

End of day one, leading the co-angler field.

Reporters asking me questions about fishing, baits, etc...

Day three of the event, yet another freezing cold day and I'm in the zone.

Here is a link that has photos of the event - ttp://picasaweb.google.com/hungupfishin/Flw2007

Armature video of day one launch - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV7ZqbWLyNo

Special Thanks:

Thanks to my wife and kids for supporting me in the event. Thanks to my sponsor for the event, Fool-A-Fish helped cover some of the entry fee. Thanks to Jason St Peter for taking some awesome photos. Thanks to the guys from TCBC and Austinbassfishing for supporting me in the event.

Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament on Lake LBJ.

2007-02-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club February Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Lake LBJ. There was near perfect fishing weather with cloud cover and a light breeze. Water temps ranged from the upper 40s to the low 50s and water clarity was about 1-2 feet. Rick Trussel and John Hackney brought in the days winning sack with 12.5 lbs including the day's big bass at 3.95lb. Most of the fish were caught early on a crawfish patterned crankbait near docks. Jody Woodruff and Bill Wells came in second with 4 fish weighing 7.10. These fish were caught on crankbaits fished off docks and one off a finesse rig in the closing minutes. Clint Bridges and Jon Magee brought in 3 fish weighing 5.59 for 3rd place. They caught their fish on a pointer and a crankbait. All our fish were caught fairly early on rocks. We had some short fish that bit a watermelon senko up the lake in a creek channel. Great day to be out on the lake even if it was a little chilly.

January Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Cowboy Division tournament on Lake Sam Rayburn.

2007-01-31T07:34:00.000-08:00

I fished the Wal-Mart BFL over the weekend on Saturday January 27, 2007. This is the first of five qualification rounds for the 2007 season. I am competing this season as the "Pro" on the the BFL tour fishing with my boat and drawing a co-angler for each event. There were 165 boaters and non-boaters entered in the event. I placed 113th with two fish 3 lbs 14 oz. It was a tough day to be out fishing, the weather was in the 40's and 50's all cloudy and raining all day. Rayburn is 2 feet above pool with stained water. Water temps were 49 to 57 degrees, main lake vs back of the creeks. The bass are in prespawn staging with big females holding in creek channels and points in 7 to 15 feet of water. There are some buck bass up shallow in five to one foot of water on flooded points with brush and grass.

Pre-Fishing:

I arrived on Thursday night in Lufkin Texas to meet up with my friend, Lanton Chumley. Lanton and I are going to prefish for the event as much as possible this season. We got everything ready for two tough days of fishing. Next morning we headed out to the pavilion next to Twin Dikes and launched the boat. Headed out to the dam to check some spots along there for staging fish. Lanton picked up a 2 1/2 lb bass on a red rattle trap on the first pass down the bank. No other takers on the second pass so we ran up the lake to fish a hump and see if any fish were there. I was expecting the hump to have 5 feet of water on top of it, but turns out it had 10 feet of water on it and the lake was much higher than I had planned for when I was thinking about how I was going to fish this weekend. Anyway we marked some fish out from the hump in 40+ feet of water but nothing on top of it. We gave it a shot anyway and after a few lost Carolina rigs it was time to go. We tried some stumps up shallow in 8 feet of water that have been productive, but nobody was home today. Headed up the lake to Veach and fished there for a while when Lanton set the hook on a 4+ lb bass with the same red rattle trap. We fished around there for a while in the crowd of boats at Veach and then decided to hit some less popular places. We found a nice little point later in the day, where we each caught a fish and lost a fish. Finally the kind of water I need for tournament day. We headed out to the pretournament meeting. All of the water we covered prefishing was 4 to 15 feet deep.

The Tournament:

Saturday morning I met up with my coangler at 5:30 AM. We launched the boat and went through boat check. I took the boat over to the shore and we sat in the boat and talked about fishing and stuff waiting for the take off to begin.

Boat 88 was called and we headed out to the point where I stopped fishing the day before. As luck and speed would have it I was the first boat there, passing a Champion boat on the way who followed me into the creek. A few casts after starting I set the hook on a 3 lb fish with a red rattle trap. We pounded the banks for the next few hours and I missed a few strikes. I hadn't fished in any of the shallow brush and was just concentrating on the outside edge. As we worked a point, I could see a boat on the other side flipping to some of the inside brush in 2 feet of water and the Pro stuck a 2 lb fish. I turned the boat around and headed into the brush to try my luck in the shallow water. I flipped a watermelon senko to the base of a floating log and stuck my second keeper. I kept fishing at it and missed a few up in the shallows, one of the missed fish felt very heavy while it was on the line before it broke the line wrapping up in the brush. After lunch time I gave up on the shallow points and headed to Veach Basin to fish the grass 8 feet of water. There were boats in all directions out there, but it didn't matter because the fish are moving around. I watched three or four boats pass by pounding the brush and then the next boat through there managed to catch a keeper out of the same area that had been saturated with lures. I was fishing the deeper creek channel in hopes of catching a larger quality fish like the one Lanton caught the day before. Unfortunately it didn't happen for me and that was it for the tournament.

Tournament in Review:

We caught fish in 2 to 15 feet of water on rattle traps mostly, 2 fish for 3 lb 14 oz to get me 113th place. Everyone has an off day now and then, for example: Kevin VanDam, one of the most successful bass fisherman today, caught zero weighable fish on day 3 of the BASS Legends Tournament last season. The important part of the trip is that I caught fish and earned points toward qualifying for the regionals at the end of the season.

Special Thanks -

Thanks to Kelly, and my kids for supporting me in this event. While they didn't come along for the trip they said prayers for me and were glad to see me home safely after the long trip.

Free FLW Clinic at Wal-Mart

2007-01-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

Some of FLW Outdoors’ most successful professional anglers will offer tournament-winning tips and techniques when they host the Wal-Mart Tire & Lube Express Fishing and Automotive Clinic Friday, Feb. 16. For the first stop on the 2007 Wal-Mart FLW Tour, there will be two clinics located in the Tire, Lube and Express department at the Wal-Mart Supercenters located at 201 Walton Way in Cedar Park, Texas and at 13201 Fm 620 Road N. in Austin. Both clinics will be held Feb. 16 from 5:30-7 p.m. The events take place in conjunction with the season-opening FLW Tour event presented by Kellogg’s to take place on Lake Travis Feb. 15-18. The free clinic is designed for people of all ages and skill levels. The first hour focuses on specific techniques the anglers use, including tips on tying knots, casting and selecting tackle. During the last half hour, anglers answer questions, pose for photos and sign autographs. Participants may also enter a drawing for goodie bags filled with sponsor products, shirts and hats. Anglers scheduled to attend are Castrol team members Bobby Curtis of Siloam Springs, Ark.; David Dudley of Lynchburg, Va.; Mike Surman of Boca Raton, Fla.; Carl Svebek III of Siloam Springs, Ark.; and Darrel Robertson of Jay, Okla. Robertson and Dudley are both FLW Tour Championship winners and past winners of the lucrative Ranger M1 tournament, having taken home top prizes of $600,000 and $700,000 cash, respectively. "Our fishing seminars are a great way to give something back to our loyal customers," said Castrol spokesperson Jamia Curtis. "They also give us a chance to introduce younger kids to the lifelong sport of fishing. In fact, we think these clinics can teach anglers of all skill levels new techniques. Here’s a great chance to chat directly with some of the best bass anglers in the world." Additional information will include details about what to check on autos and boats before heading out to the water; instructions about how to catch more fish; what life is like as a pro angler and general auto tips from the pros who put an average of 40,000 miles a year on their vehicles.

FLW Tour Comes To Lake Travis

2007-01-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

Tought I'd post up a little information that I'm really excited about. I'll be competing in the up coming FLW Tournament on Lake Travis as a Co-Angler fishing with one of the Pros for three days. Pray that I do well because I'll need all the help I can get with 400 of the best anglers across the nation competing on the lake. All the details of the event are below...

FLW Tour:

The $9.5 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour will stop in Austin, Texas, Feb. 15-18 for its first regular-season tournament, presented by Kellogg's on Lake Travis. Hosted by the Austin Sports Commission, the tournament features 400 anglers from 37 states, Australia, Japan, Spain and Italy, with 200 of the world's best bass pros fishing for a top award of $125,000 cash. Two hundred co-anglers will compete for a top award of $25,000 cash. Lake Travis' water level is currently 36 feet lower than normal and will make for some tough fishing is the lake level does not rise.

Anglers will take off at 7 a.m. Thursday and Friday, Feb. 15-16, from Highland Lakes Marina located at 16120 Wharf Cove in Volente, Texas. Thursday and Friday's weigh-ins will also be held at Highland Lakes Marina beginning at 3 p.m.

Pros Night:

Capitol Chevrolet located at 6200 I-35 South in Austin will host Chevy Pro Night featuring Jimmy Houston, Larry Nixon, Luke Clausen, Kim Stricker, Dion Hibdon and David Fritts from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday. These anglers, who together account for eight FLW Tour victories and more than $3 million in winnings, will visit with fans, sign autographs and pose for photos. Fans attending Chevy Pro Night at Capitol Chevrolet can also register to win fishing rods, fishing tackle, die cast Ranger boats and a trip for two to the $2 million Forrest Wood Cup championship and outdoor show in Hot Springs, Ark., where they could ultimately win a $47,000 Ranger Z20 powered by Yamaha.

The Tournament:

Anglers will take off at 7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 17-18, from Travis County Mansfield Dam Park located at 14370 Mansfield Dam Road in Austin. Saturday and Sunday's weigh-ins will be held at the Austin Convention Center located at 500 East Cesar Chavez St. in Austin beginning at 4 p.m.

The Event:

Prior to the weigh-ins Saturday and Sunday, FLW Outdoors will host a free Family Fun Zone and outdoor show at the Austin Convention Center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. The Family Fun Zone is a chance for fishing fans to meet their favorite anglers and review the latest products from Berkley, Lowrance, Ranger, Evinrude, Yamaha and other manufacturers while children are treated to fishing themed games and rides like the Ranger Boat simulator. The first 300 children 14 and under visiting the Family Fun Zone Saturday will also receive a free FLW Outdoors hat from KASE 101 FM. On Sunday, 98.1 KVET FM will give the first 300 children 14 and under visiting the Family Fun Zone a free rod and reel combo.

The Rules of Competition:

In FLW Tour competition, pros and co-anglers are randomly paired each day, with pros supplying the boat, controlling boat movement and competing against other pros. Co-anglers fish from the back deck against other co-anglers. The full field of 400 anglers competes in the two-day opening round for one of 10 slots in Saturday's competition based on their two-day accumulated weight. Weights are cleared for day three, and co-angler competition concludes following Saturday's weigh-in. The top 10 pros continue competition Sunday, with the winner determined by the heaviest accumulated weight from days three and four.

Payout and Coverage:

The total purse for the Lake Travis tournament is $1 million, including $10,000 through 50th place in the Pro Division. This makes the event the most lucrative tour-level bass tournament hosted in Texas in 2007. Coverage of the tournament will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States on March 18 and 25 as part of the "FLW Outdoors" television program. "FLW Outdoors" airs Sunday mornings at 11 Eastern time. "FLW Outdoors" is also broadcast internationally to approximately 350 million households in Europe, Africa and Asia, making it the most widely distributed weekly fishing program in the world. Additionally, FLW Outdoors is proud to provide tournament coverage to more than 800,000 service members stationed around the world in 177 countries and aboard Navy ships through broadcasts on the American Forces Network. With a $9.5 million cash purse, including three $1 million qualifiers and three $1.5 million opens during the regular season, this is the most lucrative FLW Tour season to date. Each event leads up to the $2 million Forrest Wood Cup presented by Castrol, which will be held Aug. 2-5 on Lake Ouachita in Hot Springs, Ark. The prestigious championship and outdoor show hosted by the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau will feature 81 pros, 81 co-anglers and bass fishing's largest cash award -- a potential $1 million first-place prize for the winning pro.

Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament on Belton

2007-01-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament over the weekend Saturday on Lake Belton. It was cold and wet, air temps in the lower 40’s or high 30’s. There was a constant down pour of drizzle or rain all day that only had brief moments where it would let up and give us a break. My partner for the tournament was Jason St Peters and he wasn’t looking forward to the day head of us, because he doesn’t like to be cold. We started fishing at 7:15 AM and hit our first stop. A hump out on the main lake and fished there for a while and got to see a drag race start to some other tournament, those guys all took off at the same time and came flying down the lake like they racing to the finish line. One of the stragglers decided the was plenty of room on the hump we were fishing and pulled up about 10 yards ways and started fishing. I hadn’t graphed any bait and we didn’t get any bites, so I decided to let them have it. We hit a few other places and I finally caught a keeper on a white spinnerbait. I had few short strikes on the spinnerbait and Jason fished a few bites on his Carolina rig, but all in all it was one long, cold, and wet day. We ended the day in 3rd place with 1 keeper weighing 1.69 lbs. Everyone in the tournament struggled as well with finding fish that would bite.

My favorite Moment In A Tournament

2007-01-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite time of the tournament. There is something about floating in the still of the morning with all of the boats quitely sputtering in anticipation of the tournament take off. The 2007 season is here and I think it's going to be an awesome season.

Final Tournament of the Year 12-09-2006

2006-12-30T11:53:00.000-08:00

The TCBC Angler of the Year race came down to the final tournament of the year on Lake Travis with Mike Amescua leading the race. John Hackney and Bryan Cotter were within striking distance going into the final tournament. The day started out cool but the rain predicted earlier in the week never moved in leaving us with a near perfect December day. Due to low lake levels this was the first event held on Lake Travis this year so everyone was wondering how the fish would treat us and the results were mixed. 2 teams managed limits with the remaining teams pulling in 2 to 4 fish. Most teams caught a good amount of fish throughout the day but they just didn’t have the size. Some teams fished up lake while others like Bill Gibson and his guest found active fish near the ramp.The moment of truth arrived at 3:00 with the final weigh in of the year. Could Mike Amescua hold on to his slim lead or would John Hackney retake the lead for the last time? Would Bryan Cotter bring in the bag to put him over the top? Once all the weights were recorded the 2006 AoY race was decided and Bryan Cotter secured it by 1 point with a winning stringer for the event including the Big Bass of the event with a nice 5.89’er. Mike and John both finished the year 1 point behind Bryan in the closest AoY race ever!

Congrats to Bryan for a great year and the AoY title. Also congrats to Mike and John for their hard fought efforts throughout the season.(story by Jody Woodruff)

The top 3 teams weighed in the following: Bryan Cotter and his guest came in with 9.93lbs and the big bass of 5.89lbs. They caught their fish with shallow crankbaits and trick worms. The big girl came on a shallow crank. Bill Gibson and his guest brought 9.45 lbs to the scales. They worked a finesse technique using a small ring worm with a paddle tail to catch their fish.Dan Taylor and his guest came in third with 8 lbs even. They caught their fish on jigs.For complete results, go to the Results page

My day on the Lake:

I fished with a guest for the tournament. We caught 17 bass over the day, but only 3 of them were keepers. I caught most of my fish on a Lucky Craft Pointer 100 in Shad. I missed a huge bass that only took a swip at it right in front of the boat. Unfortunately the bass spooked the moment before it would have swallowed the lure.

Texas Classic Bass Club November Tournament on Lake LBJ.

2006-11-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club November tournament on Lake LBJ with Bill Gibson, 6:00 to 4:00 on Saturday.

The Tournament: I met up with Bill early Saturday morning and we headed off to Lake LBJ. We launched on the Cottonwood ramp and started fishing right away since we launched just a minute or two after 6:00 AM. We started fishing in the marina and after a short time worked our way around to the stalls with the feeder and I caught a 2 to 3 lb catfish on a fire tiger spinnerbait. We tried several more times to get a bite in there, but nothing happened. We switched and fished the dam rocks, nothing on the first pass and then two short fish on the second pass with a Lucky Craft American Shad colored stickbait. We made a run up to a spot that Bill wanted to fish, but the wind was blowing right into the area and we didn't find any fish biting. I wanted to see if there would be any fish on the light house point feeding in the current and caught two bass on back to back casts and one was our first keeper. We fished there for a while hoping there was a school, but it turned out that nothing else there was willing to bite. We headed up the lake to a creek I like to fish and started "wacking them" as bass fisherman like to say. Bill and I proceeded to catch bass on a 5 inch watermelon senko spayed with Fool-A-Fish and dipped tail. We would drop the lure out on the grass edge and work it out into about 9 feet of water and somewhere along the way the fish would pick it up. We caught about 15 bass working down one side of the creek but they were all between 6 and 13 1/2 inches long. We then moved up the lake into the river and caught fish off bridge supports on the same senko rig. I put our second keeper in the boat flipping on the bridges. I caught another 6 to 8 bass fishing here and broke off several that wrapped up as well. Bill caught another fish here as well. We noticed a small creek and decided to go check it out and just killed a little time in there fishing. In our last move of the day, we hit the rocks again and I picked up our 3rd keep of the day and that was it for the trip.

Tournament in Review:

Bill and I caught about 25 fish all day on two main lures. Weightless Texas rigged Watermelon Senkos and a Lucky Craft American Shad color stick bait. We caught fish all over the lake in about 5 to 9 feet of water. Weather was in the 60's and clear with winds blowing out of the North East all day ranging from 5 to 10 mph. Winning pattern was white crankbaits and white spinnerbaits. Everyone reporting catching a lot of small fish all day. Bill and I took 3rd place with three keepers that weighed just over 6 lbs.

Wal-Mart BFL Regional Tournament on Lake Wright Patman

2006-10-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

I fished in the Wal-Mart BFL Regional tournament last week, October 19th through the 21st. Normally I'd give a detailed report of how the tournament went, but I can't bring myself to relive the event. It was bad enough to live through it once, and by the grace of God, I lived through it.

Brief overview of the event:

Left on Tuesday night and planned on driving 600+ miles through to Texarkana, but I got a little tired and I got to New Boston when I saw the new Wal-Mart Super Center on the side of the highway. I decided I should pull over and camp there for the rest of the night. Just in case you didn't know, you can camp overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots when traveling. I woke up at 5:00 AM and went inside, bought some breakfast, and headed to the lake. Once I arrived at North Shore park, I parked, and started fishing. I fished for a while and then boats started arriving. I talked to a guy sleeping in his truck who had just woke up and turns out he used to work with my brother and is fishing in the tournament also. Anyway, so I catch a bass while watching boats launch and Max Harader offered to take me out to prefish with him. That day it was a little foggy early, warm and sunny all day after the fog blew off. It was a great day to be on the lake. We caught a few fish that day and I really enjoyed fishing with Max, he's a great guy. Especially since I saw probably 30 boats launch before Max came along and offered to let me fish with him in practice for the event. The next day a front was blowing in with 20+ mph winds, rain, and dark cloudy sky. I drew Gabe Spencer for the first day of the event. Gabe ran the boat all out going across a very rough lake and we made it to the first spot, fished for about an hour and then his boat caught fire! That's right, it caught fire. We smelled smoke a few times and Gabe finally decided to check the engine well where the batteries and gas tank are located and when he opened the lid it was like a back draft or something, flames and smoke came out. Needless to say, that pretty much killed the first day of fishing. Gabe didn't have his trolling motor batteries tied down and something happened in that rough ride that caused a short and lead to the fire. The second day I drew out, Marc Downs. The second day of the tournament the weather was different, it was cold and no wind, but the water was still warm. That creates a lot of fog by the way, very thick fog delayed the start of the tournament three hours. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin for my hopes of making it to the All American event. Four hours to fish wasn't enough to catch the field I was competing against. I've had tough tournaments, but that one will go down in the history books I'm sure.

Lesson learned:

Make sure your batteries are tied down securely. It's possible that in the rough ride, one of the batteries bounced up and touched a cable connection creating the sparks that lead to the fire. The other possibility is that the lead plates in the battery touched together and over heated the battery. That could have happened in the rough ride and coupled with the fact they were not secure. If you take a battery out and it gets knocked over by some mistake, do not use the battery, because it will most likely over heat. We were told this by a tech at the tournament site assisting anglers with boat problems.

One of the trolling motor batteries had melted down to the the acid level in the battery cells, and the acid was boiling, it could have exploded. It also could have blown up the fuel tank! Like I said at the beginning of this report, I survived by the good grace of God and his protection.

Fishing with Fool-A-Fish.

2006-10-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know me, my name is Clint Bridges, I run a Bass Fishing Guide Service, I fish in local bass tournaments, and I fish in the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League. Needless to say, I love fishing and I’m always looking for new ways to catch fish, improve my fishing success, and my customer’s success at catching bass. This year I started using Fool-A-Fish and the results speak for themselves. I’ve won or placed in the top four in the local club tournaments. I placed in the top 20% of the field five out of five Wal-Mart BFL tournaments this season, finishing 3rd in the overall points. I caught a ton of bass and even a trophy hybrid-striper that was nearly 8 lbs while competing in bass tournaments. Fool-A-Fish definitely increased my fishing success this season.

One of the primary tools fish use in feeding is sight and I believe Fool-A-Fish helps fish to see the bait by making it brighter. Fishing without Fool-A-Fish on your lure is like an airline pilot landing a plan in the dark without the runway lights on. Sure it can be done, but it helps when they can see the target. Using Fool-A-Fish does not mean you will catch every fish that sees your lure, but it will help fish find your bait and that is the important part. I use Fool-A-Fish on all fishing trips now and spray it on all my lures, soft plastics, crankbaits, and spinnerbaits. Give Fool-A-Fish a try and I am sure you will see the difference first hand. Visist - www.FoolAFish.com for more information. The also make other great products, Fool-A-Duck and Fool-A-Deer that help to conceal you from detection.

Guide trip on Stillhouse Hollow

2006-10-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Oct 7th, fished from noon till just after sunset, 8pm. Hit a hump in 20 feet of water, just off the river channel. Dropshots were the primary bait of choice with some t-rigged baby brush hogs mixed in. Small, but good quality fish were caught here. Some more productive spots included the back of a cove in 12-15 feet in grass, wind-blown grass edges off main lake and trees along that same area. The 2 biggest fish we had on in the afternoon were around 5.5 to 6 pounds and both hit topwaters, one popping and one walking. Between 2 boats, we caught just under 3 dozen fish.

Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Cowboy Division tournament on Lake Sam Rayburn.

2006-09-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Lake Sam Rayburn to host Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Cowboy Division tournament Sept. 30-Oct.1. I fished this event over the weekend and I'll just start this off by saying it was a very tough event. This was the final qualifying event to the Wal-Mart BFL Cowboy division and I ended the season on a high note placing 5th in this event. I also ended the season 3rd in the overall points standing, just one point out of 2nd and 15 points behind 1st. It was a very close race for the Angler of the year title that was determined by this event. Jesse Fry held the lead all season with Brandon Wells and myself closing in on him in each event, but Brandon was able to pull off a top 25 finish on the first day of the event and put him in the points lead for the Angler of the year title. Congratulations to Brandon on that achievement.

My 5+ lb bass on the first day.

The Tournament:

I drew out Mike Moody as my boating partner for the first day of the tournament. Mike has been a guide on Lake Fork for 18 years and only recently started fishing in the BFL tournaments. Mike told me a story while we were fishing, he said he guided a lure maker while he was testing a prototype top water lure. In the trip, Mike said the lure was the "spitting image" of a shad and that became the name of the lure. On day two I drew out Cody Davis for the tournament and Cody showed me some of the finer points of fishing deep structure. Both are incredible fisherman and I was fortunate to have fished with them.

Day 1:

I woke up on the first day of the tournament at 3:00 AM, 3:15, 3:30, 3:45, etc... until 4:45 AM when I gave in to my excitement and got up 15 minutes before I really wanted to be out of bed. I met up with Mike at The Stump which is a restaurant near Lake Rayburn that caters to fisherman. The Stump starts serving breakfast in the predawn hours and it's great food. We headed off to launch and wait for the tournament take off. The tournament director, Tim, played the National Anthem over the speakers and it echoed across the lake. Tim then said a very nice prayer for the anglers and our armed services. We took off in the second flight, boat number 34 and headed out to a hump close to the launch site. With in minutes of pulling up Mike and I had a keeper in the boat taking the pressure off showing up empty handed. Actually Mike caught his fish on the first cast and them commented that it was bad luck. Incase you didn't know, most bass fisherman are superstitious about catching a bass on the first cast. I once won a tournament catching a bass on the 1st, 2nd, and 4th cast of the day, so I don't buy into the first cast curse.

Mike was fishing with a Carolina rig using a Lake Fork creature lure in green pumpkin. I fished with a Texas rigged 10 inch plum worm. We proceeded to catch a number of short fish near 14 inches over the next few hours before heading off to a new spot. We hit Needmore point and proceeded to catch near 14 inch spotted bass in 8 feet of water on isolated grass patches. After another hour or two of that, we headed back to the hump.

The wind was blowing a steady 15 to 20 mph across the hump we were fishing on. I caught another keeper in the 3 lb range after a few minutes of fishing there. We caught a few more short fish and then decided to fish the wind blown banks. I started using a 3/8 oz spinnerbait at this point and Mike stuck to his C-rig. We started on the tip of point and worked out way around and I caught a keeper spotted bass on the spinnerbait. The bass hit the lure so hard that it knocked slack in the line and I had to reel up the slack before I could set the hook. We turned around for a second pass and on the way back to the point I put the spinnerbait on a stump in 2 feet of water and after turning the reel one time I felt the weight of a large fish tugging on the end of a very long cast. A five plus pound bass surge into the air after I said, "fish on!" The celebration was short lived as the bass stripped drag and wrapped around a stump that wasn't visible. I jumped to the front deck of the boat while pleading with Mike, "It's wrapped up on something, please get me over there quick!" The wind was blowing around 20 mph and pushed the boat over on top of the stump the fish had wrapped up on. At least five minutes have passed since I set the hook and Mike got the boat off the stump, I couldn't feel the fish pulling any longer and was starting to fear the worst. I wanted to at least retrieve the spinnerbait so I reeled down poking the tip of my rod down into the water, made a circle around the stump three or four times and my heart skipped a beat when I lifted my rod tip and saw the exhausted bass roll onto it's side and swim free of the stump. "It's still on! Holy cow, it's still on Mike!" In a matter of seconds, I'd swung it over the side and into the boat before it could make a surge and possibly pull off. The rest of the day is pretty much a blur after that because I was, so excited to have a good sack of fish. At the end of day one, I had four bass weighing 11 lbs 12 oz putting me in 3rd place. I was paired up with the boater who had placed 3rd, Cody Davis.

Day one weigh-in. The date on the camer is wrong. :-(

Day 2:

Cody picked me up at the Twin Dikes camp ground and we headed off to the boat launch. As we launched, we were swallowed in thick fog and slowly idled around to the marina for take off. The tournament began with Tim calling out the boat number, the anglers names, there home towns, and then waving them off. It's truly amazing to sit idling in a cove with 50 of be best anglers in the area and hear, "Boat number 3, Cody Davis from Glen Rose, Texas and Clint Bridges from Round Rock, Texas, have a great day!" With that we were off into the thick fog with Cody running across the lake looking at his GPS unit guiding him to our first fishing spot. We made it safely despite concerns of thick fog and started fishing.

Cody put us on his big fish hole where he had caught an 8 lb bass the day before and we started fishing. On the first pass Cody caught a keeper bass and that was our only bite. On the second pass Cody set the hook and said, "Git the net. It's a big one!" At that moment, he would not know how right he was about the size of that fish. After a minute or two of wenching the fish to the surface, a 40+ lb flathead catchfish surfaced on the end of Cody's line. We wrestled the fish into the boat where Cody proceeded to stick half his arm into the fishes mouth to retrieve his jig. I know Cody was upset, but I couldn't hold back the laughter. That fish was huge! Any other time we probably would have been excited about landing that fish, but not today. The fish was quickly released and we were back to fishing.

After and hour passed, we headed to Five Fingers and started fishing points. Cody quickly hooked up with a 4+ lb bass on a white spinnerbait. A few minutes later I had a huge fish short strike my spinnerbait and produced a swirl on the surface that looked like someone had taken a boat paddle and made a full stroke. We caught a few short fish and then moved out to a road bed nearby where we fished in 35 to 45 feet of water with Carolina rigs. Cody went with a six inch trick worm in watermelon/red and I used a beaver in watermelon/red. I dipped the tale of the beaver in chartreuse & garlic SpikeIt and also sprayed the lure with Fool-A-Fish. We proceeded to spend a few hours there catching a few small bass. We decided try something different and headed back to Five Fingers where we killed some time fishing grass edges. That wasn't working out and Cody had confidence in the road bed, so we headed back there.

After a few minutes of fishing we started catching short fish on C-rig watermelon/red beavers and I eventually landed a 3 lb bass. Some time later I caught another keeper a long with more short fish. Cody switched to a beaver, caught some short fish and then his 4th keeper. We got excited about all the bites and Cody said the school was turning on. A few more short fish and I caught my 3rd keeper. We caught a couple more short fish and then the action slowed down. Cody then switched back to his 6 inch trick worm and set the hook on something big, a minute of fighting and he brought a drum about 5 lbs to the surface. Somewhere around 1:00 PM Cody tried to start the boat and the big motor would not turn over. We spent about an hour swapping batteries and cables around trying to get things back up and running. Once the engine was started we decided to run back to the boat ramp to be safe and fish nearby until time to weigh-in. Fishing one of the big islands didn't produce a single bite in the last hour of fishing. That was one of the longest and hottest days of fishing I've ever experienced. There was no wind and it was something like 97 degrees with no clouds.

Day 2 Weigh-in From Left, Kelsea, Tim Porter, Me, Zachary and the current leader in the chair.

Tournament in Review:

It was hot both days, on the first day clouds and strong winds helped the bite. I caught 4 bass that weighed 11 lbs 12 oz that included a 5+ lb kicker. On the second day there was no wind or clouds, so the fishing was a bit tougher and I was only able to catch three keepers for 5 lbs 9 oz. I've never caught so many Kentucky spotted bass on Rayburn in a single trip as I did in this tournament. They were mostly 13 to 13 3/4 inches long which made for a frustrating trip when you are trying to fill a limit. Two things improved my fishing catch rate over my paters both days: I dipped the tail of my lures in SpikeIt and I sprayed the lures with Fool-A-Fish. Cody had one more keeper than I caught, but I put more fish in the boat on the second day fishing that road bed.

Official results posted here - FLW Out Doors.

Special Thanks:

Thanks to my sponsors, Ranger Boats, Austin Boats and Motors, Fool-A-Fish and American Rodsmiths. Thanks to Tim for being a great tournament director. Kelly and the kids have enjoyed talking to him and his staff all season long. On the second day, Tim let Kelsea assist the anglers with taking their catch to the holding tanks.

Kelsea taking fish to the holding tank.

I also need to send out a special thanks to My lovely wife, Kelly, and my mom, Liz! They came to all the events and supported me throughout the season. It really made the tournaments more fun having you there to support me and that meant a lot to me.

Me and Kelly after a long two days of fishing and man are we tired! :-)

Texas Classic Bass Club September Tournament on Lake Austin.

2006-09-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club August tournament on Lake Austin with John Hackney, 6:00 to 3:00 on Saturday. The hot Texas summer made for some tough fishing conditions as the drought has cut down on the amount of water flowing through Lake Austin. The day of the tournament the wind was pretty strong a times, there were light rains, and true to Texas weather there was 90+ degree sunshine before it was all over.

The Tournament:

AT 5:15 AM I met John at the Quinlan boat launch. We loaded his gear in the boat and headed off to our first fishing spot. We moved out on to the grass flats on the upper end of the lake in 4 feet of water and went to work at 6:00 AM. Nothing happened for the first hour of the tournament and then around 6:00 AM the action picked up. I caught the first little one of the day on a Zoom horny toad. We then proceeded to kill three or four hours of flipping the grass and buzzing lures over the top of it. We had a few missed strikes, a few short fish, and it was tough. I decided to move down the lake to hit a few more areas. We hit one of the more productive creeks I like to fish and John caught several small fish out of it including a Guadalupe bass which is kind of strange for Lake Austin. I've never seen anyone catch one in all of the times I have fished on the lake.

Anyway, I made a few more moves down the lake and John caught a 13 and 3/4 inch bass just under the mark off of some posts. That spot didn't pay off so I decided to just continue fishing down the bank and noticed balls of shad on my graph and they were jumping out of the water when our baits got close to them. We threw all the standard schooling lures and caught small bass on chrome rat-l-traps and white swim jigs.

Follow your instinct and never give up:

The last move of the day came with just 45 minutes left to fish and we hit the creek next to the Austin 360 bridge. I stopped the boat at the mouth of the creek and elected to fish the golf course wall. I chose to fish it with a chartreuse spinnerbait and John flipped the jig he had been catching bass with. I dialed the trolling motor to 100% power and proceeded to chunk and wind that spinnerbait as many times as I could while sailing down the creek. We passed by the golf course with no bites and I apologized to John for fishing a little to fast for him to flip the jig, but we were running out of time. We crossed over and fish a laydown tree, then fished the rock walls next to the apartments, still no takers. As we fished down the front of the first set of boat stalls I noticed two empty boat slips that are normally occupied with boats. As we reached the first slip I made a cast to the very back of the slip, banged the spinnerbait off the walking path and dropped it right next to the wall. I burned the lure out with no takers. The boat is flying past stall after stall because I've got the trolling motor maxed out. When we reached the other open stall I made a cast to the back, but this time the spinnerbait glided under the walk way and made a small splash on entry, I gave the reel a quarter turn and felt a solid tug on the line. I said, "John I got a good fish on..." The fish proceed to shake it's head and then wrap the line around the submerged boat lift in the stall while trying to shake free. "But it's got me wrapped up!" John dropped his rod and went for the net. The momentum of the boat is still heading forward and we would be past the stall in next 30 seconds. I told John to forget the net and get on the trolling motor. It must have looked like some sort of fire drill or dance with John running to the front of the boat and me running to the back at the same time. I held pressure on the bass and waited for it to work itself free or break off which ever came first. A minute or two later the line started moving and I worked the bass out of the boat slip and into the net. I put the bass in the livewell, took in a deep breath, because I think I forgot to breath in all the excitement and looked at my phone to check the time, just fifteen minutes left to fish. John did a great job taking over the trolling motor while I worked the fish free, team effort all the way or we would have zeroed. Never give up!

Tournament in Review:

The tournament was pretty tough and I lost track of the number of small fish we caught, 10 give or take. John and I took first place and big bass with one fish weighing 2.3 lbs!

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to my mom for taking care of the kiddies while I fished in the tournament.

Williamson County Park: Part 2

2006-08-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

Well it took a few trips and I thought it wasn't going to happen for a while there, but I caught one of the big ones last night from the Williamson County Park. I got out there at dusk with only a little light left on the horizon, made about three casts across the top of the grass when a 5+ lb bass surged up through the mat and leapt a good two feet into the air with my Zoom toad in it’s mouth. :-) Caught about six more bass before calling it a night.

Had my flashlight with me for the first time on this trip since I caught a big snake on a Zoom toad last week at dusk about the same time of the day. While walking the bank I shined my light on several leopard frogs along the bank about the size of a Zoom toad. I know why everything in the pond hits those baits, so well know. I’ve never seen any frogs out there in the daytime, but shine a light around the edges while you're walking the bank and you'll find them all around.

It wasn't that dark, the camera didn't pickup that much light for some reason, shutter speed was to fast? Anyway, if you've been out there and are trying to figure out where I'm standing, the pond spillway is right behind me. If you're wondering how I got the fish out of all that moss, 7 ' 2 " G.Loomis Med Heavy rod with 17 lb Vanish line did the trick. Good luck if you head out there and let me know if you catch a big one.

Williamson County Park

2006-08-17T14:14:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd let you guys know this pond is fishing quit well with topwater action. I fished from 8:00 to 9:00 last night and caught 10 bass on a top water popper or chugger. It'a a clear one made by Rebel lures. All the fish were less than 12 inches long, but fun to catch when there's that much action. The other cool part of being there at dusk was the bats. There had to be a few hundred flying over the pond just after sundown. Anyway the fish aren't big, but there are a bunch of them in there to catch, so now is the chance to take a kid fishing. The water is kind of low, so don't be afraid to toss the topwater bait out into the open spots where the grass is only an inch or two below the surface. The bass will come up through it and hit the lure. The bite is so good that three of the bass that I landed hit the bait before I ever moved the lure. I simply cast it out and took up the slack. It doesn't get much easier than that. A week or two ago I took my daughter, Kelsea, out there and taught her how to use the Zoom Horny Toad. See picture below with Watermelon frog on the line. :-)

Spy Optic + Sunglasses

2006-08-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not sponsored by Spy Optic, but I'd like to review the pair I have been wearing for a few months now. I am wearing the Meteor model of Spy Optic sunglasses and absolutely can't stand to fish without them. They are fitted with polarized lenses and take all the glare off the water and reduce the strain on my eyes while I'm out on the lake. Not to mention the fact that I can see bass in clear water conditions and most of the time when I can see a fish, I can catch it.

Polarized sunglass make all the difference in fishing success. That's not a blanket statement though, you need to get a good pair of polarized sunglasses. Off the rack sunglasses that are polarized can cause eye problems, because of the low quality lenses they are fitted with. I've tried several brands of sunglasses and have to say that I stand behind Spy's as a quality product. The only draw back, if you should have a warranty problem with them, getting through to someone in the warranty department can be a bit difficult, but not impossible. I had and issue with mine and Teddy Bess at Spy Optic had me back in a new pair of glasses in no time. Thanks Teddy!

Texas Classic Bass Club August Tournament on Stillhouse Hollow.

2006-08-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club August tournament on Stillhouse Hollow with Don Steussy, 5:00 to 2:00 on Saturday. We got fourth place, and had a great time fishing. The hot Texas summer weather made for some tough fishing conditions. The wind was calm and still all day, but you couldn't have asked for better topwater fishing conditions early in the morning.

The Tournament:

AT 4:30 AM I met Don at the Rivers Bend boat launch. Normally the ramp isn't open till 6:00 AM, but the club had registered the tournament with the lake authority. We loaded his gear in the boat and headed off to our first fishing spot. There wasn't much moon light, it was pretty dark. I decided to follow a boat that zoomed past and seemed to know exactly where it was going out behind the island. Turned out it was Bryan "Snakeman" Cotter on the way to the same area I planned to fish only he didn't exactly know where he was going. We ended up dragging the bottom somewhere in the darkness near the island. We laughed at each other while we deployed our trolling motors and push polls to find our way out to deeper water. I made it out of the shallows first thanks to my trusty Maxx 80 trolling motor. :-)

We moved out on to the grass flats in 4 feet of water and went to work. Nothing happened for the first hour of the tournament and then around 6:00 AM the action picked up. I caught our first keeper in the dark on a spinnerbait. Several cast later I caught another keeper on the spinner bait and the fish hit it so hard, it knocked the skirt off and bent the arm 90 degrees in the wrong direction. I didn't have another one exactly like that with me on the trip, so I had to go with the next closest spinnerbait, but it turned out to be, not close enough because I didn't get another bite on a spinnerbait despite all attempts.

About 8:00 AM a lot of topwater action scattered around us started happening, so I switched to a clear top water chugger and started catching bass along the defined grass edges. By 9:15 AM I had caught three more keepers and started culling, but none of the keepers were helping much. At 10:30 I decided to slow down and go for the bigger bite in a attempt to get our kicker fish. I tied on a black/brown jig rigged with a red shad Eager beaver. We flipped the deep grass for about an hour and I set the hook on a 14 inch keeper. We kept working the deep grass with jigs and C-rigs till about 11:30 and noticed schooling bass out in the middle of the lake. They are schooling on small shad in 30 feet of water. We threw all the standard schooling lures I've always had success with on Stillhouse and they wouldn't touch any of it. I don't feel bad though because there we three other boats out there and no one caught any of those fish. You could see them on the surface chasing the bait. Some of the bass were good size fish, but none would bite. About 12:15 we switched to punching through matted grass around trees with deep water near them. Don set the hook on a big fish only to have it wrap up in the grass around a tree limb and pull off the hook. We spent the rest of the tournament trying to get another big bite in the matted grass, but no takers. The water was clear enough that I did see a bass that was pretty big cruising around the grass edges, but it spooked about the time I saw it.

Tournament in Review:

The sky was clear and sunny all day with very little wind and water temps were 85 to 88 degrees. We probably caught two limits of keepers, with a five bass total for 8.78 lbs. We caught about 15 bass all day long and had a great time. The majority of our fish were caught on clear top water baits and white spinner baits.

Special Thanks:

Thanks go out to Kelly, Landry and my kiddos for camping out with me on the lake before the tournament. Also thanks go out to Austin Boats and Motors for getting my 20 hour service done quickly and installing my new sonarGPS the LMS 334c.

ICAST 2006 Product Show

2006-08-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

About ICAST:

ICAST assists the new product introduction cycle for next spring. Many of the new products in this article are not in production, but some are already in stores. Many are the final development versions, but a few are in the late prototype phases still. ICAST vendors show these products and prototypes to large distributors and their biggest buyers during the show. Those distributors and wholesalers can then give lucky vendors a feel or commitment for how many units they would need allocated for their 2007 mail-order catalogs or distributor's dealer-only shows late this fall and early next spring, so production can ramp up and the new products can be on local dealers shelves, available online or in mail-order catalogs for you by the time bass fishing season opens next spring. Fishing magazines, normally give new products reviews in there December or January issues.

Not a Complete List, but the good stuff:

Odor Assassin -

Bass Assassin also has teamed up with Will Thompson to market the new Odor Assassin. "It does not cover up odors but eliminates them," says Will Thompson who is known for his Blue Wonder gun care products. "The product was originally invented to solve a stinky problem with bullet proof vests and body armor being used by our soldiers in Iraq. Problem is that you cannot wash these items, so you could imagine in the heat and all. The product worked so well, our soldiers were using it in their boots, in the military vehicles they drove, everywhere. It's a great product for anglers to use in live wells, rod lockers, and yes, you can apply it on your hands to eliminate odors," says Will.

Berkley -

Berkley Vanish Transition Crimson Red is 100% fluorocarbon that's hi-vis above water. This enables an angler to control his or her presentation by sight and to see unfeelable strikes via line movement. The company claims its not lo-vis but "no-vis" underwater.

New PowerBaits for 2007 are the Sabertail Bug, Sabertail Grub, Sabertail Worm, two sizes of the gliding, slow-falling Powerbait Beast designed by Mike Iaconelli, plus the Bat Wing and Floating Bat Wing Frogs, two sizes of Power Shakey Worms, the weighted Sinking Minnow stickbait, and Chunky Trailer.

Click here to watch videos of:
Scott Martin fishes the new PowerBait Sabertail Bug
Legend Larry Nixon demonstrates the new PowerBait Shaky Worm
Mike Iaconelli speaks, designer of the new PowerBait Beast

Daiwa -

As if that wasn't enough, Daiwa has introduced a new series of six affordable hardbaits that will sell in the $4.95 price range. One, the "Peanut" crankbait is already famous in Japan where it has been producing many fish for happy anglers for 15-20 years now. The Peanut rattles and has a tight wobble. There's a shallow-diving Peanut that gets 3 feet deep and a longer-billed Peanut model gets 5 feet deep.

Mustad -

Mustad's best-selling bass hooks is for fishing soft plastic frogs. The black bayonet style gripper holds frogs securely. The weight on the shank (either 1/16 or 1/8) has a silicone insert, making it movable, yet grips it in place after it's moved. For frogs, the best position for the weight is shown below. This acts as a counterbalance to keep the frog from spinning, a common problem with frogs which this hook helps correct.

Owner Hooks -

Three TwistLOCK hooks, all three of these new hooks feature Owner's new concept of an 'open gap' which allows for more positive and effective hook sets. What this means is we made a conscious effort to put the hook point above the eye. This acts more like a straight shank worm hook and lets you set the hook a lot better. When the point is above the hook eye, you get leverage. Very effective once they strike. Yet unlike a straight shank hook, which holds bait poorly, the TwistLOCK holds bait on snuggly.

Strike King -

Strike King came up with a new 1/2 oz Red Eye Shade series of lipless crankbaits that will put bass in the boat like no other bait on the market when they are worked over grass beds on your favorite lake.

PK and crew taking some R&R on Stillhouse.

2006-07-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

The fishing on Stillhouse Hollow has been really great lately with numbers of bass being caught from schooling action in different areas of the lake. The best bite is early in the moring and late around dusk.

I took some soldiers on a guide trip on Stillhouse while they were home from Iraq for two weeks of R&R. We caught a number of fish and PK set his personal best by catching a 4.4 lb bass on a spinner bait early in the monring. See picture below.

Nice Fish PK!

Trip in Reviw:

We caught a number of fish, I didn't keep count but I know the guys can tell you how many we caught. They are a competative bunch and fun to fish with as a result. Most of the fish were caught on top water poppers and spinner baits early in the morning. We did see some schooling bass, but the action didn't last long.

I caught a nice 5.3 lb bass on the trip as well.

God Speed to the guys as you continue to serve our contry in Iraq. You will be in the prayers of my family until you are home safe. I'll keep posting fishing reports knowing you guys get a chance to surf the web from time to time and enjoy the fishing news.

Texas Classic Bass Club July Tournament on Lake Belton

2006-07-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

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

Truck Sinking like the Titanic on Lake Austin!

2006-07-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

People do some of the craziest stuff on Lake Austin. A few years back I saw photos of a boat sitting on the golf course on Lake Austin. I have no idea how they could have gotten the boat that far up on the green, but with enough beer anything is possible I suppose. For your viewing enjoyment, here are the sinking boat pictures. :-)

Last but not least... Below is the popular edited version of the accident that pokes fun at Aggies.

Joining American Rodsmiths ProStaff.

2006-06-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am joining the American Rodsmiths ProStaff this season. They produce Hg42 series rods made with intermediate 42 million modulus blanks in gray with Fuji hardloy concept guides and tips. If you are looking for that extra sensitivity then this is the rod for you. That's not the only rod they build, just the one I recomend for an active fisherman or tournament fisherman. For more information about American Rodsmiths products, click http://www.americanrodsmiths.com/about_us.htm

Texas Classic Bass Club June Tournament on Lake Austin.

2006-06-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is a late post, because I moved and my system was down for a few weeks. Details are a little fuzzy at this point.

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club May tournament on Lake Austin with John Hackney, 10:00 PM Friday night to 9:00 AM on Saturday June 9th. We got fourth place, and gained on the clubs points leader. The full moon with clear skies the night made for some tough fishing conditions oddly enough. The wind was calm and still most of the night. Austin will normally produce some nice stringers of bass this time of the year, but not the night of this tournament.

The Tournament:

At 10:00 PM I met John at the 360 bridge. We loaded his gear in the boat and then discovered an small electrical issue. Only half the stuff in the boat worked, but John found a little secondary breaker in the back of the boat that had been flipped off. We launched after the little panic episode and running a little late, but not to much behind I took us to the first of many grass beds to fish that night. I made two passes over an area known for producing big fish and neither of us even had a nibble. Hit several more grass beds before ending up at Commons Ford park and fished the grass there. Finally started hooking some fish on buzz baits and poppers. I boated our only keeper with the buzz bait out there. We caught a few more short fish and then daylight came on. We moved down the lake and made a milk run on some drains that normally produce a few fish. I got two bass to take a top water popper, but didn't get a solid hook set. John managed to catch one near keeper on an Xrap minnow from the drains. I hit a few brush piles and only managed one more non-keeper with a brush hog from 15 feet of water. That was pretty much it for the touranment.

Tournament in Review:

The sky was clear with a full moon all night. We probably caught 10 bass all night with only one keeper weighing 1.97 lbs good enough to get 4th place. It was a pretty tough tournament. The first place team blew everyone away with a 17 lb limit; congrats to Bryan on finding those fish. They caught their fish on brush hogs heavily scented in the grass beds. Tournament results are posted at http://www.tcbc.net/results.php

OUTSTANDING BUDWEISER SHARELUNKER SEASON CLOSES

2006-05-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

Before you read the article you have to know that my favorit part is the guy who caught the 13+ lb bass on a Beetle Spin. It's the same lure I caught my personal best with when I was a kid fishing with my papa and my dad on Lake Sam Rayburn.

OUTSTANDING BUDWEISER SHARELUNKER SEASON CLOSES

ATHENS, Texas—The 2005-2006 Budweiser ShareLunker season ended April 30 with 32 entries, the most 13-pound-plus fish since 33 were entered in 1991-92 and the third-highest total ever.Lake Alan Henry led with nine fish weighing a total of 124.23 pounds for an average of 13.80 pounds. Lake Fork’s six fish totaled 85.04 pounds and averaged 14.173 pounds. Lake Amistad produced four fish weighing 55.54 pounds, an average of 13.885 pounds each. One of those fish weighed 15.68 pounds and was a new lake record. Amistad also produced Budweiser ShareLunker No. 400. Lake Conroe took the crown for highest average weight with three fish that weighed 43.5 pounds in the aggregate and averaged 14.5 pounds.The average weight of the 32 entries was 13.77 pounds, just 0.08 of a pound less than the 20-year average of 13.85 pounds. In addition to Amistad, four other lakes saw new water body records set. Lake Lewisville contributed only one fish to the program, but it was a 13.63-pound lake record, the fourth such since June 2005. Lake Ratcliff, in the Davy Crockett National Forest, has new record of 13.65 pounds. San Augustine City Lake’s new record fish weighed 13.13 pounds. Lake Alan Henry’s new record was also the third-largest entry of the year, an even 15 pounds.
Two of the fish made the list of the 50 biggest largemouth bass ever caught in Texas. Sutherland’s new Lake Amistad record vaulted to the number 27 spot on the all-time list. Billy Pfeil’s 15.5-pound Lake Fork lunker took over the number 36 spot.Three new public lakes were added to the list of those producing ShareLunkers, bringing the total to 54. The spawning season at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens went very well, with 11 ShareLunker spawns producing 159,800 fry so far. Jason Baird’s Budweiser ShareLunker No. 400 produced a record 46,678 eggs. Most of the fry will be raised to fingerling size (about 1.5-inches) and then stocked into public waters. As part of Operation World Record, 26,000 fish will be raised to 6-inch size, tagged and stocked into research lakes so their growth rates can be monitored.ShareLunker program manager David Campbell will be putting a lot of miles on the Budweiser ShareLunker truck in the next few weeks as he returns ShareLunkers to the lakes where they were caught. Anglers catching ShareLunkers may request the fish be returned and may personally release the fish if they choose. Below in chronological order are the details on Budweiser ShareLunker entries for the 2005-2006 season.November 28, 2005. Jon Babich of Lewisville became the fourth angler in five months to set a new largemouth bass water body record on Lake Lewisville with a 13.63-pound fish. Babich’s fish, which became Budweiser ShareLunker No. 392, was caught on a 3/25-inch Fin-S-Shad. It was 24.25 inches long and 21 inches in girth and was the first ShareLunker recorded from Lake Lewisville.December 11, 2005. Frank Brown of Houston was crappie fishing with minnows on Lake Conroe when a 14.22-pound bass took his bait. The fish was 25 inches long and 23 inches in girth. December 28, 2005. Tom Sutherland of Del Rio posted a new lake record with a 15.68-pound largemouth that was 28.3 inches long and 21.75 inches in girth. It was caught on a Norman DD-22. Sutherland’s fish was the second-longest ever entered into the Budweiser ShareLunker program. A Lake Fork fish caught in 1988 by Jeff Neighbors was 28.5 inches long. Only those two entries exceeded 28 inches; five others have measured 28 inches even.Sutherland will be honored as Angler of the Year at the annual Budweiser ShareLunker banquet in Athens on June 3. In addition to the usual prizes of a replica of his fish and ShareLunker clothing, Sutherland will receive a lifetime fishing license. Prizes are paid for by Anheuser-Busch and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.January 23, 2006. Jim Lee of Winnsboro caught the season’s only entry from a private lake while fishing in Wood County. The 13.07-pound fish was 25.75 inches long and 21 inches in girth. Lee was using a 1/8-ounce jig with a 4-inch white Zoom fluke.February 5, 2006. Lake Conroe produced again, giving up a 14.8-pound fish to Harry Durham of Houston. The fish was 25 inches long and 22.75 inches around. Durham caught the big-bellied brute on a crankbait.February 14, 2006. Jay Stevens of Abilene caught a Valentine’s Day present for himself from Lake Casa Blanca, a 13.2-pound bass. The 26-inch-long, 20-inch-around fish took a Bitsy flip jig with a pork trailer. February 21, 2006. Lake Fork waited until it could produce a real whopper for its first entry of the season, a 15.5-pound fish caught by Billy Pfeil of Alba. The fish was 25.25 inches long and 23.5 inches in girth. It took a black-and-blue 5-inch Senko.February 23, 2006. Kurt Wade Melville of Arlington caught Budweiser ShareLunker No. 399 from Mill Creek Lake using a Yum Zellamander. The 13.1-pound fish was 25.5 inches long and 20.5 inches in girth. February 28, 2006. Budweiser ShareLunker No. 400. Jason Baird’s decision to hire guide Ray Hanselman, Jr., to take him bass fishing on Lake Amistad paid off handsomely. Baird caught Budweiser ShareLunker No. 400 and will receive a check for $5,240 and a G.Loomis rod and Shimano reel package valued at $600 at the ShareLunker banquet in Athens June 3. Baird used a Smallie Beaver creature bait to entice the bedded bass to bite. She was 26 inches long and 21 inches around. In April that fish produced the biggest single spawn in the history of the ShareLunker program, 46,678 eggs.March 2, 2006. March is big bass month in Texas. Appropriately, two fish came on the second day of the month. Patrick Starnes of Laredo caught a 13.06-pound fish from Lake Casa Blanca. The fish was 25.75 inches long and 20.25 inches in girth. It took a Yum Wooly Hawg.Also on March 2, David Utz of Lovelady began a remarkable two days of fishing with a 13.65-pound fish from tiny Lake Ratcliff, in Davy Crockett National Forest. A new lake record, the fish was 26.75 inches long and 20.5 inches around. March 3, 2006. Utz continued his run with a 13.03-pound fish measuring 25.25 inches long and 20.75 inches around. He caught both fish on a jig and pig. March 4, 2006. This proved to be another two-fish day. Lake Fork was heard from for the second time this season when Mark Smith of Allen pulled a 14.09-pounder from the lake. The fish was 24.75 inches long and 21 inches in girth. No bait type was recorded for Budweiser ShareLunker No. 404.Tanya Sorter of Hemphill proved equal to the task of landing a 14.25-pound Toledo Bend monster on a Rattlin’ Rapala. The fish was 25.75 inches long and 22 inches around. March 5, 2006. A new water body record for San Augustine City Lake took Nacogdoches resident Trey McCollum’s Beetle Spin. The 13.13-pound fish was 26 inches long and 20.5 inches in girth.March 7, 2006. Johnny Worley of Oakwood made the most of his trip to Purtis Creek State Park by catching a 13.31-pound largemouth from the park’s catch-and-release lake. The fish was 26.25 inches long and 21.75 inches around. Worley was using waterdogs for bait.March 10, 2006. Winter lingers longer in the northern reaches of the state and rarely makes an appearance in the far south, which is why the Budweiser ShareLunker season runs from October through April. The seven-month season covers the spawning period for all parts of the state. Spring arrived on Lake Alan Henry with a bang March 10 when Greg Hollers of Lubbock landed a 14.78-pound bass using a minnow for bait. The fish was 26 inches long and 21.5 inches in girth and was the first ShareLunker from that lake in the 2005-2006 season. However, it proved to be far from the last.March 11, 2006. Lake Alan Henry produced again the next day. Dustin Gilliam of Ropesville caught a 13.04-pound bass on a Hawg Hanger. The fish was 25.25 inches long and 21 inches around.March 22, 2006. Lake Conroe continued its comeback as a big bass lake when Edward Reid of Crosby pulled the third 14-pound-plus fish from the lake, a 14.48-pounder caught on a green lizard. The fish was 25.25 inches long and 21.75 inches in girth.March 25, 2006. Lake Fork’s second fish of the year also exceeded 14 pounds. Steven Hoover of Gladewater caught the 14.14-pound fish on a fluke. The fish was 25 inches long and 22.75 inches in girth.March 28, 2006. After producing Budweiser ShareLunker No. 400 on February 28, Lake Amistad was not heard from again until Wayne Lindgren of Minneapolis, Minnesota, caught his 13.18-pound lunker. The fish was 26.5 inches long and 20.75 inches in girth and took a wacky-rigged Senko worm.March 31, 2006. March came in like a lion with two fish and went out the same way. A.R. Sachtleben landed a 13.2-pounder from Lake Fork using a Senko. The fish was 25 inches long and 21 inches around.Lake Alan Henry produced another fish on the last day of March, a 15-pound lake record. The huge fish was 25.25 inches long and 22 inches in girth. Angler Billy Greeson of Amarillo was using a black-and-blue jig.April 5, 2006. Robert Jones of Clute, fishing Lake Fork, caught a 13.01-pounder on a watermelon seed Brush Hog. The fish was 25.5 inches long and 21 inches around.April 13, 2006. Lake Alan Henry caught fire in April, living up to the promise it showed in March. Francisco Vallejos of Albuquerque, New Mexico, caught the first of four fish in a row from the lake, a 13.05-pounder. The fish was 25.75 inches long and 20 inches in girth and took a waterdog.April 14, 2006. Two fish on the same day from the same lake are a rarity, but Lake Alan Henry achieved that this season. In an odd twist, the two fish were caught by brothers about an hour apart—and the weights of the fish were almost identical. Mike Trulove of Carbondale, Colorado, caught a 14.24-pounder on a Tiki-Stick. The fish was 26.5 inches long and 21.25 inches in girth.Tim Trulove of Silt, Colorado, not to be outdone by his brother, landed a 14.26-pound fish on a rubber bluegill bait. His fish was 25.75 inches long and 22 inches around.April 18, 2006. Jamie Bonner of Amarillo, also fishing Lake Alan Henry, caught his 13.43-pound lunker on a 4-inch white Mad Man Craw Worm. The fish was 25.75 inches long and 20.75 inches around. April 19, 2006. Remember Lake Amistad? Travis Darley of Del Rio did and was rewarded with a 13.58-pound largemouth. The fish was 27.25 inches long and 20.25 inches around. No bait was reported.April 21, 2006. Lake Fork’s final fish of the season was caught by Sam Trinca of Monroe, Louisiana, using a Grande Bass Mutant. The fish weighed 14.02 pounds and was 26 inches long and 21 inches around.April 22, 2006. Lake Alan Henry rewarded Rodney Hill of Floydada with a 13.22-pound largemouth that was 25.75 inches long and 20 inches in girth. The fish took a blue flake Power Worm.April 24, 2006. Curtis Norrod of Lubbock helped make April 2006 the best April in the history of the Budweiser ShareLunker program. He caught the ninth program entry of the month, a 13.21-pound fish that was 26 inches long and 20.13 inches around. He used a Junebug jig.The Budweiser ShareLunker program is made possible through support from Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Since 1991, Anheuser-Busch, in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, has contributed millions of dollars in funding to support conservation causes and fishing, hunting and outdoor recreation programs in Texas.

Original Source - http://www.fomcentex.com/sharelunker_2006_recap.htm

Texas Classic Bass Club May Tournament on Stillhouse Hollow.

2006-05-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club May tournament on Stillhouse Hollow with Mike Amescua, 6:00 to 4:00 on Saturday. We got second place, and continued our string of fishing success this season. The combination of a front a few days a head of the tournament and a full moon with clear skies the night before the tournament made for some tough fishing conditions. The wind was calm and still early in the day, but picked up about 10:30 AM and blew at a steady 10 mph for the rest of the afternoon. Stillhouse will normally produce some nice stringers of bass this time of the year, but the big fish were not biting on Saturday.

The Tournament:

AT 5:00 AM I met Mike at the Wal-Mart in George Town. We loaded his gear in the boat and headed off to the lake and talked about our fishing strategy on the way. Mike commented about the full moon all night making for tough fishing. We arrived at the launch 10 minutes before start time, got launched and headed out at 6:05 AM. Running a little late, but not to much behind I decided to stop and fish the grass around the big island. I made two passes over an area known for producing big fish and neither of us even had a nibble. It wasn't light enough to navigate to the spot I really wanted to fish, so I decided to fish the brush around the island. The second or third cast I made into the brush produced our first keeper a little over 2 lbs. We pounded the brush with nothing else biting and decided to make a move.

We moved out on to the grass flats in 4 feet of water and went to work. There was some schooling going on and it seemed like all they would bite was a spinner bait. Mike tried a top water, rattle trap, and carolina rig, but couldn't resist using a spinner bait also when I kept catching bass. We put three bass just over 14 inches in the live well quickly and also caught several short fish when we decided we had plenty of time to get the fifth fish and went looking for bigger bass.

I moved the boat out of the grass flats into deeper water with stumps and trees where I picked up two more 2+ lb bass on my spinner bait. We culled out or first fish at 9:00 AM. With a solid catch in the live well we decided to start looking for the big fish. We moved up the lake to fish the area known as the swimming hole. By this time I would guess that area had been pounded, since there were other bass tournaments on the lake at the same time as ours, but we decided to give it a try. After a few passes with nothing but short fish, we decided to move on.

We moved up the lake to one of the islands near Dana Peak and made several passes down the side of the island where I've been told a 9 lb bass was caught. Well we didn't get a big one, but we did cull out another fish and caught a few more bass that wouldn't help the cause. I set the hook at one point and thought I had Moby on the line when it turned out I'd snagged a 100 yards of what I think was 50 lb mono with a carolina rig attached that was snagged on a tree. I managed to drag up the tree limb with my rod rigged with 17 lb Berkley Sensation. I got it off the bottom with part of the tree still attached and the broken line attached. This is the first time I've fished with Sensation line and so far I'm impressed with it's strength. It also doesn't have any line memory when it's wet, when it's wet. I have to stress the wet part, because after I spooled the reel, I decided to make a few practice casts in my front yard, bad idea. Every cast I made in the yard resulted in a back lash.

Back to the tournament, we decided to fish out in the middle of the lake with only a few hours left in the tournament. Mike directed me out to a spot he'd fished before and we caught several more small keepers that wouldn't help add weight to our catch so with 30 minutes left in the tournament we headed back to fish the marina. With 14 minutes left, Mike set the hook on our big bass 3.67 lbs. Never give up! That fish gave us the extra weight to push us into 2nd place. The first place team reported catching their big fish with only 5 minutes left to fish in the spot they were fishing. The bigger bite may have been turning on later in the day, because of the full moon.

Tournament in Review:

The sky was clear and sunny all day with the wind starting out calm and then blowing steady at 10 mph later in the day. We probably caught three limits of keepers, with a five bass total for 12.12 lbs. We caught about 25 bass all day long and had a great time. The majority of our fish were caught on white spinner baits. The big bass was caught on a brush hog.

Does this count as one that got away?

2006-05-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday May 10, 2006

A Hungarian fisherman has drowned while trying to catch a 150lb catfish.

Gabor Komlosy was dragged into a river when he refused to let go of the line.

The 53-year-old's body was later pulled from the Szamos river still clinging to his rod. ** NEVER GIVE UP!!!**

The 4ft monster catfish was still hooked on the end. Police in Hungary believe he had been yanked down the bank of the river by the fish. It had then pulled him through the water until he hit his head on a rock and drowned.

A spokesman said: "When we pulled in his line, the fish was still stuck on the end."

Wal-Mart BFL Tournament on Palestine Lake April 29th 2006.

2006-05-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

I fished the Wal-Mart BFL tournament over the weekend on Saturday April 29th, 2006 at Lake Palestine. This is the fourth of five qualification rounds for the 2006 season. I was paired up with Blaine Leblanc for this event. There were 85 boaters and non-boaters entered in the event and the top 15 places were paid out. I placed 3rd with a nice five bass limit for 10 lbs 15 oz earning a trophy, check, and the Ranger Cup award for being the highest placing Ranger boat owner. It was a challenging event due to a front blowing in morning of the tournament and I had been suffering from flu like symptoms for the last 36 hours.

The Tournament:

On Friday and work up around 5:00 AM feeling like a train had run over me, headache, low fever, and my stomach was messed up something fierce. I used every ounce of strength I could gather to get through a half day of work and then help Kelly load up the kids and the trailer before heading out for the lake. Kelly was a true angle making the drive and letting me rest. When we arrived at camp, my mom was there ahead of us and she helped Kelly setup camp. I went to the pretournament meeting and sat on the curb in the parking lot instead of standing with everyone else. The pairs were announced and before I could walk to the meeting area I had forgotten which boat number I had drawn and who my boater was for the tournament. Whatever bug I had was doing a number on me that's for sure. The tournament crew helped me figure out who my partner was and Blaine told me he'd been prefishing over the week and caught a limit of fish each day on a variety of baits.

Saturday morning, about 1:00 AM storms blew in bringing 100 mph winds and tornadoes to East Texas. At 4:30 AM my mom woke me up and asked what time I was going fishing and I thanked her for waking me since I had not programmed the alarm correctly. Still not feeling well I took some Tylenol and set out in the rain to find the marina. I got a little lost on the way and wound up getting there around 5:30 AM and didn't find my partner for another 15 minutes, because torrencial down pour of rain occurring. The boat ramp at Villages Marina was flowing like a raging river about three inches deep, and lightning flashed lighting up the marina. It is moments like this that I question why I love fishing so much. I have a million reasons to head back to camp, but I am going fishing! In any other sport under conditions like this, the event is called off and everyone spends the day indoors watching TV. Not bass anglers, they get out in the worst conditions weather can produce and catch fish.

Blaine and I launch the boat and idle out to the marina entrance in the rain to hear Tim, the tournament director advising everyone to keep safe on the lake today and more bad weather was possible. Around 6:30 AM Tim began sending off the boats, I said a little prayer for the strength to compete and safety for all anglers on the lake. When boat number 66 was called we headed out, the rain was much lighter now, but at 50+ mph running down the lake rain drops feel like needles on your skin. We headed to the south end of the lake near the 155 bridge and hit a few points in some coves for the first hour of the tournament and Blaine managed a short fish on a white popper. I had no luck with a black buzz bait.

We switch up and ran to a point out on the main lake, where we boated five hybrid whites or striper between us on spinner baits and chatter baits. Blaine had one about 5 lbs on his chatter bait. We made another move, ran under the 155 bridge and back into a creek filled with stumps. Blaine was using a chartreuse/white chatter bait and caught his first keeper out in the middle of the stumps. I had made a cast with my spinner bait when Blaine called for the net, so I dropped my rod and helped him land his fish. When I picked my rod up, took up the slack, I set the hook and reeled in my first keeper. That's right, a 2 lb bass caught dead sticking a spinner bait believe it or not, ok so it may have hit the lure when it fluttered down. :-) Anyway so we work our way back into the back of the cove and Blaine tags a few small fish on the popper. As soon as we got back to the middle of the stump field where we had caught the two keepers before, I set the hook on another keeper about 3 1/2 lbs and put my second bass in the live well. We work our way out of the creek and decide to make another pass through the stumps again. I pick up another keeper on the spinner bait in the stumps and we each catch a short fish. We then go on a long spell of nothing in there, Blaine says, "I think we wore out our welcome."

We make a run to a new cove with the same type of cover. On the first cast to an isolated tree out on the front edge of the creek I catch my 4th keeper on the spinner bait. A few casts later I catch a short fish and Blaine decides it's time to switch to a spinner bait like the one I'm throwing. On his first cast, he catches a bass close to 14 inches. We work the area and catch several more short bass and Blaine hooks up with his second keeper.

A while later after not getting anymore bites we make another run to another creek, on the way in we have to pass under a bridge and Blaine slows down the boat enough for a few casts while we pass under it. I make a cast parallel to the bridge pilings, slow roll the spinner bait back to the boat, set the hook, and flip my fifth keeper aboard the boat. We get in the stumps in the creek and catch a few more short fish but no keepers to be found.

We head back out to the creek where we had the bigger fish early in the day. I catch another short fish and we see a local guy catch one over 3 lbs a few yards from us, but we can not find another good bite and time is running out. Blaine decides to fish some docks on the way out of the creek. As we approach the first dock a fish explodes on the surface and two casts later Blaine swings another near 14 inch bass aboard on the chatter bait. I switch to a 6 inch junebug worm rigged Texas style on a 8th oz weight to flip the docks. I catch a 6 inch bass off a small stump between docks. A few docks later I flip the worm under the center of a dock and set the hook on a solid fish, fight it to the back of the boat, when it surfaces mouth wide open and shakes the hook free. That fish would have given me 2nd place and possibly 1st if I could have gotten it in the boat. We finish out the docks with nothing else biting and two hours left to fish.

We make another run back to the point where we caught the hybrids early in the morning. Blaine catches a 13 inch bass after a few casts and I catch a hybrid about 2 lbs. A few casts later Blaine catches another 13 inch bass and I catch a 10 inch hybrid. I make several more casts and I set the hook only to have the rod nearly jerked out of my hands. Drag start peeling off the reel, Blaine jumps for the net and I say, "There's no way this is a bass." Sure enough, after three or four minutes of fighting I swing a 6 to 7 lb hybrid into the boat. That was fun, but not the kind of action I'm looking for right now. Blaine catches another near keeper before we give up on that point and decide to call it a day.

Tournament in Review:

The weather was rainy and cloudy all morning and then gave way to bright sunny skies later in the day. I caught 5 keepers on a fire tiger spinner bait sprayed with Fool-a-Fish. I probably caught 10 to 15 more non-keepers as well. Blaine had two keepers as well and I am not sure how many none keepers he caught, but his fish were caught on spinner bait, chatter bait, and white popper. Blaine was a great guide on the lake and I hope to fish with him again in the future. Good luck to Blaine as he continues to compete to make the regionals this season.

Special Thanks:

If not for Kelly, I may not have been strong enough to compete in this event because of the bug I had. Thank you so much for supporting me! Thanks to Kelly, my mom, 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.

Clint Bridges vs Charles Whited in I-Match on Lake Austin.

2006-04-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

My second round I-Match was against Charles Whited on Saturday April 14th. Charles won our division last season, so I knew this was going to be tough. We drew Lake Austin as one of the lakes and agreed to fish Lake Austin. This is how the tournament went: We met up at 360 bridge to fish from 6:30AM to 3:00PM. Charles seemed like a nice enough guy when I talked to him. He told me about how crazy the lie detector testing is when you get to the final rounds. We did the formal checkin per I-Match rules and headed off to fish.

I started off across from Ski Shores and killed the first 30 minutes of the tournament with nada biting. At 7:00 AM I put my first keeper in the boat on a white senko doctored with Fool-a-Fish. I had made a long run up the lake to Commons Ford park to fish for bedding fish I scouted the day before. I saw my first bedding fish, flipped the senko out about 3 feet past his bed and twitched the lure once, the bass charged off the nest and inhaled my senko with no hesitation. That felt good, so then I went looking for a big fish I'd seen the day before. I found her hanging on the outside edge of the grass line instead of on the bed where she was the day before that was located on the inside edge of the grass. The female is all of 5 lbs and could weigh as much as 7 lbs depending on her girth, but it's hard to tell when you don't have them in the boat. I flipped the senko to her and as soon as she saw me cast, she sank out of sight into the deeper water. The male looked like a 3 lb bass, I figured I'd put it in the live well while I was there. I positioned the boat up shallow in a foot of water about 5 yards off the bed because of the winds blowing the boat around. I started working the bed and the female came in from the outside edge to visit the bed. Both fish showed aggression toward the bait at this point and my first two attempts where unsuccessful. On the third cast the female turned nose down on the bait as I let it settle on the nest. I made a small twitch and she sucked the lure in. I set the hook and the fight began. She made a strong surge for the deep water and grass, but I was able to hold her off. I realized I'd put a lot of pressure on her, so I started adjusting the drag to keeper her from pulling the hook free as she continued to fight for access to deeper water or the weed cover. I had her a few feet from the boat and wore down when she made another strong surge and the hook popped free. That was a major set back because it was the only big fish I'd been able to locate while prefishing.

I shake it off and got back to fishing, well not totally shaken off. The winds are getting pretty gusty at this point, because we were forecasted to have 30 mph winds, but Lake Austin is down in the canyon so it's not that bad, but still blows the boat around a bit and make sight fishing nearly impossible. I fish the length of Commons Ford Park and don't see any big fish, I decide I should go back for the male where I'd lost the big fish because it's a solid keeper. He disappeared with the female after she pulled off. I decide to cast a spinner bait down the inside edge over the beds on the way back to see if I can pick off an aggressive male. As luck would have it I caught a nice 2.8 lb male and continue down the bank. I caught a few short fish along the way as well, and then run across Charles fishing for a bass on the bed. He says he's got three keepers and is working a 5 lb bass at the moment, but had already lost it once. I tell him I got two keepers and lost the big one then give him some room and find a fish down the bank that's worth putting in the live well. Charles gives up on the fish about 15 minutes later and heads further up the lake. Charles was flipping a bubble gum colored tube bait on the beds when I came across him. I continue working the bass I've located and catch it a little later. I work my way back to the spot where I'd lost the big fish and see her back out on the outside edge and she descends into the dark blue water on the outside edge again. I grab a rod and rig it with a watermelon/red flake Eager Beaver and spray it with Fool-a-Fish, flip the bait to the spot where I'd last seen her and feel a thump before the bait hits the bottom. My first thought was, "No Way" and I was right unfortunately. I set the hook and reel in a 10 inch bass. I should have seen that as a sign from God, that I'd missed my chance at this fish. The male is back to guarding the bed, so I set to work at fighting the wind and trying to catch him. After about 15 minutes of working him with the senko, he's agitated, but won't pick up the lure. I grab the Eager Beaver and flip it out on the bed and before the lure hits the bottom I see the line moving. I swing and miss because I couldn't see anything due to the wind breaking up the surface and the color of the bait blends with the bottom. The winds settle just long enough for me to see that the female is back on the bed with the male. I make a cast and the female flares her gills at the bait, which usually indicates that she's doesn't want it near the nest and will hit the bait soon. I make a few more casts and feel a thump, but can't see which fish took the bait, so I set the hook and real in the male. The female is back on the outside edge again when I finally get a look at her after about 30 minutes of fishing the bed blindly in the winds. I give up and make a run up the lake past Quinlan park and start scouting for bedding fish. I kill a lot of time and don't see anything, so I go back for the big fish, hoping she's settled down and ready to bite again.

It may seem crazy to fish for a bass that got away, but I have caught fish from beds after loosing them multiple times in a single day. Big bass are sometimes hard to keep on the hook. In fact the 7 lb bass Chris is holding in the picture from a few weeks back was hooked twice. Derek hooked the fish and it broke his line after a brief struggle, then Chris caught it two casts later.

Back to I-Match, I see the fish on the nest when I arrive, but only for a second because the wind blows me off the spot along with some wake from boats passing by. I flip the Eager Beaver over the outside edge of the grass while trying to get back in position and set the hook on a large fish that dives deep into the grass and comes off. I won't guess at the size of the fish, only say that it was big and pulled hard. I pass over the area where the bed is and can't see the female at the moment, so now I'm on the other side and off target again because of the wind and wakes. I flip out over the grass a few times and set the hook pulling up my 5th keeper that is some 3 lbs. Not a bad deal since I couldn't get to the one I really wanted to catch. I spend another hour working her only to decide she's not going to bite after all and head down the lake to the flats across from Ski Shores to finish out the tournament. I cull a fish and catch several more that won't help me out, but are keepers out there. I meet Charles at 360 bridge and after a quick conversation it's clear he's smoked me, so we go weigh his fish to make it official. He weighs the fish for 23+ lbs and a big bass of 7+ lbs. I shake his hand and it's done. I decide to weigh my fish just to see where I ended up, 12.2 lbs on my scale.

Tournament in Review:

I caught most of my fish on white Senkos and watermelon/ red flake Eager Beavers. I doctored all of them with Fool-a-Fish and have to say I'm liking this stuff. I caught a lot of fish throughout the day and missed two fish that could have made the difference. Congratulations to Charles on the win, that was a nice sack of fish you caught.

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

2006-04-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Fool-a-Fish, fish see your bait like a thousand tiny mirrors!

2006-04-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

I've recently partnered with Fool-a-Fish and will provide a product review once I've tested this product thoughly.

Fool-a-Fish is based on research showing that fish see and are attracted to light in the ultra-violet spectrum, which is invisible to the human eye. Fool-a-Fish is an odorless, colorless compound that causes your bait or lure to shine with reflected ultraviolet light.

How it Works

Visible light only penetrates clear ocean water to a depth of about 30-40 feet; UVA light travels up to 1/2-mile, penetrating even murky and off-color water. Lures and baits treated with Fool-a-Fish reflect UVA light in every direction, just like a spinning "Disco Ball." Fish use UV vision to find locate their prey; they swarm to bait or lures coated with Fool-a-Fish. For more details visit their website - http://www.foolafish.com/.

Lake Austin 9-30-06 Guide Trip

2006-03-31T20:17:00.000-08:00

Lake Austin is fishing really well right now for those who are able to locate the fish and get a hook in them. Chris and Derek booked a guide trip for Thursday and had a great day on the lake. This picture is one of the two 7 lb bass Chris caught on the trip. If they were in a tournament, their 5 best would have gone 25+ lbs I would guess. We saw some other anglers catching them as well. The primary bait of choice was a white senko rigged Texas style weightless.

Clint Bridges vs Richard Witthouse in I-Match on Lake Austin.

2006-03-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I had a busy weekend, before I was able to pick up my Ranger 520VX. I fished one last tournament in my R73. My first round I-Match was against Richard Whitthouse. We drew some lousy lakes and agreed to fish Lake Austin instead of the three lakes suggest by I-Match. This is how the tournament went:

We met up at Walsh Landing to fish from 6:30AM to 2:30PM. Richard seemed like a nice enough guy when I talked to him. This was his first season in I-Match, so I could tell he was a bit nervous. We did the formal checkin per I-Match rules and headed off to fish. I started off a short distance from the boat launch. At 6:45 AM I put my first keeper in the boat on a chartreuse spinner bait. I fished the area for a while and then blasted off to hit a productive dock nearby. This dock is good because it's got some brush washed under it from the flooding last year and it seems not many people have noticed yet. I flipped a watermelon senko and caught a 10 inch bass on the first flip. The second flip procuded his twin, and several other cases to follow went unanswered. Decided this wasn't going to work, so this time I headed to a creek where I'd caught some keepers the day before in practice. I fished the creek with nada for my efforts and headed off to the next spot that produced fish in practice. I passed Richard on my way up the lake, he was fishing the flat across from Ski Shores. I quickly picked up two more keepers on the spinner bait and then went for a while with nothing else biting. I had one more honey hole up the lake that I'd caught fish in practice from, so I took off again. I ran up the lake past city park and went to work with my spinner bait. Three or four casts later I tagged my 4th keeper. I kept chunking and winding until I saw a large bass cruising in the shallows, easily a 5 lb bass just by looking at it. I flip up on the bank with a senko and worked it near the fish only to spook it under a nearby dock. I positioned the boat all the while, thinking, "If I get that fish I've won." I get the boat into position and flip under the dock where I can see the fish resting and make a twitch to move the lure. I see the fish make a movement that I believe is to pick up the bait, so set the hook and the fight is on. A moment or two later I land a 5+ lb bass to find out I've got her hooked in the side. I'm guessing the reason why she didn't pickup my bait was because a 1/4 oz jig is hanging from the corner of her mouth. I removed the jig and release the fish because I know I didn't catch it in a sporting manner. Keeping the fish would be breaking tournament rules. I put it out of my mind knowing I did the right thing then and say a little prayer for one more good bite. I finish fishing out the area with nothing else biting and check the clock, Two and half hours remaining in tournament time. I got a 20+ minute ride back to the weigh-in, so decide to hit the area that produced two for me earlier. I take off and within minutes of stopping I set the hook on my fifth keeper. I fish out the bank with no other bites and decide to hit the creek again on the way back. On the way back I see Richard fishing on the flat still and stop to chat. He says he's got 5 lbs of fish and caught a few littles ones, so I tell him I've got five bass that'll go 9 lbs. We wish each other luck and I head back down the lake to fish the creek again. I fish the area only to come up empty and decide to fish the grass bed across from the weigh-in site to finish out the tournament. Richard came in 15 minutes early and say's he's done for the day. He weigh's two keepers for 5.08 lbs, then I weigh my five bass for 9.00 lbs. We shake hands and it's done.

Tournament in Review:

The temperatures started out at 35 degrees with partly cloudy skies all day warming up to 70 degrees. Water temperatures on the lake range from 63 degrees to 58 degrees. I didn't see any bedding bass despite a lot of looking. I caught my five keepers on a chartreuse spinner bait. Richard caught his two on a Texas rigged Sweet Beaver.

Ranger Elite Team sponsored by Austin Boats and Motors.

2006-03-27T07:32:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I accepted an offer to join the Ranger Boats Elite Team sponsored by Austin Boats and Motors. I sold my old R73 to the dealer and upgraded to 520VX Tour Edition. It's the best bass fishing boat on the market by far. It's 20 feet 9 inches long providing a huge amount of deck space for casting and landing bass. My boat is equiped with a Yamaha 225 horse power engine that's rated for propelling the boat at 72 mph across the lake, but I bet that's a conservative number it'll do more. I've only put four of the 10 breakin hours on it at this point so I couldn't tell you for certain yet. I can't say enough about how great this boat is you'll have to get one for yourself to know what I mean. Visit Austin Boats and Motors website for details about the new and used boats available on their lots - http://www.austinboats.com.

Choke Canyon Texas Classic Bass Club 2006 Classic Tournament.

2006-03-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

I fished the Choke Canyon Texas Classic Bass Club 2006 Classic Tournament over the weekend, March 18th & 19th, with Mike Amescua. We got second place, and had one of those fishing tournaments that neither of us will ever forget.

Day One: Weather - Partly cloudy with 30 mph winds from the SE.

I'm going to glaze over the details on day one, because it was a long hard weekend of fishing. Mike and I woke up at 5:00 AM, loaded our stuff headed off to South Shore park. The gates open at 6:00 AM which was the official start time of the tournament, so we were loosing time. We were third in line at the gate at 5:30 AM, which wasn't a bad thing since it gave us time to ready the boat. At 6:15 AM we had launched the boat and run around the corner to the pocket next to the dam and started fishing. Mike quickly set the hook on a solid 3 lb fish with a Texas rigged watermelon red brush hog. A few minutes later I caught a short fish on a white spinner bait. We fished there with a few missed bites until safe running light and then made a run across the lake to 4 fingers only to find it covered up with boat traffic. We worked a long stretch of the east bank with nada for our efforts, so I moved the boat to the west bank and went to work. Mike and I fished this area for the rest of the day, catching a limit of keepers from 1 lb to 4 lbs. In our first attempt to run back to the south side of the lake, we suffered an unfortunate setback. We hit a 3 foot roller pretty solid, that caused the water in the livewell to slosh the lid open and eject one of our larger bass. We eventually made it back across the lake despite the big waves and strong winds to finish out the first day with a little over 10 lbs which was far from top of the standings for the first day where the leaders had 20 lbs of bass. If you're wondering, no the live well in my boat doesn't having a lock on the lid to keep it closed. It's never been a problem in the past, but from now on you can bet that I'll be holding the lid closed any time I make a run across the lake.

Day Two: Weather - Cloudy with 20 mph winds from the SE.

5:00 AM Mike and I, loaded our stuff headed off to South Shore park once again, but a little stiff from the beating we took from the weather the day before. We didn't get to the gates until 5:45 this time and we were fifth in line, but ended up being first to launch. At 6:15 AM we headed across the lake, but I made a last minute decision not to hit the corner again and instead went to the dam spillway. Mike quickly put a bass near 5 lbs in the boat with a brush hog flipping the brush and a few minutes later followed with a 2 lb bass. I put my spinner bait down and joined in the fun with my own brush hog rig. 30 or so minutes later after several missed strikes by Mike and I, I set the hook on a bass I'd say was 5 lbs. I worked her out of the brush and all the way to the boat when I said, "Don't worry Mike, I've got her on braid, she's not coming off." No sooner than the words are spoken and the bass makes a strong run under the boat and tears the hook out. She came off, so a few minor explicatives follow while I reposition the boat and refocus. Mike eases the tension by saying, "At least you were not fishing in the BASS Classic and lost a five pounder." Mike and I cast back to the same area a foot or two apart and double up with nice 2 lb keepers. For a minute, I thought one of us had a fish and it had tangled our lines, but hey I'll take'm two at a time. :-) I reposition the boat again, because of the winds and we pound the area with nada to bite after those three. If it was a school of big fish, it had already moved on after we pulled those three fish out. 10 minutes later I set the hook and caught a nice 3 lb bass. We fish around the area for another hour with nothing biting. There are 4 or 5 other boats in very close rang and nobody is catching anything at this point. We make the decision to leave this area and head out to the island near Four Fingers. We make a pass down the west side of the island while fighting the swells and Mike sets the hook on a 5+ lb fish, he fights it out from the bank and halfway to the boat where the fish surges into some brush that's not visible and comes off. We hit the west bank of Four Fingers and nothing else bites. We ended the second day of the tournament with 15+ lbs and had the day two big bass.

Tournament in Review:

The wind blew and blew and blew from 10 mph in the mornings to 30 mph in the afternoon on both days. It made for extremely tough fishing, because the boat was never sitting still. We caught our fish on white spinner baits, watermelon Eager Beavers, watermelon/red Brush Hogs and watermelon/red lizards. Most of the fish we caught were in three to seven feet of water in brush. All the fish, but one were holding tight to brush, so flipping Texas rigged plastics was the best pattern. Congratulations to Dan and Karl on their first place finish, to Dudley for his day one big bass that was over 6 lbs, and to my partner Mike for this day two big bass. Official Results will be post on http://www.tcbc.net/ at some point before April 6th.

Wal-Mart BFL Tournament on Sam Rayburn March 4th 2006.

2006-03-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

I fished the Wal-Mart BFL over the weekend on Saturday March 4, 2006. This is the second of five qualification rounds for the 2006 season. I was very fortunate to have been paired up with Jeff Wooldridge for this event. Jeff if you see this report, "I had a great time fishing with you and thanks for putting us on the fish!" I really appreciate the effort Jeff went through to make sure I was able to catch fish. There were 121 boaters and non-boaters entered in the event and the top 23 places were paid out. Jeff placed 47th with 4 fish for 11 lbs 15 oz. I placed 20th with a 5 fish limit for 10 lbs 1 oz getting a small check for my catch. It was a great day to be out fishing, you couldn't have asked for better weather conditions or lake conditions for that matter. Weather was partly cloudy with light winds early, 55 to 80 degrees. Rayburn is 2 1/2 feet low with stained water, visibility to 3 feet on the lower end of the lake. Water temps were 58 to 70 degrees, main lake vs back of the creeks. The bass are in prespawn staging with some males already on beds in the shallows.

The Tournament:

Kelly, the kiddos, and I arrived on Friday afternoon in Jasper Texas in time to setup camp and eat dinner before the pretournament meeting. My mom joined us at dinner and came along for the trip. I went to the meeting and met up with Jeff after the pairing was announced. Jeff hadn't prefished, but said he had some spots that would hold fish and we'd do a little bit of everything to catch them.

Saturday morning we met up at 5:45 AM and I walked down to the water and loaded my stuff in the boat because Jeff had already launched and gone through boat check before meeting up with me. We sat in the boat and talked about fishing and stuff waiting for the take off to begin.

Boat 15 was called and we headed out to Veach Basin to begin the morning on a grass bed in 3 to 8 feet of water. Jeff caught a 3 lb fish after about five casts on a chrome blue rattle trap. I caught a short fish ten or fifteen minutes later on a white spinner bait. Another ten minutes later and I caught my first keeper on the spinner bait off the grass bed. Two other boats moved in on the grass bed, so Jeff went in to the shallow water to see if there were any spawning bass.

Now we're fishing in two feet or less of water with a sandy bottom and scattered brush. Jeff begins flipping the bush in hopes of getting a bedding fish. The low light and windy conditions make it nearly impossible to sight fish at this point in the tournament. I stick to my spinner bait and place it between some brush and catch a keeper in front of another boat moving around in the shallows. The coangler on the boat askes me if I want to get rid of my spinner bait after I drop the fish in the live well. I said, "Sure if you got $50." A few minutes later he flips into the brush and pulls out a keeper as well, so I guess he didn't need the spinner bait after all. We work our way back out of the shallows and out on the grass flat again. I catch my 3rd keeper on the spinner bait right before we leave to try some new water since this area was covered up with boats fishing all around us. I offered my spinner bait to Jeff at this point since I had a few extras, but he declined while tying on a similar bait.

We leave Veach and head out to another area only to kill a lot of time. We trap some grass beads and hit some other pockets with nada until we get to a little point with some deep water and stumps on it with a little scattered grass. While Jeff is setting up a Carolina rig I set the hook on a keeper only to have it jump and throw my spinner bait after battling it half way to the boat. On the next cast I catch a short fish in disappointment. I pound the point with the spinner bait while Jeff drags the c-rig and catches a short fish. Jeff gives up on this spot and heads back to Veach.

Jeff stops the boat on a new grass bed in the Veach area and after several casts sets the hook on another 3 lb bass with the chrome blue rattle trap. I stick to the spinner bait for a while and finally give into the idea that I need to get a bigger bass like the ones Jeff is catching and switch to a 3/4 oz rattle trap. Jeff is throwing a 1/2 oz model made by Pointer lures. After a few casts I set the hook on a large fish that takes a nose dive into the grass and pulls off leaving me with a big glob of grass on the bait. Five minutes later I get my 4th keeper on the rattle trap and at this point I'm getting a little excited because I know I've got about 7 1/2 lbs and one more good fish will put me in the money. Jeff comments that we need to get my 5th keeper in the boat and decides we should go back to where we started.

We fish the flat with nothing to show for our efforts and move up into the shallows again to see if we can spot some bedding fish since the wind has died down and the sun is out. We cruise around and spot a few fish. Jeff finds one locked on a bed in some brush and sets up to catch the bass. After a few minutes I spot a bass cruising in a zone, but not locked on to a bed. I switch from the spinner bait to a Texas rigged watermelon senko and go to work. Ten minutes later I set the hook and land my 5th keeper!

With two and half hours of fishing left Jeff decides to give up on the fish in the brush and go in search of the big ones. He takes us to Farmers and to our surprise we're the only guys in there. We head to the very back where we get stuck, way, way back in there. After some push poling and brush pulling we get the boat out. On the way out we spot some 3 lb fish on beds and go to work. I swing and miss on my fish after a few well placed casts with the senko and that's the last we see of that one. A few minutes later Jeff sets the hook in his 3rd keeper and lands the bass. We ease around the shallows spotting little males bedding all over the place. Jeff spooks a big bass probably about 6 lbs, the bass heads into some brush. We swing the boat around, Jeff makes the first cast and the bass heads for deep water never to be seen again. The search continues and we find another set of 3 lb fish on beds. Jeff does a great job positioning the boat so that we both have perfect angles on the fish. After about 5 minutes I set the hook on mine. The bass was position right in the middle of a bush, so I have to pull it up through the bush to get it out. I got it out alright, it shot up like a rocket and goes airborne only to shake my hook free mid flight. How it shook that weightless rig free still baffles me. Anyway several casts later Jeff gets his 4th keeper in the boat and we got about 30 minutes left to fish. We fish a few more bass on beds and can't get them to bite before the clock ticks down to zero.

Tournament in Review:

We caught fish on grass beds in 3 to 8 feet of water on spinner baits and chrome rattle traps. I caught my bedding fish on a watermelon senko and Jeff caught his on a bubble gum twin tail grub rigged on a 1/4 jig head. I caught a total of 7 bass all day, 5 keepers that weighed 10 lbs 1 oz for a 20th place finish. I was the highest Ranger Cup participant in the tournament and won the Ranger Cup award. Unfortunately I lost three good fish that would have put me much higher in the standings if I could have gotten the fish in the boat.

Special Thanks -

Thanks to Kelly, my kids, and my mom for coming along to support me in this event. Thanks again to Jeff Wooldridge for putting us on the fish and making sure I was able to stay at the top of the standings. :-) Extra Special thanks to Dr. Roup for fixing my grill before the tournament. I had a tooth become super sensitive to hot/cold for no reason at all three days before the tournament. Dr. Roup got me in quickly and fixed it up fast. If you're looking for a great dentist in Round Rock then visit Roup Dental. You won't be disappointed.

I-Match Tournaments 2006 Season

2006-02-28T14:18:00.000-08:00

Well March 1st is just another calendar day for most people, but for me and a few other guys in Texas the Bass Champs I-Match season is about to officially begin. I am excited thinking about it. Somewhere around March 7th I'll find out who my first challenger will be for our first head to head tournament. This is gonna be fun, just like it was last year; only I have a better idea of what to expect and how to play the game. I tried to find out what the field looked like for Central Texas, but everyone is still signing up at the last moment, but it appears the field is going to be a bit smaller than the 42 who competed last year.

Wal-Mart BFL Choke Canyon Feb 11, 2006.

2006-02-13T19:08:00.000-08:00

I fished the Wal-Mart BFL over the weekend on Saturday February 11, 2006. This is the first of five qualification rounds for the 2006 season. I was very fortunate to have been paired up with Jimmy Johnson for this event. Jimmy if you see this report, "Thanks for putting us on the fish!" There were 101 boaters and non-boaters entered in the event and the top 20 places were paid out. Jimmy took home a check for his 19th place finish and I missed the cut by a pound taking 23rd place. Jimmy put us on the fish and I figured out how to catch them.

The Tournament:

Kelly, the kiddos, and I arrived on Friday afternoon in Calliham Texas in time to setup camp at the South Shore Unit and eat dinner before the pretournament meeting. I went to the meeting and met up with Jimmy after the pairing was announced. Jimmy said he'd caught some fish in practice, but didn't have a defined pattern or even a specific bait to catch bass on.

Saturday morning we met up at 5:30 AM and headed over to launch the boat. We made it with about 15 minutes to hang out and talk about our plan. There wasn't much to it, head to the north side of the lake to hide from the 30 mph winds blowing across the lake as much as possible, and catch some fish if there were any hungry ones after two cold fronts had blown in just before the tournament.

** I'll fill in more details here later. I have another tournament coming up on Choke, so a lot of details are being left out. **

I caught 4 bass, three of them keepers and Jimmy asked me to look at my lure. He matched up as best he could from his tackle selection, turning down my offer to give him one of mine. He got close enough and we dialed in on them from that point on. Jimmy quickly match my catch of three keepers. A few hours later and he boated another keep and I caught another short fish. Jimmy caught another keeper to finish out his limit, so we're down to the wire with an hour and half left in the tournament and I catch my 4th keeper of the day finally. Same bait I'd been catching them on all day. Jimmy said he needed a bigger kicker, so we switch things up a little and it paid off for Jimmy when he caught a nice 5 lb bass. We fished a little while and then headed in early to the weigh-in, just to be safe.

Tournament in Review:

We caught fish on an undisclosed lures in an undisclosed location to be announced at a later date. :-) I caught a total of 6 bass all day, 4 keepers that weighed 9.08 lbs for a 23rd place finish. Jimmy caught 7 bass all day, all 7 were keepers and his 5 best weighed 14.10 lbs for a 19th place victory. Jimmy said he couldn't believe he was bringing in a limit to weigh-in after the bad weather had moved in a really changed the fishing up from his practice days on the lake. I had a great time fishing with Jimmy, he's a good man with fish with.

Special Thanks -

Thanks to Kelly and my kids for coming along to support me in this event. Thanks again to Jimmy Johnson for putting us on the fish and listening to my chatter all day without complaining. :-) Extra Special thanks to Jimmy's little weenie dog, Jesse, for attacking any brush that may get to close to boat at any time. He's a good rod alert system, no chance of your rod tips getting snapped off with Jesse in the boat!

Texas Classic Bass Club January Tournament on Lake Belton.

2006-01-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-11T19:11:00.000-08:00

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.

Texas Classic Bass Club 2005 Angler Of The Year

2005-12-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

Texas Classic Bass Club

Thanks to all for the show of support for winning AOY. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly say a special thanks to my wife, Kelly, for supporting my fishing addiction. I really appreciate Kelly's support and I don't show it enough throughout the season, but when a chance like accepting recognition comes along then I can't take all the credit for my fishing success, part of it is owed to Kelly. I also want to thank the non-boaters who put up with fishing 8 to 10 hours with me this season. They helped me put fish in the boat; I couldn't have done without you guys as well. I believe I learned something from each of you when we fished and I hope you learned a little something from me as well since that's what the Texas Classic Bass Club is all about. I look forward to competing with you guys again next season.

For more details on the Texas Classic Bass Club AOY click here.

Texas Classic Bass Club November Tournament on Lake Austin.

2005-11-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

The Texas Classic Bass Club November tournament was held Nov 12th 6:00AM to 4:00PM on Lake Austin. This was a draw tournament and I drew one of our club guest at the meeting, Nathan. A series of small fronts rolled through the day before and the day of 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 met Nathan at 4:30 AM and we headed down to Walsh Landing to launch the boat. We ran up the lake just past the 360 bridge and started fishing at 6:00AM. I went with a buzz bait and Nathan threw a frog. I had one blow up on the buzz bait, but it never had the bait. We switched to spinner baits, rattle traps, & crank baits with no success. I hit a few spots that had all paid off in the past and nobody was home. About 11:30 we were working down the bank near the boy scout camp near 360 bridge and a school of bass pushed a ball of shad up to the surface. I would say there was no less than 10 bass in the school and I picked off one about 10 to 12 inches long before they scattered. We stayed in the area for another 30 minutes throwing a variety of baits, nothing else bit and they didn't come back to the surface. We moved over to the reeds out in front of that big wooden boat at the camp and managed to get my first keeper, 2.3 lbs on a watermelon brush hog. That was the only fish we got out of there. Next we moved down the lake toward some docks and picked up two more keepers and a short fish on the same lure. We killed a bunch time pretty much with little to show for our efforts. Very slow hard day of fishing in the wind, but at least we managed three keepers. We ended up in 3rd place with something like 5.5 lbs of bass. The winning team had 4 fish for just over 10 lbs. Congratulations to Dudley and Rick on the winning stringer.

Tournament in Review:

We caught fish on watermelon brushhogs rigged Texas style on a 1/4 oz weight. The fish were in 1 to 3 feet of water. We had 3 fish for a total of 5.5 lbs that put us in 3rd place. Fishing was extremely slow due to the changes in weather.

November 12, 2005 Results - Lake Austin
http://tcbc.net/results/nov05.htm
Current Standings:
http://tcbc.net/standings/standings05.htm
Current Weights per Angler & Monthly Big Bass:
http://tcbc.net/standings/weights05.htm

Men Rescued As Fishing Trip Turns Rocky.

2005-10-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

This one of the funniest fishing stories I've read in a while and felt like I should share it. It was reported by WBAL Channel 11 NBC.

Two fishermen are at home safe after they were stuck in a frightening situation Monday.
WBAL-TV 11 News reporter Barry Simms said the men were on the Susquehanna River just past the Conowingo Dam when their boat got stuck on a rock. Simms reported the two men had started fishing when there was quite a bit of water going over the dam, but then the water levels changed and their activity turned into an adventure.
Howard County residents Richard Leasure and Henry Belcher found themselves stuck in the Susquehanna River. The fishing buddies had been visiting some of their favorite spots upriver. They were heading back to shore when they noticed the water level dropping.
The boat ran aground and the men used their cell phones to call for help. Because of the low water levels, rescuers could not use boats.

Four rescuers came down the river by foot -- walking across slippery rocks -- to get Leasure and Belcher to an area where a helicopter sent down a basket and lifted the two to safety. Both were okay and allowed to go home. They were just a bit wet from their day on the water.
The men are hoping to retrieve the boat on Tuesday. If they can't, the Department of Natural Resources has offered to assist them.

It is amazing they ever got off that rock! Glad the helicopter was able to air lift them to safty!

Source: http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/5169038/detail.html?subid=22100764&qs=1;bp=t

October Texas Classic Bass Club Tournament

2005-10-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

Dudley and I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club tournament held over the weekend, Oct 22 & 23. This tournament was a two day tournament, Saturday 6:00AM to 4:00PM and Sunday 6:00AM to 1:00PM. The weather was great most of the weekend. Saturday was high of 85 with 10 mph winds, partly cloudy, perfect. Sunday on the other hand was the same weather until about 11:00AM and the wind started blowing 15 to 20+ mph. I'm glad the tournament was over at 1:00, because it only got worse as the day went on.

Day 1:

This is how the tournament went, I got up at 4:30AM on Saturday morning pretty excited about fishing in the Texas Classic Bass Club tournament on Lake Travis. I met Dudley at Jones Brother's park, which is in Sandy Creek near Jones Town on 1431. We launched the boat and headed out into the darkness on the lake, the morning sky was clear revealing a bazillion stars, swirls of steam rose off the waters surface as we headed to our first spot to fish. We started fishing at 6:00AM and I looked up at the sky shortly after we started and saw my first of four shooting stars in the next hour of fishing. About 6:15 Dudley caught our first keeper on a crank bait off a point. We fished around a point and back into the back of a creek and I caught our second keeper about 7:30AM. We had caught a total of about 10 fish at this point, including an aggressive perch that Dudley caught on a 6 inch lizard out of a brush pile. We made our way back out of the creek and caught about 10 more going down the other side of it. The fish were caught on two lures mainly, crank baits and lizards. We decided to make a run to another spot where Dudley had a 4 lb bass the weekend before in prefishing. We made a few passes in the area and picked up a few small ones. I hung my line on a rock and broke off forcing me to tie on a new rig. Instead of just putting on a new rig I picked up another rod and tossed out a six inch shad colored slugo to drift with while I put on a new rig. As luck would have it, I picked up a nice 2 lb fish before I could finish putting on the lizard. I repositioned the boat and once again before I could get my rig tied on Dudley sets the hook on our 4th keeper. I did finally get that lure rigged up and shortly there after Dudley finished out our limit with another fish 2+ lbs in the same area. Key here was fishing slow in 12+ feet of water. We spent another hour after that with no bites and figured that was it for that spot. We headed over to Cypress Creek closer to the weigh-in site. Dudley picked up another keeper slightly larger than the 14 inch bass I caught in the back of the creek early in the morning, so we culled out a little guy. We fished for a while on the other ledges of Cypress Creek and I decided to take a little break. Pulled into the marina while Dudley grabbed some snacks. After the break and some snacks, we were back in action. We pulled up on a stretch of bank that had a slight slope with a few docks and private boat ramps. I slid a lizard down one of the boat ramps and set the hook on a bass only to have it jump completely out of the water and through the hook after reeling it halfway to the boat. It would have culled out a smaller fish if I could have gotten it to the boat. The one that got away.
Anyway, we puttered into the weigh-in site along with most of the other teams with about 15 minutes to spare. End result was a 5 fish limit for a total of 8.55 lbs putting us in 3rd place at the end of day one. I estimate we caught about 40 fish total for the day and that's not exaggerating it. The fishing was awesome early in the morning.

Day 2:

Same as the day before, I got up at 4:30AM on Sunday morning and met Dudley at Jones Brother's park. We launched the boat and headed out into the darkness once again swirls of steam rising off the waters surface as we headed to our first spot to fish. I saw two shooting stars while launching, one while we were running to our first spot and one more shortly after we began fishing. Even if the fish were not biting, it was great to be on the lake. We started fishing at 6:00AM and it didn't take long before I set the hook on our first keeper with a crank bait off a ledge. We had a little company come down the bank fishing and I quickly swung around to cut them off since we were in the area first. Two guys in a Skeeter were fishing in another tournament and they wanted to fish the same area, so without words we acknowledged each other and split the ledge in half. I think we got the better half. Both boats worked back an forth over the ledge catching small fish till about 8:00AM. Back up a few minutes and so I can tell a funny story here. I caught a 13 and 7/8 inch bass, just under the length requirements about 7:45AM. I released the fish and a second or two after I dropped it over the side, it jumped back in the boat! So I caught that one twice, but I tossed it out the other side of the boat the second time. About 8:00AM our company loaded up and blasted off up the lake, and we decided to follow suit. We went back to the creek we caught two keepers from the day before. Only this time, short fish were biting and there were not that many of them. At 10:15 we went back to the ledge, to discover the guys we had shared it with were back before us and fishing the area we had been covering. They moved out the way and we slid in to see if there were any that had pulled up to feed. As luck would have it, Dudley tagged a nice 14 inch spotted bass in the same area he'd caught bass the day before using the watermelon lizard he'd been throwing all weekend. (See pic below) At 12:00 we were down to the wire with only two keepers and I made the call to head to new water. We left Sandy Creek and went up the lake, pulled up on a point and Dudley missed a fish on the first cast. I followed up with the crank bait and pulled in a 2.5 lb bass. We burned up the bank pounding it as fast as we can and Dudley picks up another 14 inch keeper, 12:40 and it's time to go! We strap down and run the main lake jumping waves produced by the winds and large boats headed down the lake to Cypress Creek for the final weigh-in. We arrive with 2 minutes to spare. End of the day results was a 4 fish limit for a total of 6.85 lbs retaining our 3rd place spot. I think we probably only caught about 10 fish over the day, a cold front blew in and really turned off the fishing.

Tournament in Review:

We caught fish on watermelon lizards rigged Texas style on a 1/4 oz weight and crank baits. The fish were in 1 to 3 feet of water early and moved out to 12 feet later in the day. We had a two day limit of 9 fish for a total of 15.40 lbs that put us in 3rd place.

Dudley with a rare keeper spotty from Travis.

Official results posted at: http://www.tcbc.net/results/oct05.htm

September Texas Classic Bass Club.

2005-10-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

The Sept tournament was delayed due to Hurricane Rita. This is how the tournament went, I got up at 3:30AM on Saturday morning pretty excited about fishing in the Texas Classic Bass Club tournament on Lake LBJ, loaded up and hit the road. I met Tom Pursell at Cotton Wood ramp on Whirtz dam about 5:15 AM. I wanted to make sure I had my starting spot in the marina so we were there about 45 minutes early. We unloaded the boat and puttered around to the back side of the marina, watched the rest of the club slowly trickle in, and launch. At 6:00 we started fishing and I caught our first keeper on a white ¼ oz spinner bait. Two of the teams in the club were still trying to launch their boats at that point, so I was pretty pumped. We caught several short fish in the marina and moved on to fish some rocks. We found some large schools of shad and I knew we were going to catch some fish. I caught three fish in consecutive casts to the exact same spot. We worked that section of rock for the first three hours of the tournament and caught three more keepers, broke off two good fish, and caught a total of around 20 fish so far in the tournament. We caught them on everything we threw pretty much. I used a white fluke and white spinner bait. Tom used a chartreuse spinner bait, a watermelon fluke, and a Pointer minnow. We headed up lake to fish some new water and the first stop was Apple Head, nothing, but dinks there so we moved on. Next stop we hit the reed patches about mid lake and I tagged our 5th keeper on a white spinner bait. We picked up several more short fish and a few 14 inch keepers that would not help our limit. We headed up the lake further into the river, picked up a few more short fish and Tom caught a keeper that culled out the first keeper I caught in the marina early. He caught that fish on a Carolina rigged smoke colored worm. We headed back down the lake and hit a couple more spots picking up a few more short fish along the way. Tom manages one more keeper on the smoke worm about 3:00PM, but it won’t help our cause. At 3:30 we join a few other boats in the marina to finish out the day. Tom caught one more short fish in there before we called it a day.

Day in Review:

We caught 30+ bass, and took 2nd place honors in the tournament with an 8.5 lb 5 bass limit. Tom and I had a great time fishing and I look forward to fishing with Tom again sometime. Congratulations to Josh and Dave for 1st place honors and big bass.

September-in-October Tournament on Lake LBJ Results:
http://tcbc.net/results/sep05.htm

Current Standings:
http://tcbc.net/standings/standings05.htm

Current Weights per Angler and Monthly Big Bass:
http://tcbc.net/standings/weights05.htm

Lunch breaks can produce excellect fishing!

2005-09-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

With the weather cooling down now, the conditions for taking a little fishing trip on your lunch break are prime. Heck they're prime for any kind of fishing trip! Jeff Greenfield and I took a little break from work at lunch today and hit a pond in my neighbor hood. I think we fished for about 30 minutes and Jeff caught 6 fish on a Mann's Little George that I suggested he give a try. The largest being a fat, 2 lb fish by my guest-a-mation with no scale handy to weigh it. I forgot the importance of fishing with a high speed reel, because Jeff tried the same lure using one of his reels on Saturday and didn't get any bites in a few hours of fishing with the same lure at the pond. He had to switch to another lure I'd suggested to catch fish, the Johnson Beetle Spin. Jeff used my Torno reel and said he could feel the difference in the cast and retrieve, not to mention the fact that he caught fish this time vs using his rod and reel combo. I drug a C-rig through the muck on the bottom of the pond and missed a few fish and finally tagged a little swimmer on a white fluke after missing several bites. Not a bad trip for fishing on your lunch break.

TPWD Commissoners Public Hearing.

2005-08-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

I want to make you all aware of your opportunity to give comment to the TPWD Commissioners. This is your one opportunity each year to let your voice be heard to the commission. Topics must be limited to any item that directly pertains to TPWD such as fish stocking, size limits, lake regulations, and vegetation control. Commenting on the $5 stamp issue would not be a subject to comment on as it was the legeslature who made this decision. I encourage everyone to MAKE the time to be at this important forum and make your voices heard. For those wishing to attend, I strongly encourage you be signed in by 1:30pm. Topics are usually grouped together. PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO ALL FISHING CONTACTS OR BASS CLUB MEMBERS.

Annual Public Hearing
Wednesday, 2:00pm, Aug. 24, 2005
Commission Hearing Room
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744

August Texas Classic Bass Club Tournament

2005-08-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

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.

BASS Magazine subscription Marketing Gone Wrong.

2005-07-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have bought a subscription to Bassmaster magazine for years. It truly is a great resource of fishing information that I value greatly. Over the years I have paid anywhere from $12 a year to $25 a year for the subscription. Why the range? Well it boils down to marketing really. I ordered my first subscription off a commercial on the Outdoor Network one Saturday morning when I was in high school back in 93' and I think I paid $20 for a year. I got 11 magazines, plus the "Free" value pack. The value pack hasn't changed much, a spool of line, some lures, a patch and some stickers. I take it back, I don't think you get the patch anymore, just the stickers. A year later I got several renewal notices and all of them offered something different and included different prices. One sent to me a few months after I let my subscription expire was $12 for 11 magazines, but no "Free" value pack. Same thing happens year after year, but I rarely see the $12 offer anymore. Now I have to use someone else to get the $12 price, because in my opinion the value packs are worthless in most cases. The value packs certainly aren't worth the $8 to $13 they charge for shipping it, because the pack is "Free." If you're wondering where I renew my subscription for $12 a year? Mags On The Net will sell it to you for that price. :-) I'm sure you could call Bassmaster and get a sales person on the phone who would make you that offer, but I'd rather just do it online, quick and easy.

July Texas Classic Bass Club tournament on Lake Austin

2005-07-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

I fished the Texas Classic Bass Club tournament held on Lake Austin on July 23rd over the weekend and earned 3rd place with the help of Mike Amescua. It was a close finnish based on the weights between 1st and 3rd places, Results here. I can't take all the credit for my success in this tournament, because I used some of the tips provided by last years winners to lay out my plan for fishing this tournament. They said they caught the fish on docks near deep water with 10 inch black worms, so that's where I started in my prefishing, but by the time the tournament came around I had come up with a better idea of where to catch fish as I tried new areas and zoomed in on the pattern I put together before the tournament began.

So this is how the tournament went, I showed up at Walsch Landing at 11:10 PM ready to get this show on the road. I was very excited about the tournament knowing I had hooked a bass over 5lbs on every trip I had made to Lake Austin leading up to the tournament. Before I could really get the boat prepped for launching, Mike showed up with rods and tackle in hand ready to go. We launched the boat and just sat in the boat for about 15 minutes just talking out the plan for the night (12:00AM to 8:00AM). We headed up the lake past 360 bridge and stopped on a row of docks just down form Ski Shores and started fishing the docks. I'd caught several fish in the 3 lb range here prefishing and was confident in this spot. We started fishing at 12:00 AM and about 12:15 Mike put us on the board with a 1.8 lb bass he caught on a watermelon jig. We fished the row of docks down the bank, up in a little creek and back out with nothing, but perch bites. Mike was probably thinking I was crazy at this point, because it was about 3:00AM and we only had one fish. I assured him the fish just weren't biting yet and as it got closer to 4:30 AM the action would pick up.

We made a long run up past City Park to a long strech of what appears to be a "nothing" bank. There are a few small docks without lights and a lot of trees, but the real key here is that there was grass in about 3 to 5 feet of water that quickly dropped off into 15 feet. We started fishing and Mike quickly picked up a 1.5 lb bass on his jig. On down the bank I flipped a watermelon brush hog rigged Texas style with a 1/4 oz slip sinker into the heart of a grass patch and felt my rod shake as if the bass was giving me a warm hello hand shake. It's the kind of hand shake that you'd get from an old friend. Glad to feel that shake, I set the hook and wrestled a nice 3+ lb bass from the grass. While I was putting it into the live well, Mike swung an missed a nice fish in the grass only a foot or two from where I'd just pulled out a fish. Five minutes later and I put another 3+ lb fish in the boat on the brush hog. We made our way down to the end of that area and decided it was worth another run, turned around and headed back through there. This time I used a white buzz bait and Mike stuck to his jig. I tagged a near keeper on the buzz bait next to some low hanging limbs. About midway through this spot Mike finished out our limit with another keeper weighing 1.7 lbs. I'm pretty pumped up, because it's only about 4:15 in the morning and we haven't even gotten to the prime time fishing yet. We finish the run and I tell Mike it's time to hit another set of docks with grass on them that produced good fish while I was prefishing.

We head back down the lake past City Park again on the way and pull up. I get a little foggy here in my details because I was pretty tired from being up all night. We fished our way down the docks and pick up a few fish a long the way and Mike upgrades our smallest fish, so the 1.5 lb fish was set free. We pull into a creek that Chris had caught the 4 lb fish out of two weeks before at dawn. Mike catches a bass out of the exact same spot and upgrades our limit again, so the 1.7 lb fish goes free. I turn the boat around and we fish out of the creek while chatting with some guys in another boat fishing a different tournament. They're telling us tall fish tales about a live well full of 5+ lb fish, Funny stuff. They blast off and we're sitting on the point trying to decide our next move and Mike sets the hook on a "toad" that never turns before breaking the line. I make a cast two feet to the left of where Mike lost his bass and set the hook on our big bass, 5.02 lbs see pic below. We continue fishing the area and Mike later hooks into a large bass that looked big based on the size of the head. The fish came to the surface during the fight, mouth open wide and shaking it's head hard enough to sling the jig free. A few minutes later I set the hook and put another keeper in the boat making our smallest fish 2.0 lbs even. We finish out the rest of the morning hitting a few other spots, I set the hook on another big fish and loose it when it wraps up on brush. We were so close to winning the tournament, any one of those three fish would have put us several pounds in the lead, but we can't complain, because it was great fishing no matter how you look at it. Congratulations to Kevin & Larry for the win.

Day in Review:

Total bass caught was somewhere around 20 with all, but one being greater than 14 inches long. Final weight was 17.21 lbs which is fairly consistent with what I've been catching on all the trips I've made lately. We caught the fish on watermelon bush hogs and watermelon jigs in 3 to 5 feet of water.

Right now is a great time to book a trip for night fishing on Lake Austin and I'm running a special that'll put you on the fish during the peak fishing hours.

Click for details - Summer Special

Lake Austin 7-21-05 PreTournament Fishing.

2005-07-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

I left Dell in Round Rock at 5:00 and picked up my boat on the way to the lake. I45/1325/Mopac/Loop 1, whatever you call it was stacked up, bumper to bumper as usual, so it was 7:30ish before I made it to Walsh Landing to launch my boat. Part of the traffic problem was caused by a rain shower moving through, but it had quit raining before I got to the ramps. The traffic didn't get me down though, I launched the boat and hit the reeds next to the launch. I started with a top water popper and switched to a watermelon brush hog after a few casts that didn't produce any action with the popper. The reeds didn't seem to be holding any fish willing to bite, so I packed up and headed up the lake to fish the bulk heads on the right side. I picked up a few short fish on the popper and brush hog fishing the main lake bulkheads, some of them may have been 14 inches, but I didn't bother to measure them. As the sun sunk down behind the hills, I headed up the lake past SkiShores to a set of boat docks and started fishing the grass out in front of the docks and boat houses. I saw three huge schools of shade out in 10 feet of water out infront of the docks. There were a few blow ups on the shad schools, so I gave them a shot only to have a white bass about 3 lbs follow my popper to the boat. I also had a large mouth about 3 or 4 lbs follow it as well, but neither would hit the lure. I ended up catching several bass over 3 lbs off the docks. The bass were holding off the end of the stalls next to the supports. I made another run futher up the lake in the dark past City Park to a patch of grass beds and docks there. I caught a few fish on the brush hog and switched to a white buzz bait. I caught two bass on the buzz bait fishing it over the top of the grass. Both were keepers and one of them was 5.2 lbs on my scale. I was definitely going to visit this spot again during the tournament the next night. That was pretty much it for the trip and I called it a night about 11:15 PM. Great fishing, skies were cloudy the whole time, and it was never over 80 degrees. I was the only person at Walsh Landing when I was loading the boat, so there wasn't anyone around to take a picture of the 5 lb fish I had or there would be a picture posted. :-(

Lake Austin 7-16-05

2005-07-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

I was jolted from sleep on Saturday morning at the sound of my name being whispered. I heard, "Hey Clint, what time are we going?" or something along those lines. I responded, "Give me just a couple of minutes and we're going." I realized at that moment, I'd set my clock for 3:45 PM instead of AM and the voice that jolted me from sleep was my brother-in-law, Jonathan. He was pretty excited about going bass fishing for the first time in years. I got dressed, grabbed food for the road, and we were headed for Lake Austin in minutes. I forgot to check my phone for the time when we launched, but I'm guessing it was somewhere around 4:30ish? Anyway we launch out of Walsh Landing to avoid the $10 launch fee at 360 bridge. I motored over to a well known big bass spot, and started fishing with a black spiner bait with a colorado blade. We came up dry there, I can only imagine at least half my club has visited this spot in the last week while prepping for the tournament coming up this weekend.

With thunder rolling from clouds in the distance, I thought we should just hit the high percentage spots in a effort to put Jonathan on some fish before it started raining. My objective for the morning was only half about prefishing for my tournament, I wanted to make sure this was a guide trip as well. Once daylight began to creep over the horizon, I told Jonathan to prepare to run and gun. Then I explained what we were going to do for the rest of the morning, we were going to stop at spots and only make a few selected casts that would result in fish quickly. It wasn't until our third stop that Jonathan hooked up with a nice 2 to 3 lb bass on a top water popper, it jumped and came unbuttoned after a nice little fight on a long cast. Several other spots along the way would result in a repeat of this performance, but Jonathan was having a great time even if he hadn't gotten one in the boat. At 7:30 AM, Jonathan landed his first bass and made his day. It wasn't anything to brag about size wise, but it was the first bass he's caught in a very long time. With that milestone achieved, and only 30 minutes to spare, we headed back down the lake and stopped at the last of my hot spots for this section of the lake. I picked up my first fish hear, 12 inch little fighter on a watermelon brush hog. It hit right next to a wall in about a foot of water. We worked the creek fairly quickly and I missed another fish. We moved out on the main lake at 8:00AM I put a call into the boss, to let her know we were on time. Kelly was gracious enough to grant us 30 more minutes of fishing as a result of the call. While I was on the phone, I landed another fish off a boat house with the brush hog. Jonathan was about to fall out of the back of the boat in laughter, because Kelly didn't even suspect I was still fishing... hehe. We pulled up on a dock with a little dog viscously guarding it, I over cast at it and nearly caught him. :-) This was a little entertaining and we both got a laugh at the prospect of, "what if." That little dog almost go my lure in his mouth. I made a more accurate attempt at the dock and set the hook on a large fish, I got a look at it once before it made a powerful surge and pulled the hook free. The big one that got away, based on my experience I'd guess the fish was over 5 lbs. :-) 8:30AM and we were done for the day, and as soon as we loaded the boat, it started raining. We headed off to have breakfast at Benny's Bagels with the kids and my wife.

Summer Special

2005-07-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Summer Special – End’s August 31st.

As a promotional summer special, due to HOT weather during day time hours I am willing to offer a reduced trip and rate.

4:30AM to 8:30AM for $150 on Lake Austin only.

Night time trips are really great this time of the year with the weather being clear most of the time and temps in the 70’s. Standard fees apply to other lakes or times.

Lake Austin 7-9-05

2005-07-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Got up early on Saturday morning at 3:30 AM and was out the door by 3:45 AM. I backed my boat down the street to the dead-end and picked up Chris. Chris and I headed out for a great morning of fishing on Lake Austin. The weather was perfect, clear sky but the moon wasn't visible at this time. I was lucky enough to see a shooting star while I was looking for the moon about 4:30 AM. We launched at the 360 bridge on Lake Austin and headed up the lake to fish some grass beds that are known for lunker bass. After fishing for about an hour with no luck Chris started us off about 5:30 AM with our first keeper, about 1 lb just over 14 inches on a watermelon Whodaddy rigged Texas style with a 1/4 oz slip sinker. A few casts later I picked up a 2 lb fish in the same area, with a watermelon brush hog rigged Texas style with a 1/4 oz slip sinker. We burned down the bank because the sun was starting to brighten up the horizon and I wasn't to the spot I wanted to be on yet. I picked up 3rd keeper weighing 4.8 lbs on a white buzz bait and it put a great fight where the paddle boat is sometimes docked. We fished an hour more before I picked up another keeper about 3 lbs across the lake on the other side from the paddle boat place, didn't officially weigh it. We ran up the lake to a small creek and Chris later finished out our limit of five keepers with a 4.1 lb fish on the scales, man was he excited about getting it in the boat. I am glad he caught it, I'd suggested a bait to him for the spot the bass was caught from but it didn't pan out. I was about to leave and Chris asked me to hold up while he tried flipping the Whodaddy and it paid off on the first cast. Just goes to show, when you think you know your fish and the spot, you don't. :-) I was glad to see the spot pay off for Chris. We called it a day pretty much at 8:00AM but there was a tournament weigh-in at 8:00 AM and they had the ramps pretty much taken over for the moment, so fish the creek next to the golf course for a little bit. One of the guys I talked to said they had a 7+ lb bass and a total limit of 22 lbs, 10 fish limit by the way. I saw lots of fish in the 2 to 3 lb range released and a few 4+ lb fish but no giant bass that we saw. Below are pics of the two big bass of the trip. I've read a report that a 13+ lb bass was caught over the weekend about 10PM, no sure what day and taken to Cabela's for display, because the Share Lunker program did not want the fish.