With the Region 7 tourney that was happening yesterday, some of our regular contenders were off fishing that event. And who can blame them, with a guaranteed 1st-place prize of $1,000? That's not exactly chump change--at least not in my books.
We still managed to draw 11 boats with 18 competitors to fish one of the best weather events we've seen so far this year.
Topping the leaderboard yesterday, and fishing their first event of the 2015 season, was this team of (from left) Mark Cable and John Matyiko. Their 1st-place sack of five fish weighed 14.40 lbs., anchored by a 4.62-lb. bass that just missed being the day's lunker.
Finishing in 2nd place was Ronnie McLaughlin, who weighed five bass with a total weight of 12.64 lbs. His big fish--and lunker of the day--tipped the scales at 4.69 lbs.
Claiming 3rd-place honors was Steve Bailey, with five fish weighing 11.93 lbs. His big bass came in at 3.93 lbs. Incidentally, I do like your ball cap, Steve.
Winner of the day's mystery-weight drawing was the team of Bob Glass and Randy Conkle (not pictured). Their five bass weighed 5.52 lbs., and the weight drawn was 5.25.
Here is how everyone else stacked up on the leaderboard:
* The team of Gary Coderre and Lenny Hall, five fish, 11.76 lbs. total weight, 3.95-lb. big bass.
* The team of Dave Meers and Nate Kilgore, five fish, 7.49 lbs. total weight, no big bass. Unfortunately, this team was a couple minutes late getting into the boat basin for weigh-in and, therefore, was disqualified.
* Chris Fretard, five fish, 6.70 lbs. total weight, no big bass.
* The team of Jim Wilder and Chris Vitovich, five fish, 6.23 lbs. total weight, no big bass.
* The team of Rob Chatham and Ken Testorff, four fish, 4.86 lbs. total weight, no big bass.
* Duane Kessel and the team of Nathan and Marjorie Gottsch didn't weigh any fish.
The grand totals on the day were 44 bass caught, with a total weight of 81.53 lbs., for an average weight per fish of 1.85 lbs.
At this stage of the season, we already have a total of 9 anglers who have fished the required four events and thereby are qualified to fish our season-ending two-day Classic contest Oct. 17th and 18th. These anglers include: Al Napier, Rob Chatham, Ken Testorff, Randy Conkle, Bob Glass, Steve Bailey, Gary Coderre, Jim Wilder, and Chris Fretard.
Congratulations to all of yesterday's winners and thanks to everyone who came out and fished with us. For planning purposes, our next event is scheduled for Saturday, June 6, from safe light (probably about 5:45) to 2 p.m. I hope you can join us.
We ultimately got tired of just stirring the water and left for another area that was good to us last year. Once again, we started back through the same series of baits that had failed us earlier, and guess what--they failed us again. It wasn't until I picked up a worm and started throwing it that business finally picked up...duh. On about my second cast, I felt that distinctive tap, tap, then saw my line moving off. The subsequent hookset sent a bass tail-walking across the water, which was good enough to dislodge the hook. Not more than three or four casts later, I had the same thing happen again.
By now, Rob was scrambling for his worm rod. And it wasn't long before we both were consistently finding and sticking fish. Our only problem was that we couldn't keep them buttoned once we had hooked them. At day's end, we only had added three more small keeper bass to the livewell--all of them coming on worms.
At least, my cluster headache, which had kept me awake the whole night before, finally was gone, and I was a little sore from kicking myself in the butt for not reading the worm signal sooner than I did, but as I told Rob, there's always the next time. And while there's really not too much that I like about Mike Iaconnelli, I do like his piece of advice that goes like this: Never Give Up!
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