The weekend of 6/6 and 6/7 was the Berkley Big Bass Challenge. It was a big fish format using only Berkley baits on the Delta. Each hour 8 fish were paid and the largest of each hour would receive a key that at the end of day 2 would start a brand new Toyota Tundra! Needless to say our goal was for each of us to win a hour so we had two chances at the truck. Each person could only win one key so we would have a 2 in 12 chance to win the truck if we reached our goal. Saturday started off and we were throwing the Berkley version of a spook called a Frenzy Walker. We started catching fish right off up to about 4 pounds. Our game plan was to come in during hour two to have our best chance at winning a hour or at least a chance at cashing one of the hourly prizes. At our second stop we started punching the periwinkle weed with a 1 1/2 oz weight and a chigger craw. About 10 minutes in I get a "thunk" and set the hook, and its ON! I got a big fish stuck in the very thick weeds. I rear back on my Dobyn's 805 flipping stick as hard as I can to pull this fish up through the weeds and right in the waiting net! We knew it was around 7 pounds and would be enough to win one of the hours but when? This is where the strategy comes in. We thought for sure the first hour would have a big fish weighed and we were right, a 10.50 (which ended up being the biggest of the tourney) was weighed in during the first hour. We came in during the second hour and when we put her on the scale she weighed 7.33 pounds good enough to win the 2nd hour and $500. Awesome! After being held up for over an hour doing a polygraph test we head back out to get Bobby his fish. Well we didn't catch a good fish the rest of the day, so we went home to rest up for day two. On Sunday we basically did the same thing at the same areas as day one, but the bite was allot tougher as the wind died to nothing and was sunny after Saturdays cloudy windy weather. I ended up catching one fish just over 4 pounds and won another $100 but Bobby never did get that big bite we were looking for. So Sunday at the awards we all (12) draw a key to try in the truck. We lined up with the biggest fish going 1st. I think I was about 6th or 7th to try my key. With each guy trying his key and them not working my excitement was building all for NOT when the guy right in front of me started the truck and won it!! I was next to try my key
. Oh well still a great weekend fishing and $600 to show for it. 
Yesterday 6/13 Bobby D and I fished the last of the year ABA Delta circuit. It was going to be a close race for Anglers of the Year between us and another team with them leading by 6 points going in so we had our work cut out for us. We head out to the same spot that we fished the week before with the Frenzy Walkers. The wind was blowing very hard! Up to 30mph and we were not getting bit so I switch to something with a little more presents in the choppy water. I put on a rattling injected Black Dog Lunker Punker and it was "Game on"! The fish were crushing that bait! Some awesome top water bites. We had about 16 pounds in the boat in 30 minutes, As we come up to some floating weeds I pick up a frog and toss it between the bank and the weeds and "Swoosh" a nice 5 pounder grabs my frog! After a quick fight she is in the boat. We jump around to a few spots and catch some smaller fish and another 5 pounder on a senko. We are up to about 19 pounds but are still fishing hard to cull out another 3+ in the live well. Finally around 1:00pm we go back to our starting spot and with the tide down we could see all of the open lanes in the weeds so we decide to throw frogs and wake baits in the holes and lanes in the weeds and hope for one more big bite. About 15 minutes later I see a big bass dart out of a weed patch right at my wake bait! "Fish on"! Bobby D stellar on the net as usual and in the box she goes a nice 5 3/4 pounder and out goes a 3 pounder! Now we are up to 21+. We fish out the day and go in to weigh our fish. We were in the 2nd flight and when we weighed we had 21.68 and took the lead! But there was still 15 teams or so to weigh in so we didn't get too happy until the last boat weighed in and we had won! Then we find out that the team we were chasing had a tough day, so we won AOY too! Very cool. It was our 2nd in two years and 7th total. Bobby and I have been fishing together for 11 years now and I couldn't ask for a better partner. We fish as a "Team" really well and I look foreward to many more years fishing with Bobby. We would like to thank a few of our sponsors. Russo's Marina, The Hook Line & Sinker, Dobyn's Rods, Black Dog Baits, Bobby D's Baits and Lowrance. All of these company's help up to do what we love and have fun doing it.
Good fishing,
Mike
And we ended up donating. 
No work of fishing for 6 weeks and 6 months of rehab. 
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