On Thursday I launched out of Russos and Hooray! I finally found some in the tract. They were eating a chatterbait on a wonderful sunny day. I had about 17lbs that day, and a striper about 7 lbs. Ok that settles it. I contacted Josh and he was out too. Not doing well but getting a few. Was the bite turning on? Maybe.
On Friday I decided to go out in the south for a few hours in the morning. Again, I found them in a heavily pressured area where I dumped one about 7 at the boat.......again on a senko. I was fishing it wacky style on a Tsuyoi weedless wacky hook I got from the owner last year at Holland Marina. I was so impressed with the hook up ratio and the weedleyness (is that even a word
) I ordered a bunch from TW. (the rubber o ring failed on the dumped fish) OK I said this is it, but the 2 locations are so far apart. On my way back to RE, and am ready to tie the boat and get the Roush I notice about a 2 1/2 ton sea lion on the dock, warming him or her self, the fur turning a golden color. No I know why people used to hunt these things and seals for their fur. It was beautiful, when it dawns on me.........when does my license expire. When looking at my license it expired a few days ago, so its off to Big 5 in Livermore. Now all is right with the world.
Tournament Day
Josh and I decide to make the run down to Franks. Of course that dark cloud that hoovers above my head has the wind blowing 15 MPH, making boat control difficult. We were there 10 minutes when Josh catches the first fish a 3lnr on a crank bait, a little while later he gets one on a jig. Around and around we go on this spot, but the wind is repositioning the fish and we can't figure out where they are. So off we go to Widows. Its about 1100. There are only 2 boats in there when we arrive and one of them is Christian Ostrander. I'm thinking if he's here we must be in a good spot. We fish hard in the spot where I lost the 7 the day before. Christian has left and there are only Josh and I and the other boat. I tell Josh we need to stickit out until and hour after the switch, when I feel that familiar tic. Set the hook the rod loads up and 2 seconds later pop slack line and no bait. Here we go again I'm thinking. Josh catches another small fish on a crankbait. We then navigate to another area in the pond and I bang about a 3 on a senko. For the next hour we are consistently catching fish and make one cull. I ask Josh how long it'll take us to get back and he says 45min. I tell him let's go and we can stop a couple of places on the way back. with less then 15 minutes to go and about 5 minutes from Ladds, we stop at a place I fished with Zack Thompson years ago in a Forrest Wood Open and he slayed them on frogs in that area. As we enter into the pond I tell Josh this looks like buzzbait water. On his second cast with about 2 minutes to go for us to leave, a 4 lbr clobbers the buzzbait. Last minute heroics? We'll see.
Weigh in
We were next to Brett and Caleb and they were smiling so we figured they had a good bag. (watch his video on Friday it should be fun) Anyway we weigh in 13.96 good for 7th place and a check. Congratulations to Brett abd Caleb on the win. Oh and here's a rather amusing tale from Angelo and AJ. Apparently AJ caught a 9 on a spinnerbait which was there first fish. Well they never caught another fish in that are and ran up to Paradise where Angelo was able to chatterbait a small limit, but on the way back after Angelo said he asked AJ if they had enough gas and AJ said "plenty"........they ran out of gas.
Congratulations to them for finishing second. There were 3 16 lb bags, 3 14 lb bags and out 13.96 to get paid. BF 8.78According to Josh, We made the TOC, so we'll see them all on May 3rd. There is a 1 week off limits for this one which should be interesting.
TL
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