My CBC experience (Very Long)

[Levy]

First off I want to say thanks to Tom and Andy for putting on and running a great event. My partner Dave and I had a great experience in our Delta qualifying tourney and the finals at New Melones was as fun as it could get. I am very sad to see the CBC teams go away and really hope CBC singles grows and becomes successful so Tom can bring back the team event. The CBC tourneys are the best thing going right now IMHO and I look forward to fishing in next year’s solo event.

We entered the Delta CBC team event on a whim as we were fishing anyway and the cost was very reasonable. We ended up catching 13+ lbs that day and figured we were right on the bubble to qualify. Well it turns out we qualified easily (2nd) and started to plan for the championships.

As neither of us had ever fished New Melones we told ourselves we would go up there a few times a month to prepare for the championships. Well life happens and we only made it to the lake once which was back on Dec 2010 when we went out with Johnny C. to pick his brain and see the lake. (I highly recommend Johnny C. if you are fishing any of the motherload lakes. He is very knowledgeable and a great guy. His lures don’t suck either) Well it turns out the lake we saw back in December is now a completely different lake in March. It is now almost full and when we went in December it was much much lower.

We made plans to go up to Melones 2 days early to prefish some and learn more about the lake before the event. After our ABA delta event last weekend we took out the map of the lake and discussed our strategy. (Thank goodness Dave had a paper map as our Navionics chip in our GPS unit does not have any data for New Melones, it only showed the old lake so it was useless). We figured that based on the time of year and expected temps we would 1st look for likely spawning areas and areas leading to them. We also decided to check out creeks arms leading in and out of Melones that might have moving water.

Day 1 prefish -We arrive to Melones on Wednesday morning and immediately head to the south end of the lake to find some spawners/pre-spawners. Well 4 hours later we have not gotten a bite nor have we marked many fish. We decide to go to plan B and take out the map to find the closest creek. Turns out we are very near Morman creek so we head there. We go to the very back of the creek where water is coming into the lake and start fishing. We get bites on most everything we throw (Toad thrashers, jigs and brush hogs) and see some followers (2-3 LBs) that are the size we think we need. (we thought going in that 10-12 LB a day would be enough weight) Our bites or followers come in water depths from 1 to 15 feet but could'nt get any deeper fish to bite. Next we went to all other creek entrances off the main lake where there was water flowing. We caught fish or got bit in all of them and were very confident that we now have some sort of plan for gameday.

Day 2 prefish – after day one we decide to run up the river to investigate and fish all creeks looking to repeat the previous day’s bite. We arrive to the first creek up the river by going right at the Y in the river. We start fishing the area in front of the log jam and catch a trout. We notice that in our 60HP aluminum Bass tracker that we could probably work our way through the log jam and fish water that no one else can get to. We are pumped and start fishing our way back to where the water is running in the river. After we fish for about 10 minutes my partner notices the water temp is down to 46 degrees (it is in the mid 50’s everywhere else we have fished including the front area of the log jam.) We can’t get a fish in the cold water so we leave looking for more creeks. We travel as far as we can go up the river until we get completely blocked by logs and notice the water temp continued to decrease the farther we went. Not having nearly the same success in the river creeks that we had in the main lake creeks we decide to forego the river on gameday and head back to the main lake to check out the Dam area. No luck at the dam we head back to Morman to see if we could get a deeper bite going just outside the shallower water. We both feel that the creeks will all be loaded with competitor boats as we saw numerous boats in every creek we prefished. Bingo we figure out how to catch some of these deeper fish using jigs and brush hogs so we now have a primary and secondary area and a primary and secondary pattern. We finished up the 2nd prefish day fishing both the north and south end spawning areas again and still do not locate or catch any fish. Our plan is now set.

Our plan is to fish the creek channels closest to moving water in 1-15 feet. The secondary plan is to fish just outside of these areas in 15-35 feet of water if there are others fishing our primary water. We plan to start in Morman and if we are not successful or if it is too crowded we would head to Coyote creek and then to Angels creek if necessary.

Gameday day 1 – We are in the first flight but with our slow *** boat we get passed by everyone in the field. Still expecting the back of Morman to be crowded with boats you could imagine our excitement when we arrived and there were 0 boats in the area. My partner catches fish number 1 in the first few minutes and then shortly after I catch a 3.5 on a toad thrasher swimming it on the bottom. We catch a few more fish then my partner catches a 2.5 on a brush hog. We end up catching about 75 fish this day and our 5 other fish average about 1.5 LBS. We end up day 1 with 13.74 LBS and in 4th place and never left Morman creek.

Gameday day 2 – Very satisfied with our day 1 we stick with the same plan. When we finally arrive in the back of Morman creek we see another boat in our honey hole. #@%!. We start fishing the deeper water adjacent to the channel and watch the other boat catch fish after fish after fish. We keep telling each other not to worry about it as we can’t get down and just need to concentrate on what we have to do. The fishing started off much slower than the previous day. After about an hour my partner say’s fish on. We net a beautiful 4+ LB spot and say to each other we are staying here the rest of the day regardless of the other boat. Shortly thereafter I catch a 15 ounce jig fish in deep water but nothing else for awhile. We start chatting with the other team that is fishing the back of the creek and they tell us they are right behind us in the standings. We continue to watch them catch fish after fish. #@%!… Finally they start working their way out of the creek to go to another spot and we finally get to fish our confidence spot. Well not too long after I catch 3 keeper swimbait fish in 1 – 5 feet of water (biggest was 2.4 LBS) and my partners brush hog start’s to get action as well. After this I can’t get any action on my jig or swimbait so I switch to my sissy stick for the first time all week. It is filled with braid to an 8LB floro leader. All other reels we used this week are spooled with 15LB floro which we use on the delta. Once I start dropshottin it is game on for those little fish. When we were in the right fishing zone that dropshot worm (did not matter what size or color) got bit every time probably catching more than 50 fish and missing twice as many bites. Biggest dropshot fish was a 1.5LB largie. We filled out our limit around 11 or 12 and worked on upgrading throughout the afternoon. At about 2:30 with about 45 minutes left to fish, we have about 12-13 LBS and Dave says “we need a big fish so I am going to use my big fish bait” his big fish bait was a normal size brushhog on a C-rig instead of a split shot baby brush hog. 15 minutes later at about 2:45 he yells fish on, it’s a big one!!! We net the fish and it is a big Largemouth 6.5 LBS, now we have 18 + LBS for the day. The 2 of us are absolutely giddy after this.

Final weigh in – Tom is doing a drive through weigh in which was a first for me and was well done overall. Our family is at the weigh in watching everybody weight there fish and keeping us up to date on the weights. We hear about the 10LBer caught as well as the 18+ stringer so we figure we are out of luck on any option money but really believe we can get 2nd or 3rd place. Finally we get to the weigh in spot and the crowd does not know what to think (some were laughing) after watching all of the other nice rigs with 200 HP and up motors and all of the sudden we show up in our beat up (fished in) Bass tracker with a 60 HP motor. Dave reaches in and begins to bag our fish and the crowd notices the 3 nice fish and things get quiet. Tom weighs our fish and they go 18.5 LBS 32.5LBs total for the tourney taking the lead that was very short lived. The day one leaders weighed in right behind us with 13LBs so we knew we were not winning but had a legit shot at 2nd. Finally after the weigh in was done we checked the board and realized we did in fact get 2nd place.

The best part of the tourney was having our family there sharing in our experience. My favorite part of the weigh in was hearing the 3rd place team state “it was those guys in the crappy bass tracker who beat us for 2nd” with me standing right next to them

Final thoughts
–
1. The CBC is the real deal and is a circuit I will recommend and support. No More BullS#!t as Howard would say.
2. Johnny C (California reservoir lures) is the man when it comes to guiding and his baits. The toad thrasher swimbait is the best swimming swimbait I have ever seen. I purchased 4 for the event (2 Casper and 2 motherload trout) and I only lost 1 all week despite fishing it on or near the bottom the entire time. Still not sure how those #1 trebles did not hang up more. Overall, I probably got about 20 bites and caught 3 fish on the thrasher during day 1 prefish but it was the good size fish that showed themselves following or nibbling on the swimbait that helped us decide where to fish. I also caught our biggest day 1 fish and 3 key keepers on it the final day. After this I will be getting more Toad Thrashers for the Delta. His Spider series jigs kicked *** as well. I caught all of my 2nd day prefish fish on the Green pumpkin or skulpin jig’s with matching trailer. I also caught all of my Day 1 fish except for the 1 swimbait fish on these same jigs.
3. Angels Inn is a very reasonable boat friendly place to stay and Angels Camp is very nice with more than enough places to eat a nice dinner.
4. Glory Hole Sports is outstanding. Nice friendly people with everything a fisherman could need for Melones.
Congrats to all of the CBC teams who qualified and showed up to fish. For those who qualified and did not come and fish thanks for the donation.

To the winners Lockhart/Hinkle you definitely deserved it after that amazing 23 LB day 1 sack. We knew we were dead when we saw you guy’s catch a couple nice fish near us towards the end of the day. Next time could you please only catch like 15 LBs on day one so we all have a chance

Finally I want to thank my partner who is an outstanding fisherman (even though he refuses to make leaders in advance) for sharing the experience. Our styles definitely complement each other.

Jon Levenson

[20sack]

Well deserved, great job guys!!! Keep that area we fished last week on the delta quite, it's still loaded and remember... stay off my water:)

Sal

[Marty]

Jon, one outstanding story, well written and keep me reading - thanks

[Long Nguyen]

Thanks for sharing the experience. It felt as if I was right there on the boat with you.

[Caudawg]

Congratulations Jon and Dave. That was a great write-up, Jon. Keep 'em coming!

Come tournament day, it's all about making the right decisions. It's cool to see how others make decisions good or bad.

[Rod Wynn]

Jon, one outstanding story, well written and keep me reading - thanks

I agree.. Good read and well written..

[norcalbones]

Great story & Congrats !! Especially out fishing the guys in the high dollar chrome barges. Funny, The fish have no idea how much someone spent on their boat !

[Levy]

Sal, I will do my best to stay off your water and Focus on MINE

Thanks for the kind words guys.

[Long Nguyen]

Sal, I will do my best to stay off your water

Sal has water? I thought the only water he knew was the pond in his backyard??

[meagain]

Jon,
Nice job on the report. and congrats on second.Hey lets run back up to clear lake

[Levy]

Jon,
Nice job on the report. and congrats on second.Hey lets run back up to clear lake

Thanks. I am down. Hoping to have a new boat soon!!!

[20sack]

Sal, I will do my best to stay off your water

Sal has water? I thought the only water he knew was the pond in his backyard??

I wish I could get back there during tourney time