Bass N' Tubes Sunrise Tournament - Aug 13, 2011

This was a great way to have a good time with a great bunch of guys, catch a few fish, win some money and still have the day for my family. The “sunrise” tournament BnT has held for the last couple years starts the day in darkness and ends when the sun just starts to get warm. 3AM-9AM was the hours and although I wouldn’t have minded a couple more hours on the water, it proved to be just enough for a great day.

There was 17 kickboats taking the water in the early morning at Middle River in the Delta. There was no wind, the temperature was warm and a full moon was lighting the sky. It just smelled like a great time to be out with nature and our little green friends!

Although I was tempted to hit Victoria Canal, I decided on my reliable “above the barrier” approach. Less pressure, no chance for boats and hopefully not everyone would be making the row. Turned out as I was right.

The fishing was not what I was expecting these first couple hours of our six hour tournament. No bites at all in the first two hours for me. Hmm. Looked like some of the hyacinth had grown like mad from what I was seeing. Much of the area I like to throw a frog or horny toad type of bait was covered thick. Only thing I could do with that was punching. I did do a little but it just didn’t feel right while night fishing!

Upcoming coming up on the 2^nd high spot in the middle, I finally got my first fish. Nothing to write home about but Deps frog did the trick! Another bite but that was all in the area. From there I went around the corner but another no go.

The glow of dawn was approaching so I decided to go back to the area of my first fish. It always seems to hold plenty of fish and was the only real area of activity thus far! It wasn’t long before I came back on it and talked to Scott R who said there was plenty of activity there but the fish were not quite cooperating. I experienced what he described while fishing right across from him with a nice couple blowups but nothing to show!

Activity around the high spot was growing along with my frustration. I decided to hit the point as I kept on seeing more fish munching on something. On one of my first cast out, a nice fish swiped at my frog! I set the hook but thought I missed it when I realized it was coming towards me!! Yikes! I ended up getting the fish to the boat quickly and it looked to be a nice chunky 3 lber. Nice! After a couple more casts with the frog I grabbed the LC Gunfish and fired a long cast out. I used a quick cadence and as I was about to take the lure out of the water….KAWHAM! A shower of water hit me and with only a couple feet of line out I had to release some line to make sure I didn’t pull the hooks out of the fish! Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get to the net and I was a little disappointed it wasn’t bigger but still excited with the explosive strike and #3 in the well.

For about the next two hours I was getting numerous strikes but no hookups on either the frog or Gunfish. A couple fish looked to be pretty solid and I thought they would be on when I swung but nothing.

Time was starting to run out so I started doing some quick punching and frog throwing trying to cover some water and get #5 in the well. As I hit the barrier only 20 minutes remained so I knew my last best chance was the weeds and tulles across from the launch area. I breathlessly arrived with only 5 minutes to do and started doing the quick punching again hitting specific “sweet” spots. With 2 minutes to go I felt a surge and set the hook into one! It hit the top of the mats so I quickly threw my rod into the water, grabbed the line and pulled out a smaller than expected fish out of the weeds. Yes! Keeper #5 with less than a minute to go!

This turned out to be crucial as I ended in 2^nd place only 0.20 lbs ahead of Troy who only had 4 fish but it included a 6lber which was big fish of the tournament (weights have been low on the delta this year in general). Jeff Wilson took home first with a bit over 15lbs for 5 and my weight was around 14.70 lbs.

A great day on the water and I was home before 11AM!

Here's a writeup as well from "Jody Only" - http://www.examiner.com/fishing-in-stockton/bass-n-tubes-battle-for-bass-on-the-california-delta

July 23rd – WRL Clear Lake Delta/Wine Region event

We are starting to come near the end of this years tour de WRL Delta/Wine region! This was a critical event for Gee and I to try to make up a few additional points on the AOY race to have a good shot when we head back to the Delta in August.

Gee spent a few hours prefishing the two days leading up to the event but did not find any particular pattern that seemed to be giving up good fish. Only one area produced well enough to warrant a “for-sure” spot but it was going to be a kind of fly-by-our-pants type of event once again.

We drew #19 which happened to be the very last boat out of 80 or so boats entered into the tournament. This would give us a little extra time to fish but we figured most of our potential spots on the lake would be hit before we even launched. We made a last second decision to hit my spot at Boat Works for our first destination.

Three boats were in the vicinity of Boat Works but none happened to be in the sweet spot. Nice! We pulled up and immediately got the jigs and topwater out and made our way around the rocks and entrance. As Gee worked around I got a chance to throw to the sweet spot and immediately noticed my line moving in the wrong direction. Yes! I get a quick swing and bring in our first fish of the day in our first 5 minutes of fishing! The fish was only about 2.5 lbs but nice to get it out of the way. After a few more casts we head out to our next destination.

Fraser was supposed to be the spot (Gee didn’t know the name) but 5 boats were surrounding it so no go there. Thankfully this was on the way to the area I hit with Phil Garcia the previous weekend when I fished the TBF event so on we went. The boat Phil mentioned was already on the area but only concentrating on one spot. Nice. There was activity from bass feeding but after spending over 30 minutes on it, nothing.

We tried to go to Fraser again but boats were still on so we decided on Konocti Harbor point. As we headed there we noticed a boat going towards it but not exactly on the point. We managed to get the point harbor side all to ourselves for a few minutes and I promptly landed a long and skinny 5 lber on the jig once again. We pounded the side some more but noticed a boat coming from the other side so I told Gee to move to the point and we would cast to the opposite side to deter the other boat from making a move. Good call as my first cast had my line moving off again and another 2.5 lber made it’s way aboard. We spent quite a bit more time here with lots of bait on the graph but could not muster another bite.

This time we decided to cover some of the water on the shore along with a dock that had produced in the past. Nothing going there so the next spot to the North we went which was a private area surrounded by big rocks and docks. On my first cast to the shady side I got a distinct ‘tap’ and set the hook on a solid 3 lber. Nice! We spent a good amount of time on the side and front but nothing more until we hit the other side and I get our limit fish on the jig once again.

Our next excitement came when we finally went back to Fraser and had it to ourselves. The limit was nice but we knew we had to do some upgrading . On the outside a small rockpile in about 30 feet of water was a target Gee had mentioned. In the process of working on getting some liquid in my system I threw a dropshot overboard and suddenly had a nice one load up Gee’s spinning gear! He didn’t think much of it until it started taking some line a couple times and grabbed the net. When we finally did get it in the boat it turned out to be our 2^nd biggest fish of the day right around 4lbs!

Gee lost one here on the Carolina rig but we could not get any other fish to go.

After spending a significant amount of time there we hit a couple other spots but was running out of ideas. In the end we decided on a deep rocky area across from Monitor Island to work the rest of our day. The tournament was coming to a close for the 1^st couple flights and before we knew it, 4 of the boats in the area left! We had it to ourselves and it seemed the fish were starting to bite. Well, they bit but many were seemingly just trying to kill the jig so missed strikes abounded. After Gee lost one that came to the surface I finally got one to hook up for our last fish of the day and helped cull our 2.5 lber to 3 lbs.

At the end of the day we had a respectable 17.75 lbs for 12^th place and another check! We didn’t realize at the time but this helped us gain another 10 points on the top AOY team to put us within 20 points of AOY title. Here’s hoping we do good at the last event of the season on the Delta and they don’t do good! J