The Weather: It was a sunny day in the low 80's with light wind in the morning picking up to about 10MPH out of the South in the afternoon.
Here are a couple of Snatchers (Darren and Owen) waiting for blast off:
On the phone my boater Art sounded confident we would get fish but before blast off he informed me that he thought he would be lucky to get a limit under the expected weather conditions.
We blasted off a little before 8AM from the Government Point Public Access and we headed SW to Wilson Bay where we stopped on a weed flat on the South side of Hunters Point. There was a light ripple on the water and I started off throwing a buzzbait, but eventually switched to a purple Berkley Frenzy Popper. After about 7 minutes I put a 12.5 incher in the boat. That fish was followed by a 13.5", 12.75", 13.75" that totally went airborne when it hit, and 13.10" that started bleeding pretty good so I threw it back. We got off the flat and as we were making our way back on I threw a smoke tube along the deep weedline and got a 13". I started throwing the Popper again and got a 12.5" and a couple of shorts. At this point we were about an hour into the tournament. My partner Art had two fish at this point. The wind died and so did the action on top. I think I got a couple of fish that did not help on the tube.
Around 10:30AM we made a move to Green Lake which is a small round bay ringed by slop and docks. I pulled a 15.75" on a black blue jignpig on the edge of pads and slop. I got a couple that didn't help on a bubblegum Zoom Super Fluke off the docks and slop. Eventually I started throwing the smoke tube out into deeper water and I culled up to a 13" and got a few more that didn't help. Once we fished around the bay, we made a run to a spot on the South end of Wilson that had rice and pads near deeper water. Art had a fish miss his topwater frog. He had me throw in with a jig and I pulled out another 12.5" that didn't help. As we made our way down the rice I had a good fish swirl on my jignpig as I was swimming it but it didn't get hooked. Eventually we moved to a weed flat were I had a fish rise to but not hit the Frenzy Popper and Art got a couple of keepers.
We probably spent the last 3 hours back at our starting spot. On the first pass I threw a black spinnerbait because the wind was blowing pretty good and I got a small pike, a rock bass, a short and a 12.5 plus I lost one that was most likely a 12 incher. On the next pass I tried a chatter jig without any luck. Art pulled out to the deep weed edge and started catching fish, so I went back to the smoke tube and started catching fish; some short, some keepers that didn't help, and my final cull with a 13.5. I caught quite a few fish in the last 3 hours. Art filled his limit and culled a couple of times fishing with a red jigworm.
At around 20 to 4PM we headed in to Ernie's where we would have the weigh in. We tied the boat up on the dock and Art took this picture of my biggest fish which cut off my head.
Art went to the bar to get a drink and I decided to throw a cast out towards a dock with some boat lifts that was within casting range with the tube. I had a fish nail the tube but I didn't hook up. I couldn't get a re-strike as our tournament boats started coming in.
My 6 fish ended up weighing 8lbs 7ozs which put me in 12th place out of 24 guys. My boater Art had 7lbs 9ozs, so this is the 3rd time out of 12 Bass Snatcher tournaments where I "back seated" my boater. The tournament was won with 13lbs 4ozs caught by 2009 Baxter Bass Snatchers Mr. Bass Dennis Lothspeich which made this his 3rd win of the year. I back seated Dennis at Pelican this year.
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