What a weekend. It started with confirming all the reservations for room and board for 15 qualifiers. Then prefishing on Friday. I started with my State Classic locations and they were slow, to slow to win any thing. So Mr. Stansbury passed on a little information that helped place me in the write area of the lake. That was near the huge clouds of bait fish. So I drove around and found bait fish in three area's.The clouds of these bait fish were huge. Millions of 2" & 3" shad swimming in formation.
So on day #1 I fished two area's down south and I missed my round tube while reloading all my gear to move from one hot spot to another. While putting in I had bait flipping and flopping every where and huge swirls in the skinny water from what I assumed were toads. As soon as I was in the water a giant swirl sounded off to my left. I grabbed my war eagle rod and on the third or fourth cast of day #1, BINGO. 9.1 pounder is pulling a little drag with one good head out of the water head shake. Then it came straight in to my thumb. I then nailed two more fish on my LVR while Yo Yoing it. Then I tried a number of baits before I pulled out the fish trap swim bait. This bait was the ticket for me as the fish eat them up. I had a limit just before sun up. Then the boat were on me, but thet were all cool. They watched as I landed several chunky fish while fishing in the Bass Tech Southfork boat. I watched them pull up and use all kinds of baits with no luck. I passed off some of my swimbaits and watched these boaters catch a few fish. Jay and Kevin pulled up to say hi so I was able to share my toad with them. I then loaded up the boat and fish and ran to my second hot spot.
There I culled a few fish with the same swimbait. I would cast the bait into 15' to 20' of water in the area where the bait fish were. Then I would let it sink on a slack line directly to the bottom. I would simply just slow roll the bait back a slow as I could. I would get slammed about every 20 or 30 minute's. I only caught a few fish in the 2 pound range as most were the better part of 3 pounds and up.When all the fish were weighed I ended up with 22 pounds and some change.
After checking every one into their rooms at the Skylark it was time for some food. We put the Pizza Parlor behind us and went to T-N-T Mexican food restaurant. This was a sign of the changes our club and organization is enjoying. All the food and Margarita's were great! Not to mention the shot's.It was a good thing that I walked to restaurant.
Day #2 I passed my first area up as a fellow angler pulled into my secret parking spot. My second spot was clear of anglers and the baitfish were jumping. After getting in the water in noticed there wasn't near the bait fish as the day before. So I pulled out the blade for a little while before the sun came up, but nothing was happening. Then the swimbait came back out and wham, fish on. The limit came quickly and only a few boats showed up, but they where cool and I did give them a few baits too. They started catching fish with them as soon as they started throwing them.Casting in the area of the shad and letting it sink into at least 15' of water on slack line then the slow retrieve seemed to be the ticket. I never got bit while burning any baits or working the middle of the water column. Water was 58 - 59 degree's.
We weighed in order of lowest weight first and up.I was waiting to see someone come up with some toads, but as they weighed in one at a time and I didn't see any monsters.Then I weighed in 21 pounds with big fish of 6 pounds. I'm totally stoked and to be honest I can't believe how you can have a few mediocre years and then BANG your on fire.I would like to thank Bill Sweatt for supporting me as VP through out these two growing years and backing me up in some rough water. Thanks also go out to Mike Ayers for weighing in all those fish and keeping up our award winning web page. And for getting our trophies for every tournament. Thanks to Russ Stansbury for keeping our finances straight. These officers helped build this club along with all our members who showed up at the monthly meetings and the event's. It was a long 10 lake tour. And thanks to the B-N-T crew for there support of the sport we all love. I can't forget Deren Kozenko for pulling his Ranger up to help release our fish. To be a part of this thing call the Sonoma County Belly Boat Bass Club is unreal. My brother was at the very first turkey shoot that Roland Rich put on at Sanj. When he heard what the 2007 TOC 1st place was paying and where we all were staying and eating he was shocked. He said he never would have imagined this club would still be around let alone be paying $1000.00 with a no entry fee tournament.
If you thought this was a fun year while running legally and fishing with an average of 30 anglers at each event then your really going to like 2008.Thank you every one for every thing. And thank you all for making the Sonoma County Belly Boat Bass Club a great organization to be part of.
