The second
tournament of the Mother Lode Division of the Best Bass Tournaments Circuit was
held on Saturday, February 14, 2015 at New Melones.
The event
blasted off two small boats and 67 large boats for a total of 69 boats. This was a fantastic turnout. Boat number
5 was the first to leave after the 2 small boats. The two small boat s along with boat number 5
thru 19 were to return at 3:00 p.m., boats 20-36 at 3:15p.m., boats 37 thru 53
at 3:30p.m., and boats 54 thru 67 and 1 thru 4 at 3:45 p.m.
PREPPING FOR
THE EVENT
At about
2:30p.m., one of our staff teams that were up at the Lake pre-fishing came into
the camp grounds for the evening. Kevin
was able to talk to them about his ideas on the next day's activities and how
they would handle the registration and boat checks in the morning. After business it was time for a little
visiting and fun. The Bar-B-Q was setup
and dinner was started. After a nice
dinner we were ready to call it a day.
The sun had gone down and our eye lids were getting heavy.
TOURNAMENT
MORNING
At 2:45a.m.
Saturday morning the alarm went off and we were up and ready to face the day's
activities. The generator was taken out and the coffee
was started. Another table was setup for the coffee pot
and homemade goodies.
The excitement
that the anglers brought with them was catchy and made for a fast morning. I can't say enough about the wonderful anglers
we have in the Mother Lode Region and how many Happy Valentine Day wishes I
received. I want to thank the husband
and wife team, Glenn and Shelley Sargent, for the bouquet of flowers they
brought me. The flowers made the trip
home safe and I am enjoying them as I type this story.
AWARDS
The weigh-in
is a very exciting time. You never know
what to expect. Are the anglers going to
bring in the big pigs or the little pigs?
Well our weigh-in Saturday was great.
We didn't expect very many spectators but we were wrong and we had about
forty family members and friends at the weigh-in. It is always great to see families and friends
come out to support the anglers. By 2:45
p.m. we were ready for the anglers to come in and come in they did. One by one our weigh master put the fish on
the scales. As a matter of fact we had
the biggest bag of fish ever weighed in on our scales. The winning team brought in over 35 pounds of
fish. The boats came in and the fish
were weighed and Kevin called the scales closed at 4:10 p.m.
Back up to
the parking lot to tally up the winnings and give out the awards. A table was setup and Diamond Nuts were put
out for the anglers along with the leftover goodies from the morning. Then Kevin started the awards with a
giveaway. The Wear-it Campaign gives a
life vest to one of the teams and that lucky team was boat number 21, John
Myers and Don Longton. Now comes the fun part, giving the money
away.
TOP-3 &
BIG FISH DETAILS
The father
and son team of Andy and Don Stilley both of Ceres
came in with four bags of fish. That's right this team
weighed-in five fish at 35.75 pounds.
Andy and Don took first place in the tournament and second place Big
Fish at 10.09 pounds for total winnings of $2,865.00. These anglers used Hudds with a
ROF 12, while fishing the main lake.
As Andy went back to release his fish you could hear him shouting,"
we did it dad!" Keep up the good
job anglers.
Second place
went to the team of David Homan and Scott Summers both of Denair. These anglers came in with five fish
weighing-in at 23.91 pounds. In this bag
of five fish was the third place Big Fish at 8.45 pounds for a total winning of
$1,665.00 for the day. David and Scott
fished mid-Lake and used swimbaits and worms while, dragging slowly on the
bottom between 15 and 25-ft. Scott
would like to thank his wife Shila and his family
Spencer and Sophie for all their support and encouragement. Great job anglers.
The team of
Collin DeGough, from Fresno and Jace DeGough from Madera took third place when
they brought in five fish weighing 22.37 pounds. Included in their five fish was fourth place
Big Fish at 6.49 pounds. Collin and Jace
took home $980.00. These anglers slow
rolled swimbaits (Hudds) and umbrella rigs, while fishing the main lake. Keep up the good work.
First place
big fish went to the team of Corey Lewis and Frank Hastle for their catch weighing-in
at 10.31 pounds. This beauty gave the
anglers $550.00.
Out of sixty
nine boats we had only one boat not weigh-in.
There was a total of 329 fish caught for a total combined weight of
674.55 pounds. Great job anglers.
I always
like to share a good story and this tournament we had a good one. Our first place team was so excited about
their fish that as Andy carried his fish to the scales we told him to place the
fish into the bump tank while Dave finished weighing the angler before
him. Not only did he place the fish in
the tank he also released one of them.
In the excitement of doing that Andy almost jumped into the bump tank to
re-catch and bag the runaway fish. But
that's not all, after weighing in the fish and taking pictures we again told
him to take his fish to the bump tank and put water in the bags. This time Andy released two fish into the
bump tank and it took three guys to re-bag the fish. What a sight to see Andy, Kevin and Dave
trying to catch fish in the bump tank.
Everyone had a good laugh and Andy good job catching those beautiful
fish.
APPRECIATION
We would
like to thank our weigh master Dave Orange, his finance Beth for her help with
the registration and paperwork, and our boat staff teams Mike Martinez and Tom
Fishburn, and Rich Hale and Jim Henry for all their support and help. Thank you also to the many anglers that have
taken the time to tell us that we are doing a good job and that they enjoy
fishing our tournaments.
The next
tournament for the Mother Lode Region will be held on Saturday, March 14, 2015
at New Melones.
Advertising