I had another great tournament again and very excited to have made the Top 10 once again. What a humbling year so far for me and I so appreciate all the support I have been getting from all my friends, family, sponsors, and fellow anglers. The Delta didn’t let us down as far as big fish but the quality bites were far few in between with lots of little fish everywhere. We experienced some cold rainy windy conditions on the first day of the event which made it even more difficult. We had high tides mid-day and a big swing in tides with the full moon. My best bite was at the low outgoing tide which was later each day so my quality fishing time was limited. I primarily fished South Delta along with a few of the other Top 10 anglers and keyed in on the reaction bite. My two main baits of choice were a Lobina Rio Rico and a River to Sea Whopper Plopper on the low outgoing tide. I used a Daiwa 7’2” composite Tatula Glaztech rod in medium heavy with a Daiwa Tatula 6.3:1 ratio reel spooled with 14lb Sunline Reaction Mono for the Rio Rico. I used a Performance Tackle Custom frog rod with a Tatula 7.3:1 ratio reel spooled with 50lb Sunline FX Braid. When the tide was high and slack in the middle of the day I chose to take out my Daiwa Zillion 801 Flipping stick with a Daiwa Zillion 7.3:1 ratio reel spooled with 50lb FX Braid. My flipping setup consisted of a 1oz Tungsten punch weight with a punch skirt tied to a 5/0 Hayabusa using a Reaction Innovation 4.20 Sweet Beaver in Hematoma.
The key for me in this tournament was fishing shallow spawning banks with sparse tules in front on shallow wood with good clean grass. When the tide was high the fish wood boil and follow the bait out but when the tide would fall and the shallow grass was exposed then they would start biting aggressively. My sister and I found this pattern in the two days of practice that we had by covering lots of water until we got a few good bites. After day one of the tournament I continued to prefish and look for new water. Fishing stuff that looked similar and stuff I had fished in the past. I burned a lot of fuel through my Mercury 250 Pro XS but my Ranger Z521c ran flawlessly and helped me get to where I needed to in a hurry.
Next stop for me is the WON BASS US OPEN at Lake Mead Sept. 14-16th and then off to our last stop for the FLW Western Rayovac Series at Clear Lake Sept. 24-26th. Still leading the Strike King Angler of the Year point race but it’s not over yet. We had a good field of 127 boats at the Delta but there should be no reason why we are not getting the full 150 boat fields in FLW Rayovac Series so let get signed up early and show our support to FLW out West. Thank you again for all the calls, text messages, and emails this season!!!! You guys are the full to my fire out on the water and I love this sport of tournament bass fishing.
Joe Uribe Jr.
Sponsors: Bridgford Foods, Ranger Boats, Mercury Marine, Bob Lewis Machine Co., Daiwa Corp., Sunline, Reaction Innovations, Roboworm, Voss Weights, Basstronix, A&M Graphics, and Costa.
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