|
COULDN'T FIND THE BIG
BITE
By: Ron Wilson
May 5, 2005.... Nor-Cal Bass held its 4th
Pro-Am Tournament of the year last Saturday at Tracy Oasis Marina Resort.
The owners, Terry and Corinne Flowers, were open with coffee and donuts
for the tournament anglers.
By the time we were ready for the draw
almost all the boats were launched and tied up at the docks giving us
plenty of time to shoot the bull before blast off!
At safe life Tournament Director Tim Paes
blasted off the two flights of anglers.
Being drawn next to last is not usually a
good sign for me so I didn't t have my hopes set to high even though I had
drawn Butch Bray, a pro who does his homework.
When it became our turn Butch headed the
boat back toward the hills, well toward Tracy anyway. At the first stop we
fished a long stretch with just one 2 pounder for our efforts.
Butch said, "the last time I was here there
was some nice fish and the tide was the same." But we had no luck. I
figured they had spawned and left. The water in the cuts upriver is
usually a little warmer than down stream in the lower delta.
We traveled on up into some backwater I
hadn't seen since I was a kid. The country sure has changed over the
years. I put fish number 2 in the boat on the way in to the hidden honey
hole.
"Great looking area," Butch said, "we
should catch 4 or 5 fish in the 5 pound class here." We fished our hearts
out but the fish just weren't cooperating. We fished and fished before
Butch finally put fish number 3 in the boat.
Butch soon put fish number 4 in the boat
and after breaking my line off in a tree I re-rigged and put on a Keeper
brown and chartreuse worm. I cast it out weed-less and let it fall, shook
it once and the line took off sideways. I set the hook and hollered for
the net. A few cranks of the reel and Butch scooped up a fish in the 4
pound class to finish off our limit.
"Well that's a start," Butch said, "now we
need to catch 4 more like that to make a check."
We fell in love with the area but never
caught another fish. Realizing we had overstayed our welcome Butch said,
"its time to head back toward Tracy and fish a couple more spots I know
of."
We fished hard and had a couple shots at
improving our weight, but we muffed them. No we wouldn't of won anything,
but we just made a couple bad fishing moves that cost us a pound or two.
We ended up catching lots of fish but
nothing that would help us out. We managed a 12.76-pound 5 fish limit and
that was it. The hot bite was in Franks Track with fish on the beds
everywhere down there.
Pro Norval Pimentel had done his homework
and ended up second. He would of walked away with the tournament but he
had one over 10 pounds kick his butt. My old buddy even has bad luck when
he is having good luck!
He is way over due in getting this bad luck
monkey off his back and getting back to some first place finishes like I
know he is capable of doing!
Sunday I went back to fishing at my private fishing club. 27 fish for the
day for me and a dozen for my cousin and we both had 8 pounders and
several 3 to 5 pounders in the mix. I sure am getting spoiled there. |
