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OLD PRO & YOUNG UPSTART
By: Ron Wilson
August 4, 2008.... I attended the KEEPER
WORMS annual Pro Staff fishing event at the
Sugar
Barge Resort on the California Delta last weekend. This year the new
owner of KEEPER Worms, Rob Clark, ran the annual outing. Rob is Judy
Clark's son, she has now retired from the business.
The breeze coming from the bay area into
the San Joaquin Valley
keeps the summer days cool on the water and kept all the families and
their kids camping at the trailer park cool also. The trailer park sets
lower and it really gets hot in the sun when the breeze didn't blow.
Everyone headed for the shade trees during mid day.
The annual get together is a renewing of
old friendships with lots of food and good times reliving the past and
present with a lot of old friends being thankful that we are still on
the right side of the grass.
Pro
Black Bass Fisherman Norval Pimentel and I toured the delta
looking for black bass. The first thing I found out was that some idiots
have pelted Franks Track with pellets to kill the weeds! Well it worked
just fine in Franks Track and also for several miles on the incoming and
outgoing tides. Miles of areas where the moss and grasses that used to
hold fish fry and food for the small fish to eat has been killed.
I heard some Congressman took his yacht
out in Franks Track a year ago and overheated his engines and cracked
his blocks so he decided to get rid of the weeds so he could go yachting
without having to worry about the weeds. Anglers should get together and
see that he has plenty of time to go boating by getting his butt kicked
out of office.
 Norval
and I went out the first afternoon after we got there and went to check
my fish out. Yep they were still in the area and biting on Keepers 082
red flake baits. We headed up to Taylor and caught a few and called it a
day.
Norval’s new 210 Champion Bass boat is
the biggest they make. With our size we needed all the room we had and
the room I had under the console on my side of the boat was the biggest
I have ever had and I have rode in every type bass boat that has been
made. I couldn't touch the foot panel in front of the seat on the
passenger side unless my ass was almost all the way off the seat. Heck I
could pretty much lay down under there and I am 6 foot plus. I couldn’t
help but think “boy if I was in this boat and it started to rain I could
crawl under there and the only thing that would get wet would be my feet
when I put them on the seat where my butt was.
The next day Norval, Dr. Quen Young of
San Francisco and I
hit the water. We covered lots of water and caught a few fish but never
got on a good pattern.
On to the next day we went way up river
spending bucks for gas while looking for fish. It was worth it as we
found a couple decent schools of black bass. Doc was happy as he caught
a dozen bass, no monsters but several decent fish.
The day of the Keeper tournament and my
little bass tracker and Doc headed for my starting spot. By the time I
got there with two other tournaments blasting off before us it was pick
a number. It was like a flock of ducks so thick you would have had to
separate them to put another one in there.
I headed a couple miles on south to
another spot that held fish but they weren’t biting. It seems that the
sun had to be on the water before they bit the Keeper 082 worms we were
using.
I came back to Frank’s Track and the wind
was blowing and the rest of the boats had pretty much left the area. I
pulled into my hotspot and Quen caught 3 quick fish out of it but no
size, just fish in the 2 pound class. I found out latter that another
boat had pulled 24 pounds of fish out of it and left.
Quen caught his limit but I struggled all
day. I learned one thing never pre-fish with someone else as you have no
control over the boat and you may not find the bite that fits your
style. Fishing from the back of the boat is way different than the
front. While you have better concentration with no distractions like
using the
trolling motor, you need to be doing what you are going to be
doing in the tournament to be successful in my opinion.
Carol won the event with 24 plus pounds good for her name on the
Perpetual Keeper Trophy and a $500 Check, plus a $90
big fish pot. The
check is unimportant to the pro staff, but getting their name on the
trophy and the bragging rights that go along with it was what the day
was all about and the big fish money was just a little frosting on her
trophy.
Scott Monk, 16 an up and coming young
professional bass fisherman won the non boater side of the event with
over 15 pounds of black bass.
Sunday was the kids outing. More boaters
than kids so Scott Monk and I went fishing by ourselves, we went across
the track and stopped at a peat island that was sticking up, Scott was
dead sticking a drop shot rig and soon had the first 2-pound plus fish
in the boat. We caught 4 fish there and moved into the nearby tule patch
where I stuck one around 4 pounds. 7 a.m. and we had boated a nice limit
already, I was in the back of the boat and we were hammering them.
 We
fired up the boat and headed south and rounded a rock bend and stopped
to fish the bank a little ways and was rewarded with several small bass
for our efforts.
Another move and I showed Scott one of my
shaky jig setups. I know Scott was laughing inside at first but when I
stuck a good one and he bent over the side of the boat and lipped her I
knew he had filed that trick away in his memory bank for a later date to
try. Scott would catch one and I would catch one. We had them up to 6
pounds.
We had a great 3 hours of fishing and it
was all over way to soon as we had to get back and pack up to go home.
One thing I hate about our Annual Keeper outings is they go way to fast.
The kids had a great time and caught
lots of fish.
There were no winners or losers as they all got trophies. Yes
some kids reeled in bigger sacks of fish, some bags weighed up to 15
pounds but all the kids caught fish and that’s what the outing is all
about to me. Well that and the fun of just everyone getting together
like a big overgrown family. Now we have to wait a whole year before we
all get together again. That should not be to long now as the months
just seem to fly by for me as I get older. |
