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BOB'S MARINE OWNERS
TOURNAMENT TAKES OVER CLEAR LAKE
By: Ron Wilson
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Competitors heading out for their day
on the water |
September 19, 2009.... I recently
attended the 6th Annual Bob’s Marine Champion, Stratos and Javelin Boat
Owners Tournament
held at Konocti Vista Casino at
Clear Lake. All
proceeds from this event were donated to the Children’s Hospital
Central California.
Now if you have not fished one of these
events and you have a friend or you personally own a Champion, Stratos
or Javelin boat you are missing the best
black bass tournament
event that California has to offer for the
bass fisherman.
This event has categories for Father/son,
father/daughter, Mother/son, mother/daughter, Husband/wife or
Boyfriend/girlfriend and even one for grandparent/grandchild.
If you need an example of why this event
is so great lets start with the free dinner that comes with your entry
fee. Then there is the free raffle that is held for the competitors
after the dinner where every fisherman got at least 2 prizes and some
won 3 or 4. Then everyone was put back in the drawing for a power pole,
trolling motors, and an assortment of other high dollar prizes that were
donated for this event. No one kept a dollar amount of what was given
away but with poles, glasses and fishing equipment etc. I figured the
anglers walked out of there with well over $20,000 worth of prizes
along with some cash for things like youngest angler, farthest angler to
drive to the event, and other money handed out for things that I can't
even remember!
The prizes did not include money that the
tournament anglers paid for the entry as this money was placed aside to
be paid to the top 20 teams that weighed in fish. Here is a look at the
top 20.
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BOB'S MARINE OWNERS |
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CLEAR LAKE LAKEPORT, CA |
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SEPTEMBER 12&13, 2009 |
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TOTAL |
TOTAL |
DAY 1 |
DAY 2 |
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NAME |
FISH |
WT. |
BIG FISH |
BIG FISH |
WON |
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1 |
Jason Brown & Bryan Roland |
10 |
41.66 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$2,675.00 |
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2 |
Mike Goncalves & Chuck Meyer |
10 |
39.08 |
0.00 |
7.38 |
$2,235.00 |
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3 |
Keith Freisen & Kirk Sakamoto |
10 |
38.62 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$1,835.00 |
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4 |
Mike Davies & Cliff Townsel |
10 |
37.50 |
6.38 |
0.00 |
$1,545.00 |
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5 |
Kyle Moughs & Kelly Moughs |
10 |
36.82 |
7.88 |
0.00 |
$1,600.00 |
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6 |
Eladio Garcia & Mike Jackson |
10 |
36.64 |
8.36 |
0.00 |
$950.00 |
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7 |
Mike Nicholson & Dominic Doan |
10 |
36.18 |
8.04 |
0.00 |
$850.00 |
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8 |
John White & Tony Klein |
10 |
35.38 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$750.00 |
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9 |
Dale Ball & Fred Rex |
10 |
35.02 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$675.00 |
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10 |
Matt Lindsey & Troy Wells Sr |
10 |
34.66 |
0.00 |
4.96 |
$600.00 |
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11 |
Stan Watson & Allen Posela |
10 |
34.58 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$525.00 |
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12 |
Vince Borges & John Marquez |
10 |
34.32 |
9.32 |
0.00 |
$1,435.00 |
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13 |
Stan LeFever & Angelo Alorro |
10 |
34.22 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$425.00 |
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14 |
Will Cook & Jason Hopper |
10 |
33.92 |
6.38 |
0.00 |
$400.00 |
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15 |
Gerry Johnson & Rob Gaines |
10 |
33.92 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$375.00 |
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16 |
Brad Shires & Eric Marin |
10 |
33.90 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$350.00 |
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17 |
Andy Scholz & Christain Scholz |
10 |
33.82 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$325.00 |
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18 |
Patrick J Mateo & Patrick Mateo |
10 |
33.70 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$300.00 |
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19 |
Mo Bagunu & Em Bish |
10 |
33.56 |
4.84 |
0.00 |
$275.00 |
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20 |
Andrea Chabak & RC Stephens |
10 |
33.36 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
$250.00 |
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It's all about family at this event |
Bill Donaleski owner of Bob’s Marine in
Modesto had to MC the event on stage and also handle the Tournament
Directors position as Nor-Cal Tournament Director Tim Paes was stricken
ill. However Tim even on his sick bed was just an email away and with
the help of our modern technology he helped as much as he could from his
sick bed. To say that he was missed would be an understatement as Bill
had more responsibilities than he really wanted. Through Bill’s
leadership and the people he had working with him, the event ran smooth
as usual.
Smith Chevrolet of Turlock put $1,000
cash in the pot to be given to the fishermen. Bill determined that $200
would go to 21st, 31st, 41st, 51st and $100 each to the top finishing
young boy and girl. Bill believes in distributing the money and prizes
as much as possible throughout the competitors present. This event to
him is mostly about family and the camaraderie of the fishing outing.
However being a competitive tournament angler he has also designed the
event to also be a hardcore tournament competition similar to what he
and Black Bass
Professional Angler Mike Reynolds fish in.
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The flippin king Dee Thomas |
As you have read so far this tournament
is a win win event for
black bass anglers both pro and amateur who just love to fish for
black bass.
I was on the bump table this year and on
the two days of competition there were 8 dead bass on day one with 5 of
those dying because a live well quit working. On day 2 there were 2
dead fish weighed in.
Talk about some nice black bass in Clear
Lake I got to see them up close as they averaged from 2 to 5 pounds I
saw very few in the pound plus class that were weighed in during the
tournament.
Now it was not all work for me as I
showed up early and got to go fishing Friday with Black Bass
Professional Fisherman Norval Pimentel of Modesto. He had been there for
a few days and had caught fish up to 10 pounds plus. Lots of nice ones
but just one huge hawg
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Anthony Pimentel looking for Clear Lake
Hawgs |
We headed out and I soon had a pattern
with a wacky rigged sloppy Joe 4 inch worm on a shaky head. I would
throw it out and let it fall and lay and the bass would just suck it up.
Most of the time I never felt a tick. Talk about back seating a pro I
almost felt ashamed of myself as I stuck fish after fish after fish
behind Norval. Well not really my idea of fun is catching that’s what I
go fishing for.
At one area of
the lake we passed
close to California's flipping king himself Dee Thomas who was
prefishing an area. In front of him I nailed a 4 plus pounder and after
we went around him I nailed a couple more fish while Dee was having his
lunch. Both boats had drifted quite a ways away from Dee's spot with the
wind when I nailed a good one in the 10 pound plus range. Actually I
hooked a 10 inch bass and this hawg bucketmouth tried to take it away
from me. I fought the toad all around the boat until she gave up and let
the little fish go.
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Weighmaster Norval Pimentel
figured out the Carp pattern! |
Dee got a laugh out of that and thanked
me for doing his pre-fishing for him as he knew I would not be fishing
the tournament. I tossed Dee the whacky rig setup and worm I was using
and he looked at it and laughed. If its not a 6'0 hook with 50 pound
plus string attached I don't think he was interested. For a 70 year plus
young man Dee is doing well, he just needs a little oxygen now to help
keep his energy up and instead of flipping in the front of the boat he
now sits in the back and laughs like no one else can.
During the tournament days Norval and I
would go out for a few hours of fun fishing. You would not believe how
hard it is to go play where no other boats are around. We found that if
there was no boats in an area there was usually no fish. We did manage a
few fish where we found other boats that were not in the tournament but
it was a lot harder to catch fish when your places to fish were limited.
With Anthony Pimentel fishing the event we had to stay off all the good
fishing areas and he almost got in the money and would have placed in
the top 10 if he hadn’t kicked a 4 plus pounder out of the boat by
accident the first day of the event, when he only weighed in 4 fish.
I had a great time at this event visiting
some old friends that fish the event like Mark Seaters, Marvin Vaughn,
Tom Tiwater, Mickey Wall, etc. darn I am getting old as the list could
go on and on and on. If you want to fish a great bass tournament don’t
forget to sign up for this one next year! For more information on the
Bob's Marine tournaments or to check out their complete boat line, visit
them at
www.bobsmarine-ca.com. |
