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FISHING THE NOR-CAL TEAM TOURNEY
By: Ron Wilson
May 16, 2011.... For the last couple weeks I have been
fishing Lake Don Pedro
with my fishing partner
Carl Wagner of
south Modesto.
The fishing has been just fantastic with 30 to 70 fish days. We
fished from the flume down to the dam and all the coves and inlets like
Hatch Creek, Rogers Arm and Big Creek. We fished mostly worms with dart
heads and drop shot but we also used top water poppers, crank baits and
swim baits. I guess we weren't using the right stuff at the right time
as the biggest we caught in two weeks time was 5 pounds.
Last Saturday Carl and I fished the Nor-Cal Bass open team tournament
held there. The best fish we had found were up by the flume so that was
where we headed. I stopped at an Island and we caught a 2 plus pound
fish. Never made it around the island as a boat came in on the other
side so we moved to another island top that was 6 feet deep on top.
I threw out a top water plug and a large bass attacked it from the
front and as it started to inhale the bait I set the hook and the 6
pound test braid snapped as the fish closed its mouth on the plug. The
fish disappeared and there was my plug floating on top of the water by
the buoy. Weird stuff right there but that's one thing I have never
figured out with the braided line. Hang up and you can't seem to break
it and then sometimes with the least amount of pressure the line parts.
I could see it was going to be one of those days. Just 3 days ago I
had a limit of fish in the boat on top water before the sun came up and
now with an overcast sky the fish were swirling at the bait, jumping
plumb over the top of it and now the broken line for no reason. I could
see other than the fishes teeth caught the line when I set the hook and
it broke. It could of been worse as the only good top water plug I had
was still floating when I got there to retrieve it.
I worked down to another island and around it and we caught a couple
more keepers and threw them back. I knew that we needed fish over 2
pounds to have a shot at winning any money and it wasn't looking good as
we had tossed back 5 keeper bass so far and it was almost 8 a.m.
I worked my way down to the buoy where I had missed the bass earlier
and Carl put in a 1.8 pound small mouth bass. "Put her in the livewell",
I said. A few seconds later I put in a 2 pound plus bass and followed
that one up 4 minutes later with another fish over 2 pounds. 4 in the
live well and it was just a little after 8 a.m. now we needed a kicker
fish to put us in the money.
We headed up to the flume area where Carl put 3 bass in the boat on 3
casts with a tube, the only problem was the biggest of these was a pound
plus size fish.
I told Carl it was time to make a run. We headed back toward Big
Creek and on the way a point caught my attention and I stopped on it
where we caught 3 bass one in the two pound class for a cull.
Moved to Big Creek and that was a bust, the 5 pounder I was after
either wouldn't bite or had already been caught.
Next stop was Rogers Creek area. My grandson was there with some
buddies and they were tearing up the water and having a ball on jet
ski's and water ski's. The small bass were biting and the big ones
probably had there fins over the ears and there heads buried in the
rocks below. Don't really know if that affects bass or not as we hadn't
caught a good one all day.
Moved up to the Ramos Creek mouth and Carl immediately hooked onto a
good fish in the 3 pound plus class. It came up to the boat and just
before I could net it the fish made a dive on a drag screaming line
breaking run. I had Carl turn the drag down a mite so the fish could
strip off line a little easier.
We worked the bank on down toward Jenkins Hill and we put in another
bass for the final cull getting rid of the 1.8 pound smallie and then
the tournament came to an end as it was time to see who had caught what.
I knew we needed 15 or 16 pounds to even think about a check and we
didn't have close to that. Oh well we had a good day fishing and we had
a couple shots at putting a couple better fish in the boat.
 As I motored in to weigh-in I saw Bub Tosh and his partner Ben
Hetrick fishing on a bank near the Marina. A few minutes later I saw Bub
and Ben come to the
weigh-in
with 3 sacks of fish. One sack contained an 8.04 pound bass. I asked Bub
what he was doing on the bank fishing over where I saw him and he said
my partner threw away a 4 pound bass culling us down to just 4 fish so I
had to go catch a 13 inch bass to finish out our limit.
I couldn't help but give Ben the needle on that and Ben said man I
was just too pumped up with all the nice bass we had and I had an
overload of adrenalin I guess
It is a good thing that Bub caught that 5th bass as it would of been
interesting as the second place team was just 4 pounds behind. |
