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THEY'RE MOVING UP AT CAMANCHE
By: Ron Wilson
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Jeff Frey & Jason Remmers won the
tournament
with over 34 pounds in these 5 fish! |
March 18, 2011.... Carl
Wagner and I had almost a 17 pound bag of fish for the Nor-Cal
Bass team event held on
Lake Camanche last week and all we got was a smell of the money.
In fact we would of had to have twice that much weight in order to take
a first place check.
I knew the fish were coming up as I had pre-fished it for a couple
weeks, but I never dreamed the bite would change in just 3 days time
like it did.
Lets go back a couple weeks of pre-fishing Lake Camanche. Carl and I
were struggling to get a half dozen bites a day. I tried everything in
my tackle box and the fish just seemed to have
lock jaw.
I fished from 10 feet to 40 feet and took a real butt whipping, which is
not my cup of tea as I like catching not fishing. A fish on a dart
headed worm once in a while and a tube fish every so often but the lake
was kicking our butts. Three or four fish was a good day.
After having two day's of bad fishing in the first week we decided to
try fishing the lake a couple more days the next week. The first day was
another 3 or 4 fish day and then we started getting a pattern on the
fish with a 10 fish day. The fish were almost all bucks so we knew the
fish were moving up getting ready to start there spawning activity.
On Tuesday
before our Saturday tournament we had a great day with 30 fish and I
knew the big gals were on there way up and all we had to do was find
them during the tournament.
Saturday rolled around and we drew boat number 2. Blast off number
was drawn and it was boat 3 that would go first. I couldn't help but
wonder if other fisherman had found the
school of fish we
had found after Tuesdays fun day on the water.
Carl and I headed up river to the rock piles and before I got the
trolling motor down
Carl hollered, "get the net". Carl put in a 2 pound spot and as soon as
I went and got the trolling motor down Carl hollered, "get the net
again". Another spot, the hot action caused me to switch to a swim bait
as Carl put number 3 in the boat. Carl put in number 4 quickly and all I
could do with my swim bait was miss a couple fish as they seemed to just
slap the bait as it went by.
We fished the area hard until 10 a.m. and the best we could do was
about 11 pounds in the boat. Carl and I decided to go out into the main
lake and see if we couldn't upgrade our fish with some largemouth bass
that should be moving up.
We got to our first spot and there was two boats working it hard. We
moved on down the rock wall, Carl dropshotting and me dart heading. The
bite was slow and I was starting to get discouraged when I saw my line
jump as a bass sucked in the bait. I set the hook and it immediately
broke the surface and I hollered, "get the net Carl its a 5 pounder".
Carl netted it with a quick high five. "Well Carl we'll need a couple
more like that to get in the money".
A move to another spot and the wind picked up again. "We'll get
another nice fish on that point ahead", I told Carl. I figured I would
shake up another one but Carl beat me to it with a nice 3 1/2 pounder.
"That helps", I told Carl but we still need an 8 pounder to get there
because if we are catching them then so are the other guys and there are
some of the best bass
anglers in the country fishing here today and I know that several
of them have them figured out.
At the weigh in I wasn't surprised at the number of limits that came
in to the scales but the size was impressive I saw one limit of
spotted bass that
went 15 pounds and I saw lots of them in the 3 pound class in different
bags of fish. The bite is on at Lake Camanche and the big gals are
starting to do there thing.
Carl and I did get a pair of gift certificates for 1st out of the
money from
C&C Marine, one of Nor-Cal's sponsors. Carl was happy and like the
old saying goes "it beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" or
"something is better than nothing".
Most of the anglers had a fun filled day catching fish and some of
them had a lot more fun than Carl and I.
A picture is worth a thousand words and the hawg's held up by the
winners says it all in my book. Visit
Nor-Cal's
website for tournament results. |
