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Tournament
Trail for 2004
May
23 - Anchor Marine
North
East River - Susquehanna Flats
Everyone
had high expectations going into this tournament. Practice
was filled with 5 and 6 lb stories - almost every cast!!!....
Knowing the bay as I do, (when I used to fish well), these
were the next batch coming up for beds. There was a group
spawning fish almost through and this was the next wave
of prespawn fish that everyone was practicing on. The moon
was right and these fish were moving up and feeding on the
way. As I suspected, these fish got on the beds and the
spawned out fish traded places with this group on the same
cover. So what we got was a lot of little limits of tired
skinny spawned fish mixed in with a few nice pre-spawn fish
waiting to move up on the next moon.
A
couple guys tried the Susquehanna River but it was cold
and dirty from the storms we had all the week before. So
only a couple of small mouths came to the scales. One team
did well in the lower end of the river - brother team Ken
and Terry Davis scrounged out a nice limit of spawned females,
that would have gone close to 20 lb. the week before, for
second with 16.44. They fished real slow with jigs and worms
around wood and emerging grass. The bite was very slow for
them.
Winners
John Richick and Dave Crocken went South along with the
Wright team and fished the Sassafras and Churn Creek. John
and Dave grunged up a nice limit of spawned females and
healthy males with rattle traps early and worms around emerging
weeds later. This would have been a big limit if the females
still had eggs. Bob and Dan Wright worked the same type
of cover with worms and spinnerbaits for third with 14.40.
Nice job everyone. It was a very hard day compared to what
the previous week had shown. For a small club tournament
trail we have some very good fishermen and everyone hung
tough during a very hot day.
A
cool note. Lunker went to young Alex Wood with a 4.71 with
proud father getting skunked. Alex carried the day and out
fished pop to bring home the bacon. Good catch Alex.
Now
my woes. I had practiced a little during the week and so
did Vernon. Vern lives on the North East and we hit his
spots first and quickly Vern put a nice keeper in the well
at the first stop. I had found staging fish the day before
down South in the mouth of the Bush River and outside Still
Pond. I needed low tide to position these fish in emerging
weeds. Once the tide was right to go South we packed up
but I wanted to fish one rock pile on the flats by the Islands
were I had seen schooling bass the day before. When we got
to the rock pile two boats were already on it so I turned
South over the open water toward Still Pond. We got about
a mile and my prop grabbed a pile of floating weeds churned
up by the quarry tug boats. Well at 5800 rpms when the prop
stops and the motor doesn't the prop is supposed to spin
out on it's rubber hub. It didn't..... There was some ugly
sounds and explosions and we came to a stop. Both sides
of the lower unit cowling had holes and there was no transmission.
Three
miles from any shore drifting towards Turkey Point. One
fish in the well and nobody in sight. So I call Mrs. Uhler
and she goes next door and wakes up the neighbor to come
rescue me. One hour for him to get in his boat, gas up,
and find me, and then a three hour tow back to the Anchor
Marine. So Vern goes and gets his boat and we're back on
the water by noon. Vern caught another keeper on his spot
and that was it for the day. Oh well.
John
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