Next meeting is September 13, 2011, 7:30 pm Next Tournament is September 17, 2011, Lake Henderson, Lakerview Drive Ramp
Changing lakes from Okahumpka to Tarpon due to water levels, I'm sure made several member happy. Tarpon has been one of our better lakes that usually everyone feels comfortable fishing but with the summer heat and water temperatures close to 90 degrees it make for tough fishing no matter what lake you are fishing. One good thing was everyone did bring fish to the scale. We were hoping for an early start and an early finish but the vote was to stay with the 2 o'clock weigh in and for some that extra hour made the difference of catching a limit.
Team Billy and Allie gave it the old college try by pre fishing every week and each taking out their boats to cover as much as possible. They found the spots during pre fishing but once again the fish changed their minds and developed lockjaw or moved on but they did manage to weigh 2 fish at 2.67 pounds.
Team Mike and David did breathe a sigh of relief as .001 lb made the one point difference in the results. They were sure they were going to come in last with their small bag of 3 fish weighing 2.68 lbs.
Well the pre fishing didn't help us either. We were sure we would have a limit and ruled out several locations during pre fishing. The morning bite just wasn't there and we couldn't put the pattern together. We caught several fish around docks on a worm and offshore on a trap but there was just no size to them. Our 3 fish weighed 3.73 lbs.
Making use of their exemption cards was team Albert and Jack catching a limit of fish weighing 4.22 lbs.
Well sometimes fishermen get religious as was the case with Mark as he was calling on some divine intervention for his boat to start and while he was at it was christened by on of those prehistoric birds. It seemed to work… He had a nice 5 pounder get tangled up in his trolling motor but he confessed it was a Mudfish. Mark had two fish on that tested the breaking point of his line… I'm sure they were mudfish. Being the modest guy that Mark is also told me he was HOT! I think he was referring to the weather but with Mark you never know. Mark was one of the one's that needed that extra hour to catch his limit at 1:51 on a trap at the ramp. Mark finished the day with 5.21 lbs.
Steve and Wayne must have bumped the DeCaro boat as they were having problems getting the boat to start towards the end of the day. The Drew team was the water ranger again and came to their rescue. Steve and Wayne made it back to the ramp under their own power with a limit of 6.31 lbs.
The Drew Team gets the suck spot this tournament. Not sure what they were using but I'm sure at one point they were throwing a fluke when they weren't assisting boaters on the lake. Team Drew had a limit at 6.57 lbs.
Second place went to Norm and Bud. They didn't get their first bite until after 9:30 using a combination of U-Vibe and magnum finesse worms to catch their limit of fish. Their big bass was 3.31 lbs. helping the total of 8.23 pounds.
Julio and Tom didn't have such a good pre fish and that seemed to work in their favor. Starting the day with no plan other than going on past experience of places they caught fish proved to work well when they got to that magical 100 yard stretch of shore line that produce all the fish they needed including the tournament big bass weighing 5.40 lbs. Team Julio and Tom didn't need a limit to capture first place with 4 fish totaling 9.59 lbs.
Tom Mahoney is going to try to make it to this months meeting as old-timers seems to have set in. BASS is having their last individual qualifier, September 9 is the meeting and the tournament is on the 10th so Tom will be talking about the team qualifier that takes place October 1 & 2. I'm told that Tom is going to try to make it up to us for missing last months meeting by bringing some items for our 50/50.
We'll see you next month when we get to do this all over again. We are fishing on Henderson and reports right now are that the lake is low. We will be making a decision in 2 weeks when we check it out to see if we can navigate through the canal to Big Henderson.
South Pasco Bassmasters would like to extend its deepest sympathy to the Hoedt family on the passing of Fred Hoedt, one of the clubs original members. Hopefully he will be watching over us, I'm sure he could use a good laugh.
John Medvid
Don't forget, bring a friend to the meeting. If you are not a member and are interested in joining, please feel free to attend and check things out for yourself.