El Dorado Bass – Clear Lake 2 Day Tournament – 4th Place

I was partnered with Richard for the Clear Lake 2 Day tournament. Lucky for me, last year He fished the FLW Tour as a Pro. Cool! Anyways, we had decided to go up Friday 0-dark thirty, pre-fish and then get checked in to Indian Beach resort. (Not sure about the resort part) But none the less it was fine and served us very well. As you can see in the pic below, they had plenty of slips for our boats and the docs are equipped with fish holding tanks if you have the need.

Friday – Pre-Fish:
Because I was planning on driving home Friday afternoon for a Father Daughter dance Friday night, I drove my car out Friday AM. Once we arrived and in short order, got the boat in the water and were off fishing! Even with the wind blowing pretty good, we headed right out to what I later learned was the main part of the lake. We stopped at a really nice rocky point, the white capped waves were crashing on the point and blowing right down both sides of the point. Richard said to me, “This will probably be the worst spot we fish in terms of being rough and if the fish aren’t biting we’re not staying here long.” Man, talk about rough? It took a few minutes to get my sea legs but in the end I was fine. We worked our way around this point fishing swim baits and rip baits for nadda, “we’re outta here!” Even after several moves to much nicer spots out of the wind, I still had a really hard time Friday AM getting started and was sort of embarrassed. Dude! I know how to catch fish, what is the deal! I even threw one of my Zara spooks into a tree like 50ft in the air, totally lost sight of it. I can only imagine what Richard must have been thinking… “Oh man, and I have to fish with this guy for two more days!” I’m not sure what time it was when I finally hooked my first fish, but Richard had hooked and released several by then, even a nice 4.5lbr, (that would have won the derby we had going for the Friday pre-fish.) I don’t know what either of us were thinking when he released that fish…? Duh! I did mange a few more for the day and although we did not catch any bigger fish, the next days fishing looked promising.

Saturday Day 1 – Weigh in @ 6PM:
At the tournaments Richard calls out the launch order and goes out last. Not a big deal… After all the other boats were off, we quickly passed several of them as we headed out @ 60+ MPH. (I actually saw the speedo @ 70mph a few times) Now that’s how I like to get around a lake! Nice to have 21 feet and 225 horses! We hit several spots that looked really good, but nothing… Not even a showing. I think we landed our first fish sometime after 9AM. Tough fishing for whatever reason so we headed to a spot Richard had fished the day before, after I had left for the dance. He said he whacked ‘em pretty good. Well, they were still there. We fished primarily 2 techniques, bed fishing and then Chatterbait/Spinnerbait in and around the docs. The bed fishing was a little tough for me as I have not done much bed fishing. At times I had a hard time seeing my bait and I must have hooked lost a couple fish several times. Richard did everything but hand a dead fish on a plate to me to help me out, calling me up to the front of the boat, giving me a bait similar to what he was getting them on, etc. Eventually I think I got it down and did end up getting a couple off beds. Regardless, we put our limit on the boat and were culling fish within a couple hours. Here’s a couple shots of the quality 2.5 – 3lbrs we were getting. I think we finished up pretty good for starting out so slow. 2nd place for day 1 and our weight was 17.24,.. 19.44 was the top weight for Day one. With the big fish 6.94 caught by Dave. See pic below.

Sunday Day 2 – Weigh in @ 1PM:
First thing we headed right to a spot that was no more than 3 min from the launch and we had done pretty good at the day before. Fished the outside for a bit, then we went in deep. Once on location, Richard got a couple on the Chatterbait, and I was fishing a SpinnerBait but we both quickly switched to Senko’s and we started whacking fish pretty good,  seemed like one right after the other and color did not seem to matter. I was feeling a lot better about my fishing this morning and actually felt I was contributing. It’s nice culling the other guys fish with one of yours because it’s bigger. We had our limit before 7AM and were culling 2.5lbers. Nice! Unfortunately I was too busy catching fish to take any pictures except once were back at the weigh in. Once we had our limit we moved to several other spots through out the day but I think we only caught a few more and nothing that really helped. I do remember Richard losing a couple nicer fish right at the boat, might have been those kickers we were looking for to put us over the top… But isn’t that every fisherman’s story? Our final weight for Day 2 was 12.58 and our final weight for both days was 29.82. Top weight for the day was 19.02. Biggest fish going to Joe at 7.50lbs. With the winning weight from Matt & Ron for both days was 33.08. Matt catching two 4+ lbrs back to back just before weigh in!  Way to go guys!

On our way out of town, Richard & I hit up a pretty darn good burger joint and that just topped off a perfect weekend! With all the other stuff going on right now in my life, this was a much needed break.

I’ve fished two tournaments so far with El Dorado Bass club and it has been awesome! On this trip Richard was very patient with me and never once made me feel unwelcome on his boat. Actually the total opposite. He showed me a few things, taught me some new techniques, and even taught me how to oporate the trolin motor! When I asked about etiquette on where I can cast etc,. His only response was “hey man this is a team effort buddy! Cast where ever ya want.” Thanks again Richard!

If your not already part of a local Bass club and are interested in having a great time, getting to know other Bass fisherman, a possibly learn a few things, check out one of your local Bass clubs. If you live in the western part of the US, here’s a link to a good place to start. Western Bass. From what I understand not all clubs are the same so do some research, ask questions, go to meeting and look for a good fit.

See ya at New Hogan on May 16th!