El Dorado Bass – New Hogan Tournament – 3rd Place

I was partnered with John for this tournament and we decided to pre-fish on Friday, May 15. We met at the ramp at 6AM and went out fishing. We stopped at a really nice point first thing and I think it was probably on my second cats with my Rip Bait I got hammered! The fish took a few nice runs pulling drag. I said, “man this feel like a real nice fish!” I was finally able to get him to the boat… A Striper! Yes, New Hogan has been stocked with Stripped Bass. John said it was ok if I wanted to keep it. Into the live well. Not too much happening the rest of the day. We did fish a lot of spots and catching a few Bass, noting a couple bed fish, etc. but nothing too consistent. We finished up a bit early and headed home.

The next morning, the blast off was at 5:30 but because John is the weigh master we get to leave 15 min early. Off we went, slight breeze so we stopped at another point, at the entrance of a large cove with trees we had planned on fishing first. But we thought we quickly give the point a try first,.. right away I’m on! Another Striper, followed by probably 5 or so more. I lost count. By this time someone else had moved into the cove. Oh well. We fished many locations and John consistently caught fish all day on primarily one pattern, short drop shot seven inch Robo Worms. I threw just about everything I had, with some success but nothing as consistent as John. I eventually switched. Late in the day I was able to get a couple more on a Rip Bait, but that was it. John caught the bulk of our fish that day although a couple of mine did make it to the weigh in. Although we fish as a team, it’s nice to feel like you contributed.

We obviously finished ok by getting 3rd place, but I forgot to take any pictures (plus John’s not into taken them). We really didn’t catch any really nice fish, just an average bag of 1.5 – 2.5lbers.

Here are a couple pictures of other nice fish caught that day by other Club participants.