Blue Cypress Lake is a long drive south down a rough, but paved, road to one of Florida's most beautiful looking lake's. The abundant wildlife around the lake and on the drive there never seems to get old or boring. The tannic water, huge cypress trees, submerged stump's big alligator's and screaming Osprey's reminded us of the old Florida. The morning opened with a warm sunrise and it just got hotter and hotter as the day wore on. The wind did not give much relief as it kept changing direction and was not nearly enough to cool off that sweating brow. The fishing was good as many of the sixteen teams recorded limits and culling was an all day thing even if it was just an ounce or two each time. Some equipment problems were incurred as the cypress stumps claimed one trolling motor shaft, a bunch of hooks were lost to the roots and tree limbs, some boat engine and some truck problems. there was even one fish lost over board with a cull tag still attached and is still swimming around in the lake today. There was some noticeable changes at Middleton's Fish Camp as the walk over bridge is missing and a lot of the lake side debris has been cleared away. The club was also missing some members and a few partner's but that seems to be the way to make the top three as well as all of them had an alternate. There was one added member , Cory Yost, who just made the deadline to join and plans to fish the next tournament and the next season. We were happy to see that Karl Kearcher has returned from back surgery and Daville Williams and Matt Byrd made it safely back to shore. The weigh-in began promptly at 3 pm as most everyone was ready to call it a day and get into some air conditioning.
First place was claimed by Keith Braun and his Alt. Rick Worman, who used a quick start in the morning with three good fish in thirty minutes to fill out a limit weighing 16.28 pounds. They had to change their plans first thing in the morning due to their boat number and the number of boats that were already at the one spot they wanted to start at but that turned out to be the best thing for them as the move proved to be great. Throwing a combination of chatter baits and spinner baits on the outside grass line, proved to be the the right thing to do as they boated over twenty fish on the day .
Second place goes to Roger Averill and his Alt. Dustin Beard, of coarse, whose five fish limit topped the scales at 14.38 pounds. They were struggling most of the day but patients and tenacity paid off in the end. The last cast proved to be the best cast as the Big Bass of the Tournament decided to show up and Roger landed an 8.21 pound big mama using a chatter bait with only minutes left to fish easily beating out the total weight of six of the teams. As he claimed the prize he was heard to exclaim " it's about time" .
Third place is a mystery as the new member, Cory Yost, and his Alt. Ryan Martens weighed in 12.09 pounds. I guess he did not know that we stay around for all the teams to weigh-in and we try to give some information on how we caught the fish that day. It's just plain courteous to do that when you take someone's money in a friendly bass tournament.
The drawing for the Strike Zone of Melbourne gift certificates from Shawn Mecchella did not go off with out a hitch as one of the chips fell thru the cracks in the porch planks (sorry Andrew ) but was retrieved with some ingenious use of a magnetic credit card holder. The drawing was completed for the prize and after a couple of tries, because some people chose to leave early, Mike Calloway walked away with the $ 50.00 dollars. Just another reason to hang around after the weigh-in has been completed.
The next tournament will be at Lake Washington on July 30th barring any weather delays. remember we will be voting on the lakes and officers for next season so be sure to bring your ballots or email them to the secretary.
