The pre-Christmas jitters were in full force on Sunday the 17th as twenty-two teams arrived at Ralph Chisholm Regional Park on beautiful East Lake Toho to hopefully fulfill their Christmas wishes to catch a lot of nice Florida bass. Unfortunately, the bass Grinch had a lot to say about what happened on the lake that day as the catches were not exactly what we wished for. The fish were small, hard to find and some were hard to hold on to even when you did hook them get them out of the grass and get a net on them. The mats of hydrilla and fields of pepper grass along with the clouds of blind mosquitoes and nats added to the challenges of the day.
There was some highlights to the day , like the arrival of the breakfast donuts delivered by Lloyd and Jennifer, always a great to start the day. The celebration of the 79th birthday of Jimmy (the Legend) Blount, who has been fishing bass tournaments for the past 40 years and winning a good number of those. The Grandpa award has to go to Alan Hough for coming to the tournament with a broken outboard motor which did not stop him from bringing his grand kids, which he had for the weekend, and towing them around in a small skiff while he and partner Justin Hough fished using only his trolling motor. They still brought in a nice limit and Alan hope's that Santa will deliver that new boat for Christmas.
Brian Davidson and Vinny Verzi claimed their first win of the season by using swimbaits around the hydrilla mats and pepper grass edges. Their limit weighed in at 10.59 pounds and included a nice 2.98 pound anchor fish easily outclassing the field. This was a really good day on a lake that was very tough to catch any fish of any size. Congratulations!
Dwayne Haga and Dave Metzler were surprised that their limit of 9.29 pounds held up for second place. Flippin a crawdad bait around the reed edges accounted for their catch which was anchored by an almost three pounder made for a good day of fishing.
President Bill Groseclose and his partner Fred Reid weighed in 9.20 pounds for third place finish and included a 3.09 pound big bass second largest of the day. This is their 28th consecutive limit over the last two and a half years with the club. Fishing near the mouth of Boggy Creek using magnum speed worms and finesse worms was their bait of choice.
Big Bass for the tournament was a nice 3.19 pounder caught by Justin Neal who was flippin the grass mats around the lake. This was a really good fish for the day and how the lake conditions.
Darrell Hough and Bubba Hough captured the small creel prize with a record breaking fish which should make the day a little better. The prize was donated by Strike Zone again and we are very happy to have the support from a great local tackle store. thanks a lot.
The next tournament will be on Blue Cypress Lake on January 28th. see you there!
