The old saying was true on Sunday the 20th of May for the twenty teams who arrived at Lakefront Park Ramp on West Lake Toho. Neither rain or clouds or wind or low water could keep us off the lake and the club responded with one of its better days. For the first time this year, every team returned to the scales with a limit of bass and there were a lot of big bass caught this day. This included six fish over six and a half pounds, three limits over twenty pounds and five limits over eighteen pounds. The day started out wet and continued that way until the weigh-in was over at three thirty pm. The V-P, William Flood, Mike Neal and Tim Kopf were all missing due to recovery from recent surgery and hopefully they will make a speedy and complete recovery before the next tournament. There were also some mechanical problems such as Mike Calloway's lower unit drive shaft still broken from the Okeechobee tournament, Alan Elder's motor shut down at take off and Lloyd and Jennifer Hamilton had trolling motor problems but this seemed to work out for the best as fishing near the ramp was very good. President Bill ,after a good breakfast at Toho Marina, got everyone out early as there were two other club tournaments that same morning out if the marina.
Brian Wical and Craig Cashion continued their winning ways from last month with a five fish limit weighing a whopping 22.50 pounds to take first place. Their catch averaged four and a half pounds each and was anchored by a nice 6.47 pound big bass. They were reluctant to provide any information on the days catch and did not want to say any more about how it was done. This win did move them into first place in the AOY points race.
Fishing by himself, Mike Calloway used his trolling motor only to get around due to a broken lower unit, fished close to the launch area and came back with a limit weighing 20.99 pounds for second place. He reported that he used a top water hard bait and a magnum speed worm along with some yum-dinger senko's to catch most of his limit in the shallow water area with pads and grass mats. He used a magnum speed worm to catch an 8.11 pound Big Bass which proved to be the best of the tournament narrowly beating out a nice 7.33 pounder landed by Jennifer Thompson, sorry Jennifer.
Larry Cruce and Tim Iler stayed in West Lake Toho and threw top water baits all day to take third place with a limit weighing 20.28 pounds. Fishing in open water areas with underwater hydrilla mats, they reported moving around and fishing fast proved best as most of their fish averaged above four pounds.
Fourth place was taken by Karl Kearcher and Jay Stein with 19.65 pounds. Karl's 6.98 pound big bass capped off a nice limit and they were rewarded for their efforts with a nice gift certificate from Strike Zone of Melbourne.
Small Creel Award goes to Cliff Semonski and Keith Braun who, even with a limit weighing 10.11 pounds, received a gift certificate from Strike Zone of Melbourne for their days fishing.
President Bill concluded the tournament with a word about the days events and next months tournament at Miami-Garcia on the 24th of June. The points race for "AOY" and "The Classic" are getting very tight and with only two tournaments left every point will be important to every team. So see you there!
