This story was written by Mike Hampton:
It was a nice day in Sebring, Florida at lake Istapoga on Sunday. The conditions were light wind out of the south west, 72 degrees to 91 degrees, water temp. 89', most of the lake was dingy but clear water behind the reeds and in the canals.
Twelve teams came to the tournament with fairly low expectations. The other tournament launching out of the same location turned out to be about the same size as our club and were no problem sharing the launch ramp. The club voted to change the check in time to two o clock due to hot weather and lake conditions by a 20 to 2 vote. The only ones who wanted to fish all day was Mike Calloway and Cliff Semonski because he was riding in Mike's boat.
We were sorrow that the team of Larry Cruce and Tim Iler had to retire from the tournament the because their trolling motor took a dump on Saturday and could not be repaired in time. No other problems were reported during the tournament except that Bob Barnette lost his way and could not find the entrance to the ramp and were within one minute of being late.
Small creel went to Jake and Gary Hinman, it was a Yeti drink cooler and Yeti stickers.
We had the usual amount of lost fish, fish that didn't bite, attention disorders, reel and rod failures and the big one that got away from Raymond but all in all it was a good tournament with a good turnout.
The winners reported catching their fish using the following tricks:
- 1st Place & Big Bass: speed worms, and swim baits and flipping with the Hampton Bait
- 2nd Place: swimbaits
- 3rd Place: unknown
