My First Florida Club Tourney of the Year.

[The Bateman]

My bass club had our first tourney of the year at Lake Reedy today. I was fishing with my new partner, John (waterhazard). We prefished yesterday as the cold front hit, and found the beds in the lily pads and Kissimmee grass to be empty. We did manage some hits in the offshore grass in 4-6 feet of water.
So that's where we headed at take off. Two other boats beat us to the area, but were fishing tight to the shore, so we slipped in about 100 feet away from them and offshore. We managed to catch a couple of undersized bass without them seeing us. After a while, they moved on and we began to work our spots in earnest. Soon we had boated 8 bass but no keepers - 2 were 1/8th inch short! Finally, I got a keeper, and then another. That was enough to convince John to switch to a bait similiar to mine, but a little bigger, and with a more eratic action. Soon he had a nice 2.04 lb bass and then another over 2 lbs. We added another keeper to fill our bag, and continued to catch undersized bass. We ended up with about 25 bass total, of which 9 or 10 were legal size. We worked this small 100 yard area till about 11 am, and then hit a few similiar spots around the lake, without catching another fish. So in the last couple of hours, we returned to our "honey hole" and caught several more bass, upgrading by a few ounces.
We ended up in fourth place out of 28 boats, with 11. 12 lbs, only 4 ounces behind third. The winners had just over 15 lbs, anchored by a nice 6.5 lb bass.
They funny thing about the day was that we had boats coming into the area near us all day, but they would fish the shore and get nothing, or fish out with us with different baits, and get nothing! We saw one boat catch one dink all day. It was a lot of fun and very satisfying to place so high.
Oh, BTW, I know you will want to know what the secret baits were, so I might as well post a pic for you



Edit:
Okay guys. Apparently, the lure is being taken seriously. It was a joke ( see smiley face). I didn't want other guys in my club to know what we were using, as we may try the same pattern next month on Lake Kissimmee.

[Bassboss]

Congrats on the good finish, and first club tourney!

[BassinBrits]

Well done Rick. You definitely had it sussed out - congrats. Great write up and an interesting bait. Thanks for the info.

[cassidyta]

Gotta love the crazy crawler.
I have not thrown one in years, but my grandfather taught me to fish using one in the UP of michigan. My first ever top water fish came off of one of those. Mine had the yellow body with red head. I have caught countless topwater fish since that one, but none as memorable.
I know this was a fish tourney report, but I mean it when I say thanks for the walk down memory lane.
BTW...Due to your post I just went online and bought 3 of them.

[CMorg]

I think megabass makes something like that too...

Isnt it funny how you seem to fish better in a tournament ? I do anyways.

[bamabassman]

just goes to show ya that the old lures STILL catch fish don't it? great story and glad you had a great time. keep it up buddy.

[aikenyounggun]

yeah im glad you bought three even tho he was joking... but congrats on the finish.... yeah old stuff works b/c the fish havent seen it before

[WTL]

Speaking of old stuff and where he was fishing, a johnson silver minnow has and contiues to be a decent lure around the kissimmee grass down there. I probably just throw the spinnerbait more out of familiarity.

Give us an update on Kissimmee when you fish it. Where is the T launching out of and how the is water level? Last year I was there and it was real low, had a poor trip.