The first tournament of Won Bass 2009-2010 season was today!

It was a long and fun day fishing in Clear Lake waters for the Won Bass Tournament.   

It was bloody cold launching from Lakeport but thats okay because as soon as we hit our first spot and Duane caught his first and biggest Bass  we never even felt more warm and fuzzy. =-)  We stayed there in hopes to catch another fatty but that never happened, instead we had some very enthusiastic anglers zeroing  in on us by casting over Duanes line. Yes they were in the tournament.  Duane said, " I know you want to fish here but thats not right!" They didn't say a word but

packed up and left the area.  Even the belly boater that was on the other side commented after and said how messed up that was. They lacked sportsmanship!!!

As the morning continued we kept in mind the pattern of the fish and kept running all around the lake in search of big fish. It seemed like we were able to get at least one fish off each spot which was great for us. We had our limit before 10:00am and called 4 fish after that. At this time we didn't know how much "Big Bertha" weighed so we continued to guess until the weigh-in.  We were surprised that she weighed 8.56 pounds.

In the afternoon the fish were not taking our baits like we hoped.  At this time we had 22 pounds and were hoping for a 5 pounder to seal the deal.  We didn't think we had enought weight to win so we kept throwing Speed Traps, Jigs and other baits until the weigh-in. My heart was pounding while carrying "Big Bertha" to the scales.  I was really hoping we had the biggest fish and the most weight.  One never knows until the awards ceremony....

There we were with all the other great anglers listening to Brett Smith (we'll miss you Brett) call out the numbers at the ceremony.It it always fun to hear what the winners have to say.  Are they telling the truth, stretching the truth or are they just telling a lie? We were pleased to win 1st.  It felt great!  And any excuse to stop at the grocery store and pick up Filet Mignon to prepare for a fabulous feast...I'm all in. And the $$$... yeah we need another life jacket...poor Duane wears the 20 year old bulky Sterns life jacket and lets me wear the "good" small one. Aaaaah!