Jmax, Chick, CFF, Bass, 2nd place, 6/16/12, CCSM

[FishNews]

James and I had a plan to have a limit in the boat early. They did not cooperate with us early. We both were drowning shakeys and missing fish. :o Kept getting hits, they would move with it and you would set the hook and nothing there. Four times they got my worm. emoBang I really hate when that happens. I finally had one hit and slowly swim off with it, rod loaded up and I slammed it home. A very fat one about 3/8 comes up. It had swallowed the hook and was bleeding like a hose. I quickly got some sprite down it and hoped for the best. It bellied up right off and I thought it was a goner. Thirty minutes later with the water all bloody it is swimming around in the well like nothing happened. emoDance I just knew all day that one would die but it was splashing around and fighting at the weigh in. Just goes to show you never know.<br /><br />I managed one more short and that was it there. I told James we had better try something else. Moved to some grass flats in about six foot and started worming it there. I caught a couple more shorts and asked James was he planning to help today. emoPoke Not too long after that he catches our second keeper at 2/4. Now we have the 3/8 and the 2/4 in the well and we have been fishing for at least a couple hours, can we say slow? We move about three more times, try top water, spooks, frogs, big worms, drop shots and cranks. Nothing, zip, notta goes in the well. I think we caught a couple more shorts but that was it. Finally around 11 we are fishing a little bluff and I get a decent spot on a shakey in about 18 foot. Three in the well but not much. We move again and catch a couple more spots but none as big as our first. It was about noon and we were fishing some docks and I hear James grunt. I look back and his rod is doubled. emoSmile About that time he states...."This feels like a good one, I hope this is a bass". Ups come another one about 3/8. Out goes the spot and now we have three pretty decent ones.<br /><br />It was about now I get a hard hit on my worm and set the hook and miss one. I look at the graph and it is lit up. I spin the boat around and get at an angle to hit that spot. Two casts later I have a good bump and set the hook. It does not move. emoEek I could tell it was a fish and told James to get the net. It must have realized about then it was hooked cause it came to life. Rod doubles and it takes off, drag going and me chasing it. James asked..."Which side you going?" I told him what ever side it wanted to go. emoBig It came up about then and we saw it. Good bass and I think James got more excited then I did. He was telling me all kinds of stuff! Don't loose it. Be careful. Don't horse it. emoLaugh I got it up side the boat and he got the net under it. Out went the 2/4 and in went a 5 lber. emoThumbsup Now we knew we had a good limit and James thought about 10.5, I told him it was more like 11.5. We were both wrong, it was 11.98. emoToast <br /><br />We managed a few more in the upper twos and at least one/two more at 3 but nothing to cull what we had. Our best five would have gone about 17/8 to 18 lbs. emoThumbsup Not a bad day at all considering how slow it started for us. Most of our bass we boated came from 12 to 20 foot. All the bass we boated came off plastics. I mainly used a shakey and James used both the shakey and a t-rig. Our 11.98 lbs was good enough for 2nd place. 1st was 12.50 lbs. My five lber came in at 4.96 lbs I think and it was the second biggest bass of the tournament. Big bass was 5.14 lbs. So today we were a second place team for sure. emoRolleyes <br /><br />We had a great time, ended up catching quite a few bass and had fun seeing everyone. emoGrouphug <br /><br />Thanks to all the committee for putting it on, James for filling my back seat and congrats to the winners. emoWorthy Jmax