06-09-2003, 11:06 PM
Even though my truck got stuck in third gear and I was towed 120 miles from Mojave to Long Beach the tourney was again a blast. Everybody caught large trout from 1 1/2 pounds to the winning weight of an Alpers at 5.14 pounds (I think) Crowley is an amazing lake. It has 5 different species of trout and the grow from a fingerling planted size in Nov. to sometimes over 3 pounds in 8 months. When we fished with bait we waded through at least 30 trout looking for trout over 2 pounds. (The tourney records only trout over 2 pounds)The hot trolling bait was a 5 inch broken back Rapala and a Bubble gum colored Needlefish, both trolled at 4 colors of lead line. Inflated worms were the hot baits. There were 268 anglers on the lake suffering two days of 85 degree sun and very little wind. It was a super time and the highlight was that everyboby caught brown trout for the first time. I count my blessings that my truck broke down after the tourney. F.A.T.I.T means FINEST ANNUAL TROUT INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT
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