Delaware Club Tourney 6/26/10

I'm finally catching up from vacation and have tons to write about. I will have to shorten some stories or I will be on the computer for days.

First about my June 26th tournament at Delaware lake. In a previous post I mentioned that I haven't fished the lake for bass but had for crappie many times. I knew the layout of the lake and studied a few different maps to decide where to start.

I pulled into the lake and realized there must be another tournament going out. Shure enough another club tournament was going out of the other ramp in the state park. Not only that, there was a big tournament the next day with lots of people pre-fishing. The water was going to get beat up.

I pulled into my first spot, a high bank that has produced some big crappie. The drop from bank to deep water made me want to give it a shot. I started out a ways from where I wanted to end up since I was the only person to stop at this particular bank. I had a boat pull in behind me after a bit but I was able to work the whole bank area first. The first fish didn't hit the shakey MiRketti until about 8:00, then it was on! The first fish was a good keeper on a point of a small cove and on the other point of the small cove I pulled in another keeper.

I fished quickly to my main area as boats started pulling in quickly and there was a rocky area I wanted to post up on. Once there I pulled several short fish in. I cast a spinnerbait seeing if a larger bass would hit and wham, fight on. I didn't have any more luck on the spinnerbait so I kept fishing the shakey MiRketti trying to work my way through the short fish. There was no shortage of 11 - 11 3/4 inch bass. This lake is going to be great next year.

I caught over 20 bass during the tournament but only had the 3 keepers. I did try a few other areas with laydowns on the main lake and another cove that didn't seem to get as much pressure as some of the rest of the lake.

At the weigh in my fish came to 4.37 pounds after a dead fish penalty for 4th place. I had one die at the ramp while waiting for weigh in. I went through 2 bags of ice throughout the day but needed more. My boat doesn't have a recirculating livewell and the surface water was heating up quickly throughout the day. I feel really bad losing a fish, especially a keeper of that quality. Next tournament I will have rejuvenate and an aerator with lots of ice. The fish did not cost me a place but the crayfish that one of them spit out definately did. It was absolutely huge and if not spit up would have moved me into 3rd place money. It had fascinating colors and I wish I would have taken a picture of it. It had a greenish body with some oranges mixed in and the tips of its claws were blue. That is why you should dip the tips of your claws.

It was still a great club tourney. You can't beat catching 20 bass even if a majority of them are short fish. The talk at weigh in was that everybody whacked short fish.