The tournament season has officially started, with our first tournament being held on March 6th at Lake Smith. A week of cold temps did not warm up the water as well as expected and no limits were brought to the scales. Rick Cornett and James Brown were victorious with a 3 fish, 9 lb 4 oz sack. Roccoa and Arte Spurlin finished second and had the big fish of the day with a 6 lb 10 oz hawg. Reports at the scales told of fish being caught mostly on jigs, crank baits and spinnerbaits. Our next scheduled tournament will be on March 20th, with the location to be determined by member vote.
There seems to have been some confusion on the way we are picking the location we are fishing for each tournament this year. The system of voting for the place we fish was not intended to eliminate or even limit members from pre-fishing before a tournament. It was intended to give everyone who was fishing a given tournament a say in where we went for that tournament. Every year it seems that people are saying, "we should have gone here this week," or "we should have waited to go there later this year." Now everyone has a say in it. Just remember if we did things the same way all the time and never tried anything new, we would never know if something was worth doing or not doing. The members voted to do the schedule this way for 2010 at the annual meeting. If this method is not preferred next year, we can vote on another way to do the schedule. Any and all ideas will be welcome.
On the subject of ideas, if anyone has any interest in taking a turn writing the monthly newsletter or has an idea for one, please feel free to contact me. Also if you would like to write an article for the Bass'n Articles page please feel free to do so and you can send it to me (rickb665@verizon.net) or Dan (dgriffin131@cox.net) to get it posted.
With the warming weather, and lets hope it stays this way, everyone should begin to get live well maintenance and fish safety on their mind. Start making sure your live well connections are clean and free from corrosion and will work properly all day to keep your catch alive to be released and caught another day. Keep plenty of ice bottles and live well treatment on board, especially as we head into the summer months. Check your batteries for corrosion, low water, and age to see if they need replacing. If you are having a problem with them holding a charge, it may be time for a new one.
On a final note, we have a large amount of new non boaters this year. Everyone please remember to post if you have an open back seat and would like some company with you on the water. Our tournaments and open backseats for fun fishing are the only chance some of our non-boaters get to get out on the water.
