Saturday - July 1323, 2011 - day 53

Spalding County Sportsman Club night tournament
Lake Sinclair - 5:30 PM to 2:00 AM
Water 91 degrees, hot with a little breeze as it got dark.

I ran down to where I caught fish two weeks ago and no one was there.
Started fishing but no hits. At 6:05 I was about ready to leave when a
keeper sucked in my jig head worm. Good current, figured they should
bite. A few minutes later I got a throwback, then a second keeper. At
6;20 a second keeper ended that little flurry of activity.

At 8:00 I had caught one more short fish and was going to leave to
throw topwater as it got dark, but made one more drift with the
current. Caught a keeper, then every cast I got a hit, landing 14
throwbacks and only one more keeper. Still, 16 bass in 20 minutes made
it exciting. But it ended badly. Set the hook on an 8 inch bass and
broke the top off one of my St Croix rods - it just snapped on the
hookset after landing all those other fish.

Switched to another rod and broke my line on the first cast - forgot
to change the line, was no planning on using that one. Switched reels
and started casting but flurry of activity was over.

At 9 I fished some grass with buzzbait and spinnerbait but no hits.
Ran to a lighted dock I like but nothing was around the four in the
area. Back to a deep drop, just to check. Could not get a hit.

At 12:30 I went back to grass beds and threw a spinnerbait. A solid 3
pounder sucked it in as I lifted it after one cast. I pulled the bass
out of the water without turning reel handle, it came off, hit the
side of the boat and went back into the water. Totally disgusted.
Would have made my limit and almost doubled the weight of the four I
had.

At 1:10 hooked a two pound bass on the spinnerbait - it jumped 15 feet
from the boat and threw the hook. Totally disheartened, I was fishing
a quarter ounce double willowblade with a trailer hook, slow rolling
it. Both bass hit hard. I did not get hit again.

At weigh in Kwong had five, the only limit, and a pretty 4.6 pounder
for big fish. His 8.42 pounds won easily. Second was four at 5.10, my
four weighed a whopping 3.46 pounds and placed third of 16 fishermen.
Fourth was three at 2.86. There were five zeros.

Running down the lake I almost got hit. A boat coming from my left at
90 degrees turned right into me. I thought he was turning to go to my
lleft, as he is supposed to, but at the last minute he cut right in
front of me, within 50 feet. I was on plane at about 30 MPH - he was
running faster. Don't know if he didn't see me or if he was too
stupid to know the red running light means stop. If you are looking at
a red running light that boat has the right of way. Maybe he was
color blind.

Ronnie

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