October 10th-14th marked the first Best Bass Tournament Trail TOC that was held on Clear Lake CA.
My partner and I started off our prefish on Wednesday morning on the North end of the lake. We seen a few nice fish cruising but did not have any success in getting them to bite. After a couple hours of checking out the North end, we moved into the narrows and started catching fish shallow and also deeper off ledges with the best fish being close to 5 lbs. Thursday came and we decided to continue searching the narrows and then move south to find potential area’s to utilize for the 2 day event.
We again caught a bunch of fish but they were all small non keepers, which also happened to be all over the lake in crazy numbers. We spent all day Friday down South checking more area’s in hopes of finding a special spot, but it did not happen for us.
Friday night registration/check and boat number assignment went out of the Red Bud parking lot and hosted by Clearlake Bait & Tackle. Over 150 teams were present in anticipation as what number they were going to draw for the weekend. My partner and I drew number 119 and had a day 1 weigh in time of 3:40 and day 2 weigh in time of 2:40. We went to the three best areas’ we found during practice and where we had 3-5 lb fish caught, but could not get the fish to cooperate during day 1. We caught a bunch of non keepers throughout the entire day from about every spot we hit, which helped us to our weigh in of no fish on day 1.
We decided to just go fishing on day 2 and throw big baits all day long in hopes of catching a big fish or maybe even run into something that could turn our event around. We worked hard all day throwing Optimum swim baits, Persuader buzz baits, popping walkers and a couple of new wood top water baits from Delta Wood Bombers Custom Lures, which actually got our only fish on day 2, a 3.33 largemouth. The lure is custom painted to desired specs and has a really good action that can be walked fast or slow, a seductive slither or with a wide slide/drift. A special thanks to Carlo Ramos for hooking us up with a couple of these nicely made lures to try out. If you’re looking for a very nice top water lure, you need to check these out for sure!
We once again had the pleasure of renting the Fish Hook House from Steve that sits on the North end of the lake a couple hundred yards from the casino, tucked away on its own little lagoon. The house again was perfect for the four of us and with its private dock and enough parking in the front yard for 3 boats/vehicles and was perfect for what we needed for our stay. For more information/details on dates and booking please check out https://www.thefishook.com
Although my partner and I were simply not able to put things together, we still had a blast staying with friends and fishing Randy’s event. The weigh-in went flawless as usual and although the bite was tough for several teams, many stuck around for the huge raffle and award presentation. Several Lowrance HDS 5’s and one HDS 10 were raffled off along with tons of tackle bags and the grand prize of an Amazon fishing trip.
The award presentation had over $44,390 in cash handed out including the first place prize of $20,000 cold hard cash that went to the team of Adam Belmont and Stephen Magill for their hard work. They were able to put together an amazing weekend with a day 1 limit of 26.20lbs, backing it up with a day 2 limit of 25.46 for a total winning weight of 51.66lbs… Outstanding Job gentlemen!
Fellow RB Bass angler Kevin Cornwell and his partner Aaron Britt had a very good event finishing in 7th place with a total weight of 39.66lbs… Great effort guys! I would like to thank all of my sponsors for their support this season. RB Bass, Persuader Baits, Optima Batteries, Lock-n-Haul, Daiichi and the rest of the RB family of tackle sponsors Pure Fishing, Berkley, Abu Garcia, IMA, Optimum Baits, The Rod Glove, Wrapped Graphics and Monster Fishing for always having what I needed for an event and excellent customer service/delivery times.
I along with my partner would like to also thank Randy and Sheri Pringle for putting on a GREAT circuit… along with each team that fished the BBT’s this year and showed this new circuit the support that you did… Amazing turnouts for the first year and a very promising future for sure!
Until next year… Good Luck fishing ~
