American Bass Anglers district # 48 held their first tournament of the new season this past weekend (Oct 23, 2005) on Cross Lake Louisiana, a singles draw tournament that attracted 58 contestants.
In typical fashion for late October in Louisiana, the morning started off calm and mild with air temps in the upper 40’s, but the day brought on a strong north wind gusting to 30 MPH and blue bird skies that hampered the patterns that most fishermen had developed in pre fish. The cold front that came threw basically shut the bass bite down on the lake.
The competition was very stiff with several local sticks showing up. While talk of big stringers and monster bass was the common subject during morning conversations, all in all the bite was tough for everyone. Contestants were allowed to bring a 5 fish limit to the scale, with 4 over the lake slot limit (14-17 inches) and one under the slot but over 12 inches. There were only two limits weighed in and most anglers could only manage one or two fish if any at all. Of those two limits, only one had 4 fish over the legal slot limit, the other had three that were under the slot and two that were over.
We had two members from the Ultimate Bass website place in the money. Mike Cork took sixth place with 7.72 pounds and Railroader took ninth place with 6.31 pounds and second big bass of the tournament weighing in at 5.16 pounds. When you see these two on the site congratulate them on a job well done!
Many anglers reported catching a dozen or so fish threw out the day but the "Slot Monster" (local name for the slot limit) prevented them from being able to weigh in more than one or two fish, if any at all.
Patterns ranged from spinnerbaits on shallow cypress trees to jigs on deeper trees to worms on docks. Here are the money winners for this first event.
1st place – John McCall, 13.62 pounds
2nd place – Aaron Johnson, 10.61 pounds
3rd place – Brandon Collins, 10.04 pounds
4th place – Brian Hester, 9.47 pounds
5th place – Logan Sherrer, 8.18 pounds
6th place – Mike Cork, 7.72 pounds
7th place – Bill Murray, 6.86 pounds
8th place – Jeff Pate, 6.75 pounds
9th place – Brian Walters, 6.31 pounds (Railroader)
Big Bass – Mike Cochran, 6.11 pounds
2nd Big Bass – Brian Walter, 5.16 pounds
Congratulations to all that were able to bring fish to the scales on such a touch day of fishing under some very adverse fishing conditions!
