Weather Conditions:

Low – 69

High – 92

Sunny and HOT!!!

Wind – Southeast 5-7mph

The 6^th tournament of the year took place at Saline/Larto Lake and man it was a scorcher! The summer has officially arrived!! Even with it being a very hot and long day, we had a total of 34 anglers show up for the tournament. This goes to show you how awesome this club is. Most clubs don’t have that many anglers show up at the beginning of the year let alone by the time summer gets here.

The morning started off with a haze over most of the lake but by 9 o’clock the sun was out, the temperature was rising, and everyone was reaching for the water jugs and sunscreen. To make matters a little tougher two other bass club tournaments were going on at the same time so the lake got crowded at times. With so many veteran anglers in our club that call Saline their home water you would figure one of them would come in with the winning sack, but that didn’t happen. In the last article, I predicted that Aaron Belgard would have more victories to come, but no one figured it would be the very next tournament. Aaron was the last one to weigh in for a reason. He brought in a sack weighing 12.84lbs anchored by two 4lb toads the biggest weighing 4.8lbs.

Aaron caught all his fish in Larto Lake using either a chartreuse and black back square bill crankbait or a trick worm. He focused mainly on the docks. The 2 big fish were caught on a chartreuse and black back square bill crankbait. I came in 2^nd place with 10.60lbs. All of my fish were caught on some type of crankbait either a square bill, a medium diver, or a deep diver in shad or bream colors. Some came off of docks, some off of trees, and some off of wood. As you can tell I had no pattern. I just kept moving and trying different things. Third place went to Rick Villeramette with 10.30lbs. In his own words, his pattern consisted of “JUNK FISHING(which was very similar to my pattern).” He caught some in Larto on a buzzbait around the island, some around the weir on a trick worm, and others just moving around the lake. Finishing out the top 5 were, Jeff Gruehl with 8.99lbs and Josh Sikes with 8.91lbs.

Overall the fishing was tough; only 6 limits were caught. A total of 70 bass were brought to the scales with an average weight of 1.979lbs per fish. That is the lowest total and average weight of the season.

After 6 tournaments Rick Villeramette is leading the AOY race, but if you go ahead and drop 2 tournaments the AOY race gets real interesting. By dropping 2 tournaments, Russ White is your leader with Rick Villeramette and Josh Sikes not far behind. Also the top 6 spots are starting to take shape, but with 3 tournaments left there is a lot of fishing still left. The next tournament will be at Red River South in Bossier City. Most people are booking cabins at the marina so if you plan on going you better book your room.

Brandon Nugent