Weather Conditions:
Low – 52
High – 87
Clear
Wind – Northeast 5mph
Sorry the article is a little later than usual, but we were having some website issues. Thank goodness for Brandon O’Neal who spent all day working on the fixes!
Our 3rd tournament of the year took place at Black Lake and it seems like every year it is the same thing. A rain storm comes through the day before and tournament day is a cooler, blue bird day. This year was no different. This makes the bite real tough, but at a shallow, clear water lake like Black Lake it gets really tough! Then to top it all off there was another tournament with around 70-80 boats there also, but that’s tournament fishing for you. You take whatever is handed out to you and we had 37 anglers show up to see what all Black Lake could send their way. I think I say this in almost every article, no matter how TOUGH you may think the bite is someone out there is catching them (funny that someone NEVER seems to be me). Well it seems there were actually a couple of anglers who were “catching” them. When the weigh inn was over, the man who caught them the best was none other than 2 time AOY Wallace Woodson. Wallace brought in a sack of fish weighing 15.85lbs anchored by the big bass of the tournament 6.99lbs.
As everyone knows there are only 2 things in Black Lake to fish Cypress Trees and grass. Well with the lake drawdown last year, the grass had died off for the most part and the fish were holding even harder to the trees than usual. Well Wallace was focusing on the trees in the 6-7ft range on the north end of the lake. He said at 11 o’clock he had only one fish. That fish was his big fish which was caught on a watermelon colored fluke. Then after lunch he went on a small flurry and finished out his limit and culled on a jig. Second place went to Jamie Dubroc with 12.16lbs. This bag was also anchored by a big fish weighing 5.19lbs. Jamie caught all his fish on soft plastics in 3-6ft of water just north of the bridge. His big fish was caught on a black and blue Rage Craw. After spending the week in the Bassmaster Elite Marshall program on Lake Guntersville, Dan Stevens figured he would come in and catch a few quality bass himself. Dan brought in a limit weighing 11.68lbs with a 4.52lb kicker. Dan was doing something totally different than everyone. He caught all his fish on a frog. He stayed south of the bridge all day. Finishing out the top 5 was Jason Brown (who also spent the week on Lake Guntersville with the Elites) with 11.22lbs and Rick Villemarette with 10.92lbs. Congratulations to all our top 5 finishers and to Wallace for his first win of the year.
Even though we had 37 anglers show up to fish, only 9 limits were caught. That is a really low number for Black Lake usually we have12-15 limits weighed in here every year. Goes to show you how tough the conditions were. There was a total of 97 fish brought in for an average weight of 2.17lbs. If we don’t watch out we are going to let Wallace Woodson pull away with the AOY title before we even get good and started. Wallace now has a 9 point lead over 2nd place Rick Villemarette. This isn’t the first time these 2 have battled it out over the AOY title. Season is still young so anything can happen. Our next tournament will be on Black River Lake on May 9. Also don’t forget about our Open Tournament on April 18th on Salie/Larto. Anyone member that can fish it or help out would be greatly appreciated.
Once again I would like to that Rick for making some videos with some actual fish catches on them. All I seem to get are boat rides on mine. I am going to give my Go Pro to someone who can actually catch a fish next tournament.