The 2017 season has officially started. A chance to redeem the previous year’s struggles for some and a chance to continue the previous year’s dominance for others! We began our season on the Saline/Larto complex, the home water of many of our club anglers. We had 41 anglers show up to fish the first tournament including 3 guests. Unusually warm weather the past couple of weeks has pushed the bass ahead of normal spawning periods, but to throw a few kinks into the day Mother Nature pushed through a cold front on Friday night. Cold north winds, 20 degree drop in temperature, and the parametric pressure steadily rising made the fishing much tougher a complete 180 from the previous days.

Some guys reported quick flurries of bites first thing that morning and then again not until later in day, while others reported not getting bites to later in the day. Overall, most seemed to be able to put together a good many bites with 16 limits being brought to the scales and 2 bass over 7lbs! When the scales were finally closed, I topped the scales with 16.78lbs. I caught all my fish in my typical pattern in 3 different areas on 2 different ends of the lake on 3 different baits. I caught fish flipping a beaver, on a chatterbait, and my biggest fish came on a square bill. I had a flurry of bites first thing that morning and then again later in the day. Coming in a close 2^nd place was Aaron Belgard with 16.18lbs. Arod also stuck to his strengths with catching most of his fish flipping a beaver. He stayed on the Larto/Shad Lake side of the lake catching a good many fish throughout the day. Third place went to Rick Villermarette with 14.24lbs. This was Rick’s first trip to Saline this year. Not too bad for an ole man with no practice! What was even more surprising is that he said he caught them on a senko on cypress trees in Larto. For those of us that know Rick that seems very farfetched! His trolling motor is usually set to 90 and he is falling out the boat! Kinda hard to catch fish on a senko from behind the boat but that is what I was told! Rounding out the top 5 was Michael Watts with 13.93lbs and Austin Greuhl with 13.70lbs. Just to add to Austin’s day he caught them from the back of the boat! Big fish went to new comer Al Roe with 7.7lbs. He caught this fish in Larto on a jig! Another 7lber was also caught by new comer Brett Kimble which weighed 7.26lbs. Had some really nice fish weighed in for a tough day of fishing. Overall tournament stats are at the end.

I would like to thank everyone that helps with the weigh in process. I always assign 2 official weigh masters for each tournament, but then someone must help and take over at the end so they can weigh their fish. Things went very well. Thanks to all!

The next tournament will take place on Toledo Bend. This will be a trailer tournament. I will announce official take off time the weekend before the tournament on Facebook and the website. Weigh in time will be at 3:30 at the Pendleton Bridge Marina on the Texas Side. One thing to note is yes this is a trailer tournament but you MUST take off from a public landing. You CANNOT take off from your camp or a private launch. If anyone has any questions regarding this let me know.

TOURANMENT STATS

NUMBER OF ANGLERS – 41

NUMBER OF FISH CAUGHT – 127

NUMBER OF LIMITS – 16

TOTAL WEIGHT – 296.22lbs

RELEASE PERCENTAGE – 98.4%

AVERAGE WEIGHT PER FISH – 2.3LBS

AVERAGE WIEGHT PER ANLGER – 7.22LBS

AVERAGE FISH PER ANGLER – 3