Just a reminder to everyone that our annual club meeting will be next Saturday Jan 30th at Longview Baptist Church in Deville at 4:30. We will eat around 5. We will be voting on lakes for the upcoming season, voting on board members and officers, discussing any rule changes, and recognizing last season’s AOY, winners, and best 6 entries. If anyone needs directions or has anything that they would like me to bring up in the meeting feel free to contact me. Hope to see everyone there.
Everyone the 2016 annual meeting will be on Jan. 30th at Longview Baptist Church at 4p.m. with supper served at 5 o’clock. We will be recognizing all tournament winners, best 6 team members, and AOY from the 2015 season. We will also be voting on all lakes for the upcoming 2016 season and discussing any other items that members would like to bring up during the meeting. The proposed dates for next year’s tournaments are below. The 2016 club dues are $30 and to join the ALBC would be another $35. If anyone has any questions or comments feel free to contact me. Also if anyone needs directions to the church just give me a call.
Sorry guys for my slacking on the articles this year, I have been working on house a lot this year. I promise next year will be back to normal. This winning ways will be short and sweet. The 2015 season is officially over and the top angler is Mike Barbat!!!! This is Mike’s 3rd AOY title but his first since 2008. Mike had a great year with 2 wins this year both on Saline Lake. Congrates to Mike on his win and AOY title! Mike came in with an impressive 17.5lbs anchored by an absolute toad of a largemouth. This toad weighed 7.22lbs! We had 24 anglers show up to the last tournament and every angler but 1 weighed in at least 2 fish. That’s a great turnout for the final tournament of the year. There were also 3 fish over 6lbs weighed brought to the scales. Thanks to everyone for a great year. Keep a look out on our Facebook page and website I will be posting our meeting date sometime around mid-December. Hope to see everyone back next year. The 6 guys that will representing the SBBC in the Best six next year is listed below. Congrates to all 6 anglers. Once again thanks to everyone in the club. We have had a another great year!!!
Mike Barbat, Jason Brown, Brandon Nugent, Wallace Woodson, Mark Barbat, and Micheal Watts
Sorry I’m late on this but better late than never (thanks for the reminder Mark Barbat?) the final tournament of the year will be tomorrow on Saline from Woodsons Landing. Safe daylight is around 6:30 and weigh in will be at 3. There are is a lot on the line with AOY and Best 6 spots up for grabs. Hope to see everyone there!
Sorry guys I should have posted this earlier but the next tournament will be this Saturday August 15th at Toledo Bend from 6p.m. until 2a.m. Weigh in will be at Farmers Basket next to Toledo Tackle. The lake is off limits Saturday at daylight until 6p.m. If anyone has any questions just give me a call.
Thanks,
Brandon
Well summer is officially here and it is HOT!!!!!!!!! Just in case no one else noticed!! I want to start off by apologizing for not having articles for the past 2 tournaments. Between website issues and my house building, I wasn’t able to write an article. I would still like to congratulate Jason Brown on his win at Black River Lake back in May and Keith King on his ONE FISH, which happen to weigh over 11lbs, win at Indian Creek back in June. Great job guys!!! Now for the most recent tournament, we had 24 anglers show up for the 6th tournament of the year which took place on Saline/Larto Complex. We are still dealing with high waters from the Red River and Saline was roughly 3.5 feet high and falling extremely slow making the fishing a lot tougher than usual. But as I have said hundreds of times, SOMEONE always figures them out this time if happen to be former AOY Mike Barbat. Mike won by an impressive 8lb margin.
Mike brought an impressive 19.04lb sack to the scales in JULY!!!! Mike’s big fish was 5.29lbs. All his fish came off of a popping frog on a 50 yard stretch on the Larto end of the Lake. He caught around 20 fish all day. This is Mike’s first win in a while. Looks like he is on his way back to the top!!! This was a very impressive catch. Great job. Second place went to Michael “Woffy” Watts. Woofy weighed in 11.93lbs anchored by a 6.03lb giant bass. This big fish was caught on a spook at 12:30. The fish was so big it broke his rod and he was still able to get the fish to the boat! When it’s your day everything seems to work out! His other fish either came on a spook or trick worm on the Saline side of the lake. Jason Brown has able to get 3rd place with 9.10lbs. Jason caught all his fish on a chug bug. He stopped in Raccoon Lake and fished his way back to Woodson’s Landing. Rounding out the top 5 were Mark Barbat with 8.72lbs & Jeff Greuhl with 8.65lbs. Congrates to all of our Top 5 finishers for some great catches on a hot tough day of fishing.
Overall 24 anglers’ brought 61 fish to the scales for an average weight of 1.99lbs. That’s tough right there!!! With only 2 tournaments to go the race for AOY and best 6 places are getting tight. There a many anglers fighting for both. Should make for an exciting run to the end of the year!! Also remember that 2 teams will be eligible for the best 6 this year. The next tournament will be a night tournament on Toledo Bend. Should be some good sacks brought in to this one since it is now the #1 lake in the NATION!!!!!! Hope to see everyone there! Below is the link to the GO PRO video from Saline courtesy of Rick and Myself!! Should be entertaining!!!
Due to high water the board has decided to change the location of the next tournament from Red River Shreveport to Indian Creek Reservoir. Weigh in will still be at 3 p.m. If anyone has any questions or comments feel free to give me a call.
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.
It seems like the winter just won’t end that is until now. Here it was the 2nd weekend in March and water temps on Toledo Bend were ranging from 51-53 degrees until Saturdays sunshine got it up to around 56 in some areas that afternoon. The fish were in prespawn mode just waiting for that water to start warming up! Then in addition to the prolonged winter, it rained 6 inches up there on Thursday and Toledo had rose over a 1.5ft in 2 days. This had most of the lake murky. Most major creeks were muddy along with then entire lake north of the bridge. This had most anglers abandoning their usual fishing holes in an attempt to find better water. While the bite may have been tough, this is Toledo Bend and you can expect someone to have a big sack and someone to catch a real big fish. Both of these things occurred in the same boat just not by the same person. Rick Villemarette came in with a 19.02lbs to claim 1st place and his co-angler/son brought a 9.38lb brute to the scales to claim big bass honors. This was Rick’s first win in 2 years. Maybe Ryan is Rick’s lucky charm……….
Rick’s 19.02lb sack of fish were caught on either an umbrella rig or jerk bait. Rick was focusing on the mouths of spawning pockets and drains on the edge of spawning flats in 12-16ft of water on the south end of the lake. His sack was anchored by a 6.71lb toad. He caught that fish first thing that morning. What a way to start a day (that never happens for me)! Second place went to Mark Barbat with 15.63lbs barely edging out the next angler. Mark was the only anlger of the top 5 finishers to fish north of the bridge. Mark focused on a 50 yard stretch of grass in 5 ft. of water. He said the water in that area was the only place he had found that wasn’t completely muddy. All his fish came on a spinnerbait. Coming in 3rd place was Wallace Woodson with 15.59lbs. Wallace focused on points with grass in 14-20 ft in the mid-lake area. He fished many different spots throughout the day. This is very un-Wallace Woodson like. Goes to show you how the murky water had changed peoples fishing patterns. All his fish came on an umbrella rig. Finishing out the top 5 was Barry Boothe with 14.67lbs and Ryan Villermarette with 11.16lbs. Ryan only had two fish but he had big fish of the tournament with 9.38lb DONKEY!!! This fish was caught on an umbrella rig in the back of his dad’s boat! This was Ryan’s personal best. Congratulations on that great catch and to our top 5 finishers. These guys did a great job on a tough bite!
We had 42 anglers show up to fish the legendary Toledo Bend. This was a really great turn out. We have a total of 42 club members now. A total of 62 fish were brought to the scales. This was our lowest fish count ever at Toledo. The bite was really tough only 4 limits were caught. As usual with Toledo the average weight was really high, 3.13lbs per fish. With 2 tournaments behind us the angler of the year standings are starting to take form. And big surprise we have two 2 time AOY champions at the top of the standings, Wallace Woodson and Rick Villemarette. Wallace is the only angler to catch a 5 fish limit to both tournaments. Also at the top is Brad Andes tied with Rick for second place. The top 6 race is still wide open. Every point is important!
At the bottom is a link to the video I made for the tournament. I would like to thank Rick for giving me his go pro to add another video to the mix. Sorry no music this time had some issues that I will try to get fixed before next tournament. I would also like to give props to Ryan Villemarette who took a rattle trap to the head and never stopped reeling in his bait. Now that is dedication!!!!!! You will see what I’m talking about in the video.
Finally our next tournament will be at Black Lake on April 11th. The club has booked the lodge. It sleeps 24 people. Anyone wanting to stay will need to let me know. Its first come first serve. Some people have already told me but I wasn’t able to write it down so if you already told please contact me again. Also if all the sponsors could mail me their money, I am wanting to get started on the t-shirts for this year. My address is below:
The 2nd tournament of the year will take place this Saturday March 14th on Toledo Bend Reservoir. This is a trailer tournament. Official take off time will be at 7 a.m. Weigh in will be at 3:30 p.m. at Pendleton Bridge Marina on the Texas side. All members who plan on fishing the tournament and are NOT getting into the side pot must let me know before Saturday morning or they will be considered as entering into the side pot. If anyone has any questions just let me know.
Brandon Nugent