Weather Conditions:

Low – 64

High – 88

Clouds early, Clearing to Mostly Sunny

Wind – Southwest 5-10mph

Well the 2014 SBBC season is officially halfway over. The 5^th tournament of the year took place at Black River Lake. This tournament is always one of the best of the year. Black River Lake usually produces more limits than any other tournament throughout the year. It is actually 3 lakes (Black River Lake, Cocodrie Lake, and Horseshoe Lake) combined by different bayous when it was all said and done all 3 lakes played a role in the top results. We had 30 anglers show up bright and early for our 5^th tournament. Black River Lake was unusually muddy this year which changed up the way it usually fishes, but that didn’t stop 2 time Black River Lake champion Wallace Woodson from bringing in his usual sack of big fish.

Wallace was able to scratch and claw and put together the winning sack. His fish weighed 12.74lbs. Anchored by his 4.74lb pig which was caught first thing that morning. All of his fish came out of Black River Lake and were all caught on top water, his two biggest fish coming on a chug bug and the rest on a frog. This is Wallace’s 3^rd win at Black River Lake in 5 tournaments. I would have to say he has got this place figured out pretty well. I considered renaming the article from “Winning Ways-Black River Lake” to “Here is what Wallace Woodson did to kick our tails here again.” We will have to see what we can do to change things up a little bit next year for him. Possibly make him take off last or just make him fish off the bank (Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated). Hot on his heels was new comer Brian White with 12.6lbs. Brain stayed in Horseshoe Lake all day flipping a jig around cypress trees. All of his fish were caught before 10:30. He also had a 4lb plus fish anchoring his bag. Not too bad for someone who had never set foot on the lake! Third place went to Jeff Greuhl with 11.92lbs. Jeff stayed in Cross Bayou all day flipping a black/red creature bait around cypress trees. Jeff said he caught between 15-20 fish all day. Finishing out the top five were Michael Watts with 11.7lbs and Jason Brown with 11.44lbs. Michael also had big fish of the day. His 5.01lb toad was caught on a jig in a tree top.

Overall Black River Lake lived up to its reputation with a total of 21 limits being brought to the scales. The overall total of fish weighed in was 123 for an average weight of 1.95lbs. 70% of our anglers had a 5 fish limit. Lots of anglers claimed to have caught anywhere from 15 to 30 fish throughout the day. That’s really good considering the water conditions and the boat traffic conditions. At times Black River Lake looked like Toledo Bend on a 30mph windy day. I seen a good quote on Facebook that would describe our day on lake…. Memorial Day weekend on the lake calls for topwater in the morning and tracer rounds in the afternoon!!!!!

With the season halfway over now, the point standings are as follows: Two time AOY Wallace Woodson is still leading and beginning to separate himself from the rest of the pack. With 4 tournaments left a lot can still happen!!! Our next tournament will be at Cane River out of Shell Beach on 6/21.

Always pay attention to the details. The details are the difference between 1^st and 10^th place!!!!

See below link for the video of tournament. I forgot to delete previous videos off my camera so there isn’t much footage this time.

Brandon Nugent

This Saturday is the 5th Club Tournament of the year. We will leave from Joe’s Horseshoe Marina at safe daylight and the weigh in will be at 3:00. Safe daylight is around 5:45 so everyone get there early. If anyone needs directions give me a call. Good Luck and be safe.

Thanks Curt

Well Southern Boyz Bass Club was represented extremely well in this year’s ALBC Best Six tournament on Toledo Bend. The team consisted of Josh Sikes, Rick Villemarette, Brandon Nugent, Aaron Belgard, Wallace Woodson, and Kevin Woodson. We ended up in 2^nd place with a two day total of 80.91lbs. That’s 24 fish with an average weight of 3.37lbs. We were 1.1lbs out of first. One more good bite would have done it for us. This club was founded in 2007 and fished its first best six in 2009 with a 78^th place finish. It goes to show you how far these bunch of Deville/Jena/Pineville boys have come in a short time!

Practice went well for us on the first day. With only 4 members fishing our best 12 fish would have topped the 56lb range. Josh & Aaron had an 8.5lb fish with a couple of 4lbers. I had two over 6lbs and Kevin caught 24 fish with numerous over or around 3lbs. Day 2 practice got much tougher. The lake looked like glass most of the time. Every team was still catching fish but size was tough to get. That night we put all our information together and came up with a game plan. We knew we had some good fish located, but with the Bassmaster Elites and Bass N Bucks also having tournaments going on we didn’t know how well they would hold out.

Day 1 of the tournament started out with a bang. We had a limit by 7:30 which included a 5.5lber caught by Wallace Woodson & Kevin Woodson. Every team was catching! This allowed us to start going looking for bigger fish. We were running and gunning, hitting as many spots as we could trying to find bigger fish. By the end of the day each team had a fish over 5lbs. When we all meet up and starting culling fish we knew we had a good sack! The total for Day 1 was 41.71lbs. That’s almost a 3.5lb average. After Day 1, we sat in 4^th place 6.5lbs out of the lead. After all that we were defiantly ready for Day 2, but Day 2 wasn’t ready for us. By 7:30, we only had 7 fish and they were all line scratchers. We began to worry! Around 8 we got a little boost when Rick and I caught a 6lber, but after that the bite died. At 10:30 we still only had 8 fish. Around 11, we began to figure out that the fish had moved out deep. Once we did, we began catching fish, but with weigh in at 2 o’clock time was a real big factor. We only had a couple of hours left to fish.  Josh and Aaron took a gamble and made a long run and quickly caught a 6.5lb and 4lb fish. Now we had a shot. Everyone was able to catch a couple more fish before we had to go weigh in. When we meet up to cull fish, we realized that we had some better fish than we thought anchored by our 2 6lbers. When we got to the scales, we were all shocked that we had 39.2lbs (3.25lb average).  We knew we were close then. After it was all said and done, we fell a little bit short but this was the best finish we ever had. Our previous best was last year with a 4^th place finish so the club is getting better every year. Only one more spot to go!

All of our fish weighed in were caught on some type of Rig bait either a Caroline Rig or an Umbrella Rig. We were focusing on grass points off of spawning flats, drains, or the edge of spawning pockets. Anywhere these post spawn fish might be ambushing the shad spawn. We were hitting lots of spots each day sometimes not staying in spots longer than 5 minutes. With very little wind for Toledo Bend standards, it allowed us to move around with ease! The depth range was all over the place. We caught fish between 3ft and 25ft of water. The fish were in different stages of spawn and post spawn and the shad spawn was also beginning so fish were just scattered. We just had to cover a wide range of areas and depths.

On another note, it was very interesting to fish with all the Elite boys around. We had some interesting run ins with them. On Thursday, I had the privileged of being cut off by KVD himself (NOT THAT I MINDED). I’ve never seen someone work a jerkbait so quickly. He made about 15 casts caught 2 fish and then was gone before I was able to get a picture.  Then on Friday, Josh and Aaroon were fishing a spot and Rick Clunn showed up and asked if he could join them. They said sure it’s all yours. Three casts later Clunn caught a 7lber. He thanked them on stage at the weigh inn.

Brandon Nugent

This next article was written by Wallace Woodson the night after the Best Six Tournament.

Motivation

            What strong stuff that is! It used to come to me in bucket loads, now I’m happy for every tea cup I get. Four years ago I went to Toledo Bend as the SBBC team captain with a crew of anglers that had one easy goal: Do their best and hopefully achieve the best finish ever for the SBBC. Well, after a hard weeks work we not only did that with a 15^th place finish, but we also won a boat in the process.

            For a lot of us that was a successful years showing. For the two youngest “kids” on the team it was just motivation. After a low water year on the Red River, we came back to Toledo Bend in 2013 and I happened to be team captain again. Our goal was pretty much the same… Do better than we’ve ever done before. The work began and success came. We finished 4^th and along came more motivation for these “kids.”

            This year came and these “kids” have steadily been preparing for the chance. Long days on the water, hours of looking at maps and studying graphs, phone calls and questions, ordering baits/line, everything thought over even the fact that we have 3 major tournaments in one weekend. It all didn’t matter, we were ready. Two days of practice and we were fishing beside Rick Clunn, Randall Tharp, Randy Howell, and oh yeah… KEVIN VANDAM. Do you think we were in the right spots??

            Well guys we didn’t win, but we’ve been climbing this ladder for a few years and there is only one step left. That leaves nothing but motivation for these 2 “kids” who are already working on next year’s plans. Brandon Nugent and Josh Sikes are all heart and soul when it comes to fishing for SBBC. These “kids” and a young rookie like Aaron Belgard are what the SBBC and fishing needs for our future. As for this old guy, I get plenty of motivation trying to keep up!!

Weather Conditions:

Low – 53

High – 88

Sunny

Wind – Southeast 10-15mph

Due to high water, we had to swap the locations of our 4^th and 5^th tournaments so the tournament this weekend took place on Saline/Larto complex. Saline/Larto is also experiencing a little high water. Saline is also experiencing a lot of muddy water which no one seems to know why. This threw a curve ball on some of our anglers that call Saline/Larto their home waters. A lot of their favorite spots were just not fishable. Even the weather was crummy, clear skies and a high pressure system sitting on top of us. Seems we can’t catch a break this year for any tournament. Even with all this we still had 25 anglers show up on this cool brisk morning for some fishing. With so many anglers in the club calling Saline/Larto their home water, makes this tournament just that much better because the locals expect to win it and the outsiders are trying to take it from them. When it was all over though, Josh Sikes was able to bring in the winning sack for his 2^nd win of the season and I believe this is his 4^th win in the SBBC.

Josh brought a sack of fish to the scales weighing 13.24lbs with a 4.77lb kicker. Josh caught almost all his fish (except his big fish) in one area and all of his fish either came on an umbrella rig, top water bait, or swim bait. According to Josh, between him and his co-angler they probably caught around 80 fish. Man what a school of fish. This is the first I heard of someone catching fish in Saline/Larto on an umbrella rig, but when you have no game plan the best plan is to stick to your guns. That is what Josh did and it paid off big time for him. Second Place went to Josh’s co-angler his dad Dean Sikes with 12.21lbs. Dean also had a fish over 5lbs for his kicker. Dean caught his fish basically the same way as Josh on an umbrella rig. Third place went to Kevin Woodson with 11.21lbs. Kevin was focusing on small points with grass and lily pad stems on them close to deeper water. All of Kevin’s fish came on a spinnerbait. I have not been told if he had it tied on backwards like Jamie Dubroc usually does. Finishing out the top was Brandon Nugent with 11.06lbs and Wallace Woodson with 9.91lbs. Big fish honors went to Brad Andes with a 5.36lb Swamp Donkey!!!

In the end, 87 fish were brought to the scales with a total weight of 171.63lbs. The overall average weight of each fish was 1.97lbs. We are one tournament away from the season being half over. Man time flies when you are having fun. As of right now 2 time angler of the year Wallace Woodson is leading with his brother Kevin Woodson 4 points behind. They both have a pretty good lead over everyone else. FOR NOW ANYWAYS!!!! The next tournament will be at Black River Lake at Horseshoe Marina on May 24. Hope to see everyone there!!!

Also check out the video in the below link!

Brandon Nugent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DtWWf5-h-Y

This Saturday 4/26/14 is the fourth club Tournament of the year. As everyone should know it has been swapped with the next Tournament due to high water. The Tournament will be held at Woodson’s Landing on Saline in Deville, La. We will leave in the order of this years points standings. There will be no passing in Big Creek. We will leave at safe daylight which is around 6am. The weigh in will be at 3:00pm. Let’s all be safe.  If anyone has any questions give me a call.

Thanks Curt Paul

318-201-3059

Due to really high water and the potential for even higher water at Black River Lake, the Board members have decided to swap the locations of the next 2 tournaments. The tournament on 4/26 will be held at Saline/Larto Lake out of Woodson’s landing and the tournament on 5/24 will be held at Black River Lake out of Joe Horseshoe Marina. Please help us by contacting any member that you know that might not check there email often and let them know of the changes. If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me.

Thanks,

Brandon Nugent

Weather Conditions:

Low – 51

High – 73

Cloudy; Clearing later

Wind – North 15-20mph; Gusting to 35mph

The 3^rd tournament of the 2014 season took place at Black Lake in Campti and man we had some crazy weather situations. A 4inch rain came through the Thursday night before. Then on Friday night a small hurricane came through with 50-60mph winds and another 4 inches of rain. Most on the anglers stayed at the lodge in the dark all night with no electricity to charge their batteries. The lake was rising quickly and getting muddier by the second. Black lake is usually known for its clean water, grass, and cypress trees, but this year it is more known for its Giant Sylvania that was taken over the lake. The Sylvania made it difficult to fish anything with an exposed hook. Also that stuff shifts as the wind moves it so one day you may have open water the next it will look like a pasture. The morning started out with a few remaining clouds, but later on it cleared up to be a nice windy day. Everyone figured the bite would be extremely tough, but do not doubt Southern Boyz Bass Club. While size was few and far between, a lot of our anglers were still able to but a pattern together and scratch out a decent day.

The man who was able to scratch out the best day was none other than “Big Fish” Jeremy Sonnier. I’m calling him that cause it never fails when EVERYONE else is not catching anything over 2lbs, he always seems to come in with a toad. This time his toad weighed 6.82lbs. That fish anchored his sack which weighed a total of 13.48lbs. Jeremy was flipping a beaver around cypress trees in 2-4ft of water on the South end of the lake. Congratulations Jeremy on a great day in real tough conditions. Second place went to a new member of the club Bruce Jenkins with 12.44lbs. He said he culled 3 times in the last 30 minutes for his biggest fish. Bruce was staying real shallow 2ft or less flipping a jig on the South end of the lake also. Third place went to Jamie Dubroc with 10.84lbs. Jamie caught around 25 fish on a spinnerbait on the North end of the lake. Now I have been told from reliable sources (Rick Villemarette & Wallace Woodson) that Jamie was doing a little something different with his spinnerbait. I was told he was tying the spinnerbait on backwards by the hook and making it look like the shad was backing up. I am not sure how true this is but a little birdy told me that because no one else in the entire tournament caught a fish on a spinnerbait. Just something to think about!!! Rounding out the top 5 were Paul Woodson with 10.76lbs and Jeff Gruehl with 10.45lbs. Jeff only had 4 fish but had 2^nd place big bass with 5.01lbs. Job well done men on a tough day of fishing. I got one more secret to reveal. All the top 5 guys told me they caught there fish off of cypress trees. Just a word of advice to everyone next time we go to Black Lake.

Overall we had 26 anglers catch a total of 92 fish for a total weight of 172.41lbs. There were 13 limits caught. The average weight of each fish was 1.87lbs. With our 3^rd tournament now in the books, we can start looking at angler of the year standings. No surprise here 2 time angler of the year Wallace Woodson is in the lead with new comer Bruce Fisher 4 points behind with Kevin Woodson in 3^rd trailing by 6 points. Our next tournament will be at Black River Lake on April 26. Hope to see everyone there!!! Remember it’s always about the attitude as KVD says!!

I made another video for this tournament. The batteries don’t last too long in these cameras. The last couple of clips are me during practice. I’m still playing with this camera and figuring out how best to use it. Hope yall like it. I will attempt to load it on facebook as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh182szYwu8&feature=youtu.be

Weather Conditions:

Low – 57

High – 79

Foggy/Hazy clearing to Sunny Late

Wind – South 5-10mph

The 2^nd tournament of the year took place on the #10 ranked lake in the US according to BASSMASTER, Toledo Bend Reservoir and it sure lived up to the hype. The day started out with a huge fog that didn’t clear until around noon. With water temps finally starting to warm (52-57) from a very harsh winter, fish were getting ready to move into spawning areas, but not quite yet. This kept the numbers of fish we are usually accustom to seeing this time of year from being brought to the scales, but did contribute to some HUGE sacks for a few anglers!! SBBC records were crushed by one of our young guns and multiple big fish were brought to the scales.

As everyone knows Toledo Bend offers anglers a variety of choices of fishing tactics, but it seemed the anglers that chose to fish near or in deep creek/river channels are the ones who stood above the rest. And one angler definitely stood WAY above the rest of us. The very last person to weigh in, and rightfully so was Josh Sikes. Everyone’s jaw dropped as he placed big fish after big fish into the weigh bag. Basically he threw the record book into a shredder and then burned the shreds and threw the shredder down a mountain with an unbelievable 26.21lb sack anchored by a 10.22lb SLOUNCH DONKEY!!!!! WOW is all you can say! Congratulations Josh on a truly awesome catch!! This was Josh’s 2nd win in the SBBC. Josh was focusing on a grass point next to a deep creek channel. His boat was sitting in 20-25ft of water throwing an umbrella rig onto edge of a grass point. He said the magic depth was 13ft which is where the grass line ended. Most anglers can only dream of a day like that. Josh broke the SBBC big bass record by 1.78lbs and largest sack record by 2.99lbs, both of which were held by our defending Angler of the Year Russ White, but don’t feel bad for Russ. He also brought in an impressive sack of 19.44lbs anchored by a 7.68lb largemouth which was good enough for 2^nd place. Russ was also throwing an umbrella rig on main lake points in 15-25ft of water. You can always count on Russ doing something different from the rest of the crowds. This is what separates him as an angler. Third place went to new member Jerry Silas with 18.95lbs. Jerry was focusing on 5-6ft of water with grass near creek channel swings. He caught his big fish 9.17lbs on a red ¾oz rattle trap and the rest of his limit came off of a watermelon red fluke. Once again a congratulations goes out to each of our top 3 for some awesome weights. Rounding out the top 5 was Brian Lucas with 16.65lbs and Michael Watts with 16.01lbs. One thing that makes Michael’s catch a little more impressive is that he did it in the back of 2 time Angler of the Year Wallace Woodon’s boat. Imagine what he could have done in the front, he might have been able to give Josh a run for his money. Well….. On a second thought probably not.

After it was all said and done 31 anglers brought in a total of 4 fish that weighed in over 6lbs. A total of 75 fish were brought to the scales with an average weight of 3.21lbs. This is also a new SBBC record. Another congratulations needs to go out to 2 time Angler of the Year Wallace Woodson, who during practice Friday caught his new personal best of 10.42lbs!!!! This was officially weighed in at Toledo Tackle into the Toledo Bend Lunker Program and Wallace will get a free replica in May during the Big Bass Splash tournament. To my knowledge over 3 days of fishing a total of 6 (2 10lb, 1 9lb, 3 7lb, 1 6lb) fish over 6lbs were caught by SBBC members either during practice or the tournament. I’m sure there were more but that’s all that I know about. The Bend definitely lived up to its reputation this weekend!!!! Our next tournament will be March 29 at Black Lake. We have the cabin booked so if you need a spot contact myself or Curt Paul. Hope to see everyone there!!

On a separate note, I realized that after weighing Josh’s sack of fish (or bricks) the legs of our weigh table were bowed out. Josh I will have to take back your winnings to buy a new table!!

Sorry no video for this tournament. I will start that back up at Blake Lack.

Brandon Nugent

This Saturday is the SBBC second Tournament of the year. It will be on Toledo Bend. This is a trailer Tournament. This means you can put in anywhere on the Lake and fish, then trailer to the weigh in. The Official start time will be 6:30 am. This means you can launch your boat but you cannot leave the landing until 6:30am. The weigh in will be at the Pennington Bridge landing on the Texas side at 3:30 pm. The directions to this land is highway 6 cross the bridge into Texas, the 1st landing on the right. Everyone who is not getting in the jackpot needs to let me know before the Tournament. If you are bringing a guest let me know before the Tournament. Hope to see everyone next Saturday at 3:30. Good luck.

Thanks Curt

(318)201-3059

Weather Conditions:

Low – 36

High – 62

Mostly Sunny

Wind – Northeast 5-10mph

            Freezing water temps, muddy water, and a high pressure day can’t keep the Southern Boyz Bass Club away. We had 34 anglers with 5 new members show up for the first tournament of the year which was held on the Red River at Grand Ecore landing and well the season didn’t really start out with a BANG like it did last year. The recent 4 snow storms really had the fish in a lazy funk! With the water temps hanging around 45 degrees fishing was slow to say the least and for power fisherman like myself it was downright torture. Only 9 anglers were able to bring a fish to the scales. But someone ALWAYS catches them, and for us it was the slower than molasses fishing of the Woodson Brothers that brought in the heaviest two sacks!! With so many of the anglers that you usually see at the top of leaderboard not catching a fish and some new members catching fish, the points race is starting off very interesting which should make for an exciting year.

            Anytime you fish the Red River there are lots of decisions to be made. Do I stay in the same pool or go through the locks, which one of the numerous oxbows or back waters do I try first, do I fish the stump filled flats, the deeper creeks, or the structure filled banks, or do I find some rock filled banks. Well two of our anglers made the right decisions and put a solid game plan together. Kevin Woodson brought the only 5 fish limit to the scales. His sack weighed an impressive 19.08lbs. This sack was anchored by two big sals. One weighed 6.02lbs and the other over 5lbs. Congratulations Kevin!! This was a very impressive sack on a really tough day. Second place went to Wallace Woodson with 13.8lbs. He only caught 4 fish but the biggest was 6.61lbs which was big fish of the day. Both men were basically fishing the same pattern. They were dragging some type of beaver like bait in 6-8ft of water in pool #3. The fish were not holding to any type of structure but were holding to deeper banks with real deep water nearby. They both said you had to fish as slow as you possibly could imagine. If you thought you were fishing slow, you were probably fishing too fast! That takes A LOT of patience!!! Third place went to Dan Stevens with 7.82lbs. Rounding out the top 5 were Bruce Fisher with 7.03lbs and Jeremy Sonnier with 6.33lbs. Both men had a fish over 4lbs.

            Overall only 22 bass were brought to the scales with an average weight of 3.12lbs. This is a good average but very few bass were caught. We are defiantly not in a prespawn situation yet, this is still winter time fishing. Our next tournament will be March 1 at Toledo Bend. If this warm weather keeps up the fishing should really be awesome. We might even see some 55 degree water and some prespawn conditions!!!! Hope to see everyone there!

Below is a video I made of the most boring boat race ever! No one was willing to get out of line and the lens was fogged up at first. This is something I am going to try to do every tournament. Sorry Josh Sikes but I had to keep your part in there!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1gLt5wvYcY

Brandon Nugent