For all who read this and aren’t a member of Central Florida Bass Anglers, you should be envious. We traveled to Webber International University, just outside of Lake Wales, in Babson Park, May 31& June 1st. Webber is a small college on the banks of Crooked Lake and was virtually vacant for the summer vacation. Our club member, Steve Warner, is an executive at the universityl and, for the 2nd straight year, had arranged for our club to stay in the dorm rooms and to eat in the school cafeteria. We had a blast. Dinner after the fishing day, breakfast in the morning and each participant had a bag lunch. We had 21 boats pulled up on the beach ready to go in the mornings and the fish cooperated. No other group of fishermen, and fisherwomen, had ever had it so good in a club event.
Most teams tried to check out the lake on Friday or the previous weekend. Everybody that I spoke with was catching a bunch of fish. Several teams reported catches of big ones. We all know the reputation of Crooked as being a “numbers” lake and knew that a few bigger bites could move you up in the standing very quickly. There would be a lot of 10-11 lb bags. Joe Ventrello had been doing well on large plastics and was very optimistic about his tournament. Paul Guimarin had been wearing them out on flukes and had 6 bags in reserve. The Craigs were catching them flipping small craws. Dave Gazdak and Greg Biesecker had a run & gun pattern of several of the grass patches. Robert Jones and Don Infinger tore them up the weekend before the event and had their game plan ready. So did the pre-fishing help?
It sure did for Dave & Greg. Their first stop on Saturday yielded the biggest fish of the tournament. The 6.10 lber fell victim to a 10 in worm. Dave said them jumped from one patch to another all day. They favored the Kissimmee grass and had selected several spots all over the lake. Each location was fished for about 30 minutes, then instead of circling around and hitting every blade of grass around each productive patch, the guys buckled up and ran to the next one. This strategy had them firmly in the lead Saturday with over 18 lb. They caught a few on frogs but primarily scored on the worms. Sunday started out similarly to Day 1. Dave nailed a 4 ½ on a frog and then the milk run commenced. At the end of the day, they had another 17 + and won their first club event with a 2 day total of 34.86. And they got big fish. After being so close, so often…..it’s about damn time you guys won!
Chip Dover and John Ricketson only had a few hours to find fish in practice on Friday and really didn’t find anything of note. They had about 6 keepers Friday evening but all were 14 inchers. They decided to try across from Webber on Saturday, and doubled up on their first casts! The pair went through 35 fish during the day and caught all of their weigh fish on 10” worms in the grass patches. They would go an hour with only little ones, then, they would catch a 3 lber. The first days tally left the team in 3rd with 14.35. Sunday was worse than Saturday for good keepers. Again, they went through 35 fish and they were culling ounces. At 2:30 with a limit weighing 8 lb., they moved one last time to their original starting spot for 1 more hour …and hopefully a few more ounces. Evidently, the afternoon bite is better at Crooked. Their first patch yielded a 4 pound fish for Chip. The second held a 4¼. The third had a 3. The next held a 2. And the 5th had another 2. In 20 minutes and 5 patches, they culled all 5 fish out and came in with 15.02 (a dead fish cost them .25) for a 2 day total of 29.12 lb. Good enough for a second place finish.
Four pounds separated 3rd from 10th. It only took ounces to move up. Paul Gumarin, Jr. said he had 6 bags of flukes and Paul,Jr. said they almost used them all. The pair went through 60 fish to cull up to 23.75 lb and grab 3rd place. They employed 2 techniques for they finish. First that would skitter the flukes from very shallow water over the emergent grass and then kill the bait as it cleared the vegetation. Their second method was to almost dead stick the baits on very long casts. This seemed to work better for the larger fish. They had a 4.53 that won a tie for big fish on Sunday, also. You could tell that they had a great time, their boat was covered with used baits, all of them with teeth marks. Good job!
The brothers Galassi came in 4th with 21.53. They, too, caught tons of bass and had to cull up ounces. Their Sunday bag included the largest fish of the day. However, since the fish has expired, the official weight dropped .25 and that put them in a tie and they split big fish money with the Guimarin’s. They covered a lot of ground en route to their finish and scored mostly on the west end of the lake. They did their damage with, you guessed it, soft plastics in the outside grass. Nice finish!
I think everybody had a great time. The camaraderie around the picnic tables after dinner went well into the night and a lot of us had sore sides from laughter. This was a great fishing trip. Thanks again to Steve Warner and the entire Webber staff!!
NOTES: Not as many of the fish had the grey ick, like last year……..tons of fish even though we had hot, still weather and the water was down…….no really big ones like we usually get, 6+ was big fish………the Big Dog birthday cake was a success, as was the 50/50 drawing, which I particularly enjoyed……….Steve, start working on our June 2009 tournament…oh, and Steve, make sure the women’s volleyball team has practice when we’re there…..See ya’ at the River!!
