"Fred's Club Report"
Covering The Panhandle Bass Club
Email fpraby@cox.net

The Panhadle Bass Club went to Millers Ferry Reservoir on the Alabama River for our first tournament of the 2004 season. Of course we had a cold front on the way, but no matter we still had 19 boats show up for the tournament.

There were several fishermen who went up to pre-fish on Friday and we found that there were several other tournaments going on that same weekend and most of them decided to pre-fish on Friday as well. The community holes were all pretty well fished on Friday, and there reports were slim at best. I managed to find a few fish but not the quality I expected.

There were seventy some boats launching at Ellis Landing on Saturday morning, a pretty good crowd but we were able to get out without any mishaps. Although there were some delays with people blocking the ramp, and congestion in the bay after launching.

We blasted off at safe light and most went north. I followed two boats into my starting place and we just spread out and started to fish. Within ten minutes we had several more boats trying to come in on us but they were courteous and found places to fish without crowding. I was impressed, although they did fish my holes! At 6:34 I boated my first keeper a nice 1 ¾ pounder and thought I might have made the right move. It only took ten minutes to put number two in the boat on a junebug worm then it was over. I continued to work the bank for two more hours but no sign of Mr. Bass. Time to run…so I went further north working points, guts and pockets all to no avail. I finally moved into Chillachee creek and managed to miss a limit of fish on brush tops. The bite was so light that by the time you thought you had a bite he had spit it out.

Back at the weigh in I found that I finished 10th, there were two limits brought in on jigs (actually there were 4, but the partners were not in competition). Wayne Thomley and Wayne Cox took 1st and 2nd. Mack Cramer had lunker and jigs were the bait of choice. There were some reports of fish caught on crankbiats, junebug worms but the top bait in this cold front condition was a jig. Tony Boyette jinxed himself by boating a 5.8 pounder on Friday using a junebug worm. Most everyone caught fish and had a good time, other than one Ranger being launched without a plug in it there were no incidents, no accidents and all had a safe trip.

Keep Your Line Wet !!

Fred