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

Our monthly tournament was held with 18 members in competition. Anticipation of good water was strong, reports were that although the water had been high and muddy it was coming down and probabilities good that we would have good water to fish. As many of us know the Alabama River can produce some heavy quality stringers when conditions are right.

As we waited for blast off (and while swatting mosquitoes) several of us spotted the space shuttle Discovery in the sky about 5:30 AM. What a great opportunity and we were already up!

Walter blasted us off in groups of five and all went well. The field scattered, some going into creeks, some up river, and some down. I ran to the main river and started fishing the main river banks (where I had found some fish last week). I boated my first keeper about 7:30 on a plastic craw, but pulling the river was taking its toll on my batteries. Shortly after I saw Walter who had several fish most short though, he was headed north. Wayne and puddle jumper (Dora) stopped by headed to the jetties and he had 1 fish from one of the creeks. I moved into Boatyard Lake and found my second keeper but my bite was still very slow.

Weigh in was 2:00 PM, just after the heavy rain. The landing was a mess, lots of mud from the rain, but Dora had fun in the puddles. Recovery of the boats was slow on the single ramp, and we had a couple of trucks stuck in the soft dirt when they tried to pull around. Rich Renner entered the Hammer race when he slung his new Bass Cat around in the mud and right into the back of Wayne Thomleys trailer. No major damage to Wayne's, but a good ding in Rich's fender.

We finally got the scales open and fish started coming in. We only had 1 dead fish, 41 total fish for 62.20 pounds. Chris Malena finished third with 5 weighing 7.26, Billy #3 Blackwell was second 6 fish 10.96 pounds, and Richie Cornelius had first place with 7 fish 12.13 pounds including a 3.10 lunker. Fish were caught on plastics, buzz baits, crank baits and spinner baits. Chris went south, Billy and Rich went north and fished the main river.

Sorry no photos this month.