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

The vast Tensaw River Delta out of Cliffs Landing was our tournament sight this month. As usual we started the day with a front coming in, in fact it dumped on us pretty hard on the way to the landing. We had 18 members, and 3 guests make the tournament. The forcast was for diminishing rain and warming to 74, WRONG!! It did stop long enough for us to get the boats launched, along with the 3 other clubs fishing from Cliffs. There was a heavy fog and Chris Malena could not see the straps on his transom so he took a dive to get a better look.

The other clubs blasted off first in the fog and most with no lights! Unbelievable! Where is the marine patrol when we need them, much less the common sense enough to use lights in the early dawn especially with heavy fog. Anyway, we got off without incident, at least so we thought. Frank Kelly followed a boat into Red Creek and hit a stump while trying to pass in close quarters.

On with the day of fishing. I went into Dennis where I had found some fish earlier and hoped they would still be there. They were, and there they stayed! I had a few short strikes but no fish. I saw several other fishermen all with the same problem, of course by now it was raining and the temp was falling. I regrouped and ran south to find a creek that might be my payoff. After a couple of hundred casts I managed to boat a keeper. I saw another boat coming out and he said he had lost 7 fish, a few casts later I hooked up in a tree top, netted the fish only to find a hook in it's mouth with a piece of braid broken off. I guessed the other guy broke it off in that same top.

Back at the weigh in there were a lot of long faces, 2 limits and a lot of mud. Mack Cramer managed to find 3 fish and yes one over 5 to take the booray and lunker and finish 3rd. Larry Foshee had a limit 10.20 lbs. for second and new comer Dave Dyess had the second limit with 10.98 lbs and first place. There were a lot more fish caught than I expected we did have four 'also fished'. And one of our prettiest guest beat her husband. Everyone complained about the cold and wind, but all in all it was still a good day on the water.

Keep Your Line Wet!!
Fred