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

Finally we get to fish on a weekend with good weather, no high water, and even comfortable temperatures, in fact it was a little cool at blast off. Walter threw his name in the ring for the 'Hammer' award, he left his rods in the room before blast off.

Lay lake is a beautiful lake with virtually every opportunity for a good stringer of bass that you could imagine. Good grass, timber, brush, bluffs, creeks and islands all offering cover for bass. We blasted off with 18 members and seven guests on Saturday with a heavy fog. As we got to the east side of the lake the fog lifted but many fishermen stayed close and fished the west side until the sun came up to burn off the fog. Wayne Cox had said he was fishing the same area that I intended to fish so I asked exactly where he wanted to start. He chose the left bank and I ran to the right. It took only about 15 minutes for me to boat a nice keeper on a buzz bait and he saw it! Walter was fishing with me and put a 3 pounder in about 2 casts later on a frog. Wayne had missed a couple by then. We continued our pattern and managed 1st and 3rd place for day one. Rich Cornelius came in with a limit also for 2nd on a junebug finesse. Almost everyone had fish on Saturday and they were caught everywhere on everything literally. Some caught all on crankbaits, some on buzz baits, others on soft plastic both floating, Texas rig, and c-rig. Little Brian had big fish Saturday at 4.2 on a floating worm.

We got lucky. The local restaurant gave us 2 free seafood buffets to auction off. That raised $46 for our travel fund. Winners were Walter and Sarge.

Walter and I were pretty confident with our pattern so we returned Sunday and sure enough the first point we stopped on I put in a 2 pounder followed by a 5.62 which ended up lunker. My day had just begun. A few casts later I got a hit and felt some really heavy weight. Fifteen minutes later we saw the biggest snapping turtle I ever saw. I am sure it was a world record for 12 pound test but Walter refused to pick it up by the tail like the crocadile hunter does on TV. The shell was a good 40 inches across, and his head was 8 inches between his eyes. Oh well, there goes my chance for the record books. Back at the weigh in I had only managed 3 fish for the day and with only a .68 pound lead over Rich I was a little nervous. There were again many good stringers brought in. Chris Molina both had a limit, Rich, John Kasic, Billy Blackwell and Wayne Cox each had 6. It seemed that there was a crowd looking for the win. Our guests showed well also with Little John Lightsey coming in with 2, John Russell Buck, Lisa Cox, Dora Thomley all beat their partners on at least one day of fishing.

When all was said and done John Kasic took 3rd with a two day total of 18.68 pounds, followed close by Rich Cornelius at 18.92 and yours truly took first with 19.52 including 5.62 lunker and boo-ray fish.

We were all ready for a good tournament and we got it. Now we want another one!!