The Pensacola Hawg Hunters ended their fishing year on the Escambia River this month. We fished Saturday December 6th. We had Eighteen anglers braving the frigid weather in search of the elusive large mouth! The day was bright, windy and cold, to top it off we fished the majority of the day on a falling tide. The water up stream above the power plant was high and swift. Down below it was low and moving at a more normal rate. I did mention it was low, right!
We had 14 anglers at 4:00 to weigh in 18.7 pounds of fish . A total of 13 Bass came to the scales. The proud owners of these fish were, In first place, Mac Cramer with 2 fish at 3.4 pounds. Second Place went to Jere Jallite with 3 fish at 3.3 pounds, and third place went to Jim Bailey, Jr. with 2 fish that weighed 3.1 pounds. As you can see it was very very very close!
On a side note, did I mention the water level was low, did you catch the fact that 18 anglers fished and 14 were at the weigh in at 4:00 p.m. Let me elaborate.... Two boats found that low water. One was the boat of Wally Cassiano and Jim Bray, at about 11:00 a.m. they became stuck near one of the local fish camps near the bay, (to remain nameless as we had to pay to launch the boats to go free our stranded member) Wally and Jim were happy to see us as it was getting dark and a whole lot colder. We don't know if Wally and Jim had any fish but they were happy to see us anyway. The Other Boat on the other hand..... this one belong to Neil Springstead and his partner Jack Maher. They arrived at the landing at about 4:30 p.m., wet from the waist down, they also found some low water, but were able to push themselves off. Although they were wet and cold, that really didn't bother them, the fact that Neil had culled fish all day long, had five keepers, had the best tournament of his life and would have won the tournament, Jack had 3 keepers, that BOTHERED them!
The year has come to a close, I can take a break for a few weeks, the club tournaments will be held the first Saturday after the Third Wednesday of the month next year. I can also breath easier as I was able to hang on to "Big Fish of the Year" title with 5.65 Pounds! Until next year may all your bites be BIG ONES!