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Boating Safety
Just in case you've forgotten basic rules of the waterways here is a link with regulations and tips. http://www.dbw.ca.gov/Boatsmarter/index_open.html
If you want to be proactive the following is a link to an online course about boating safety http://www.dbw.ca.gov/PDF/DBWBoatCourse.pdf
08/21/10 Established 1969 Newsletter #08.10
NOTES FROM THE WINNING TEAM by Rene Duzac – First of all I want to say thanks to my partner who finished filling our limit and took care of the boat while I enjoyed 2.5 hours of sleep during the night.
Well Marshall and I had the plan to hit the steep walls with jigs before we even hit the water on Saturday. We had heard the bite was tough and the best thing to do was go slow and look for the big ones. Well that was our plan until they called out “Boat Five”
Next Meeting
Our meetings are the first Thursday
of every month at the IHOP at
5403 Stevens Creek Blvd
in Santa Clara.
Start time is 7:30pm. (map)
Marshal Smith and Rene Duzac with their winning bag at this year's Clearlake night event
August 2010 Clear Lake Night Winners: L-R Nelson Hilger and Moe Martinez (3rd Place), Glenn Hayashimito (Big Fish), Rene Duzac and Marshal Smith (1st Place), Jon Hagen and Ryan Schmidt (2nd Place)
and we started out over the 3'+ rollers. We then chickened out (decided to save our gear and backs) and headed to shore. We were near state park ramp hiding from the wind when I hook a nice frog fish weighing about 5 (1 down, 4 to go). We worked it hard around the state park area until it was getting pretty dark. Then we tried again to get to Henderson. We got so far and had to pull to the side again. But at least now we were closer to Henderson. We use the trolling motor to get the rest of the way while fishing then entire distance. Once we were there, we started to pound the wall with jigs. Not after long that I felt what seemed to be a snag on
on one of thise big boulders. But suddenly that big boulder pulled back. It ended up being the 7 pounder! Yeah baby we now have 2 fish for about 12 lbs. although we were a little more conservative. thinking we had about 10 lbs.
This is when Marshal took over. He worked the jig up and down the wall hooking up on one we figured to be around 4, then another about 3, and another around 2. Ahh we finally had a limit and according to our numbers we had around 20 lbs.. Now I can have something to drink, get comfortable, and take my cat nap so hopefully I have a safe drive the next day. I slept from 1:00 to 4:00 am and Marshal had one bite during that time. Looks like I chose a good time to sleep. I then took over and Marshal then tried to get an hour or so of sleep.
Fish are looking good in the live well and the sun is coming up. It's time to move. We headed back to a place where we like to fish towards the weigh-in (I don't like to be far from the weigh in). We were fishing the last part of the morning and now it was Marshal’s turn to get a nice frog fish. Now we cull up about 2lbs. and we figured we were close to 22 and looking pretty good. It's Clearlake though and anything can happen.
We went ahead and weighed a fish we were figuring for about 4 lbs., and it weighed in at 5 lbs. At this point we don't really know what we have in our live well. We really didn't look at them and try to figure it out during the night. It was a really nice surprise to find out the one we figured for about 5 - 6 lbs. was actually 7.
It was a good night where we were lucky enough to get the right bites. There were lots of others around us so it did turn out that Henderson Point was good for a lot of quality fish.
I also want to congratulate Jon and Ryan. While most of us struggled to get our few bites these guys tore it up for 35 - 40 fish during the night. I would have given up our win for a night like that vs. 7 - 8 bites.
NOTES FROM THE RUNNER UPs by Jon Hagan Our night was action packed and we had a great time. We actually took the beating and ran all the way south right off the bat. We hit a main lake point with tulles and an outside weedline throwing swimbaits and jerkbaits. Ryan picked up a 2.5 on a fluke. Then we hit a sweet rock pile that "had" to be holding fish. We tossed jigs, plastics, reaction, but no bites or even really any marks.
Once the sun went down we started worked big black chatterbaits with trailers ranging from craws to swim senkos on about a thousand yard wind beaten rock line near docks for the rest of the night. The rollers crashed all night. I'm sore from using some previously unknown muscles while trying to work in and out of docks and rocks. It took constant attention to the trolling motor while always having to be bracing myself.
On our first pass, Ryan sticks his big fish and the bite was on after that. We averaged about 5 fish from 3-5lbs for each pass we made. We also brought in three monster catfish from 5-8lbs (nasty!). We worked up very tight in each crevice. This is why we lost so much tackle. The fish were just offshore and needed to be approached from very shallow. Rock contact was needed and I actually caught more than one fish popping loose from a snag in the rocks.
We culled all night and caught so many clones that culling was ended up being such a nightmare that we just stopped bothering after a while. As usual, it was a great time and a great tournament with the Bassbusters. Probably my favorite event of the year except for the fact that it takes days of recovery!
