2nd at Graham

Well our 3rd tournament of the year is in the books. I will get to that in a minute. Unfortunatley the economy or something has hurt our turn out. Some folks that I have talked to that fish our deal pretty regularly have decided to start fishing a team tournament. I do understand why, our entry fees for an individual draw format both boaters and non-boaters is $70 per person. A lot of the team tournaments here are $70-100 per team. Each team member splits the cost and its cheaper. They also tend to have a larger turnout due to the split entry fees and the payout is larger. I understand that also. However you also must split any winnings with your partner. If those same individuals would fish with us, we too would have a larger turnout and the payout would be larger also, that you wouldn't have to split with a partner. Now ABA sets our entry fees, and there is no indication that they will be lowered. But.....and I do mean but, while fishing the ABA tournaments there is a very unique and a larger payout farther down the line. This year the top angler from each district via points has the chance to fish against the other top anglers in the national districts for a chance to win a brand new Triton boat valued at over $50,000. Plus you can fish in the national championship for a first prize of again a brand new Triton boat valued at over $55,000. There are no local team tournaments around here that allow you to get to that point here. But enough about that lets gget to the fishing at Lake Graham.

We had a big cold front move through on Saturday that brought colder temps and high winds. We were post frontal conditions come Sunday morning with a launch air temp of about 24 degrees. The water temps were in the upper forties in the morning and moved into the 52 degree range by noon. It was a beautiful day once the sun started to come out. It ended up around 66 degrees. The fishing was rough for almost everyone, there were no limits brought in and 6 pounds won. The fish were spread out and the keepers were hard to come by. I managed to catch my first keeper around 8AM. I thought that it was going to be a good day. My next bite came at noon. It was a nice 2 1/2 pounder that felt like a snag when he hit. I almost didn't know that there was a fish there, I thought I was hung up. I did manage to catch about 9 or 10 fish total on the day but managed only 3 keepers. In Texas that is a 14 inch minimum. The rest of the fish I caught were in the 13 1/2 inch range, but nothing very big. Big bass on the day was 3.60, the big bite just was not there. I did manage a 2nd place finish. Hopefully the next one on Lake Arrowhead on 7 March will get me that first ABA win.

It was a pretty good day none the less even with the small turnout. I think that our next tournament may have a larger turnout. We have a few folks come out for that one any time we are on Lake Arrowhead and they won't fish any of the other ones. This year we are fishing Lake Arrowhead 3 times and the 2 day championship is there as well. I like fishing Arrowhead mainly because it is only like 8 miles from my house so I get to sleep in for an extra hour. Well I hope that everyone is doing well and having some good fishing trips. It won't be long now and things will really pick up. Yall have a good one! Until next time!!