HOWIE’S STREAK ALIVE AT THREE

The Salt City Bassmasters held their first Points Tournament of the year at Sandy Pond on June 26^th. The event was sponsored by the Greg Ott Insurance Agency and hosted by Greene Point Marina – who did a great job handling the event.

Conditions were perfect with the big females just turning on from their post-spawn doldrums. Weather was great with light winds, heavy overcast skies and some rain from time to time. The pond filled up from its April low water with all the spring rain. The field was a decent size of 41 anglers and included special guest, J. Michael Kelly, outdoor columnist for the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper. What looked like it might be cancelled due to low water turned out to be one of our best tournaments in years.

Howard Krouse again beat the field with a limit of Largemouths going 18 pounds and 7 ounces. Howard reported that he caught 3 to 3 ½ pounders all day long that just couldn’t help out his limit. That’s a nice problem to have. Howard loves to share information so that others may benefit from his experience. He says he caught his fish on “the standard stuff”. Howard is not sure how deep his fish were since he turned off his depth finders. His fish were holding in “standard stuff”. After some prompting, Krause reports that his fish were taken on Senkos in 6 –8’ with dense weeds and rock. The fish were concentrated within the dense weeds in small areas of thinner weeds of a different species. This is Howard’s third tournament victory in as many tries this season.

In Second Place was Steve Balyszak with 17 ½ pounds of bigmouths. We’ll have to get Steve’s patterns at the next meeting.

Coming in Third Place was Mike Cusano with a great limit at just over 17 pounds. Mike planned on getting a quick early limit of 1 to 2 pounders that he found in practice. His plan worked out and he culled three times before 7 a.m. Mike was throwing a 4” senko on a sand/weed flat. Things went dry for a while until Mike found the mother lode of greenbacks from a hole he did well in back in 1996. From 11 am. until last cast, Mike substituted the early limit with chunky 3 to 4 pounders until he got is 17 – plus pound bag.

Randy Lamanche started his day by throwing his partner Kim Moran two cold Red Bulls and warning “Kim, I gotta tell ya, I fish fast, REAL fast”. Randy Lamanche’s liability was his boat, a small slow tin can. Not anymore. Randy wanted to make his liability an asset so he went out and bought a pushpole. No joke. Randy pushed and poled his way around some shallow junk looking for reaction strikes on Yum Buzz Frogs and an 8 Ball Thumperblade spinnerbait. When things slowed, he did too, hitting pockets with a tube. He later turned to crankbaits on a sharp weed edge. This approach was good for nearly 16 pounds, a Fourth Place finish and the Lunker Largie at 4 ½ pounds. Randy also said that “everyone loses good fish but not everyone loses a Mailbox” – sorry Lamont.

Fifth Place went to TD Patrick Grady. Grady started his day by throwing Pavlot a crash helmet and Rosary beads and warning “be very afraid”. Grady ran somewhere out into the Big Lake (and on to a Sandbar), and found 15 pounds and change of Smallmouth. Patrick’s fish were taken anywhere from 3’ to 16’ and on soft plastics.

High Non-Boater was club Rookie and Tennessee Volunteer Len Potts. Len stretched our weigh-in bags with 14 pounds plus of largemouth. Potts got a nice welcome to the Club by being paired with the winner Howard Krouse. Howard says Potts is great fisherman and a front-runner for Non-Boater of the Year Awards. Good luck defending Pavlot.

Special guest J. Michael Kelly put together a nice limit of 9 pounds sharing the boat with Joe Yamamoto, err, Koetting. Mr. Kelly had great time fishing Sandy with Joe but says he’s not ready for a full-time metal flake fishing platform. Thanks for coming along.

rsa