John
Buck
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John's
Club Report Covering The Pensacola Hawg Hunters 2014 Season  |
 Founded In 1975 |
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John
Buck
|
John's
Club Report Covering The Pensacola Hawg Hunters 2014 Season |
Founded In 1975 |
| June Tournament Total Fish Caught 25 Total Dead Fish 2 Total Limits 0 Big Fish 2.51 Total Fish Weight 31.48 lbs |
Total Year Standings |
Lee Brannon 2.51 lbs |
Tensaw River
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Don Jahnke 5.91 lbs |
| 1st
Place Lee Brannon 3 Fish 5.76 lbs |
2nd
Place Tony Boyett 4 Fish 5.33 lbs |
3rd
Place Jere Jaillite 4 Fish 5.14 lbs |
4th
Place Jim Bailey 4 Fish 5.02 lbs |
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Tournament Results Also Fished: Don Jahnke, Thom Labelle, Bill Myrick, Dan Nash, Buddy Yates, Also Fished in "Canada": Dave Bock, Dave Dyess, John Buck, Jeff Weaver
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TOURNAMENT REPORT
| Tensaw River
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June 21, 2014
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Cliff's Landing |
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So here we go again. John “the scribbler”, has once again departed the area, however, this time he took along several other notable Hawg Hunters on a journey north in search of the elusive small mouth bass. In reality I think that they found out that summer in Canada was going to happen the last week of June and they just wanted to see what a Canadian summer was like. We have all heard about summer in Canada…that’s when the ice and snow turns green. June saw the Hawg Hunters return to one of our favorite haunts, The Tensaw River system out of Cliff’s Landing. My old fishing buddy, Jim Bailey and I went over to the river on the Monday prior to the club meeting to check out the water and see if we could find a few fish. The water conditions were in a word…horrible. While somewhat high the water was the color of chocolate milk and so muddy that you could almost walk on it. Ok, that last part about walking on it was an exaggeration, but it was still muddy as all get out. We did however find some fish holding in fishable water in the back of several creeks off the main river. I had the feeling all week leading up to club meeting that I was going to pull Jim’s name when it came time for pairing up partners and sure enough that’s just what happened. In Jim’s 19 years and my 21 years in the club this is only the fourth time that we have fished a tournament together. Needless to say we were both excited about it as we already had a fishing plan worked out. Jim was so excited about it that on Saturday morning he not only arrived on time at my house, he was in fact a little early. This will probably be a once in a life time event (Jim being on time) so not only did I savor the moment, I wanted to share it with everyone. Arriving at the landing, I noticed three things immediately: First – It was quite warm, but in lower Alabama in June you don’t check a thermometer to see what the temperature is, you just check the calendar. June =’s HOT. Secondly – The water was down about 8 – 12 inches from Monday, but there was still plenty of water for me to get to where I wanted to go, and finally I noticed that the water was still chocolate milk muddy. None of these observations bothered me as Jim and I expected this to be the case at the landing. At blast off we headed for our number one hole and that’s when the conditions started to bother me. In the back of the creek where Monday the water was a very fishable stained, it was as muddy as the main river. At first I hoped that it was the sun angle that was playing tricks and that when the sun came up it would show that the water was in fact just stained. Dream on…The sun came up and the only thing that it revealed was that it was getting warmer. Sticking to our game plan, Jim and I continued to worm the back of our creek and begin to pick up fish. They were mainly short fish, but every now and then a keeper. At 10:30 we returned to our starting point only to find Tony Boyett and Lee Brannon, fishing in our secret hole. Lee claimed he had a permission slip signed by the club president to fish in this area. He then waved a hand written note, (no letter head on the paper, no legal notations, and no notary seal) at me. “One of the oldest tricks in the book,” but seeing that it was by then getting past the warm side and rapidly moving into the HOT side of the day, I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to run these rascals out. Besides if we had run them out we wouldn’t have been able to witness Tony having to get in the water to fix one of his power poles. At least he claimed it was to fix a power pole, but it might have just been a ruse to get in the water to cool off as it was starting to get really warm around the edges by this time. By 1:30 Jim and I decided that we had just about as much fun as we could handle for the day. Fishing hard all day had produced about 25 to 30 fish apiece but only four keepers each. The sun was high (and HOT), the sky was a robin’s egg blue and it was time to crank up the old 60/5 air conditioner. You know the 60 miles per hour and 5 thousand RPM’s air conditioner… That wind sure felt good. Arriving at the landing we discovered that most people had already returned. It seemed everyone’s fun meter was pegged. The exception to “most people” was Jeremy Burkart and his partner “The” Bob Jones. Seems like Jeremy claimed battery failure up on Middle River and Buddy Yates volunteered to run up and rescue him. After Buddy departed on his humanitarian rescue, we started our weigh-in and it quickly became apparent that just over half of us had fish to weigh in. In fact there were no limits caught and only three of us had four fish. However, the tournament winner, Lee Brannon only had three fish, but two of those were really nice tournament fish, with one being the tournament lunker. Lee’s partner, Tony Boyett, had four fish that was good enough for second place. (Guess I should have run those rascals off). My four fish were good enough to beat Jim out for third by a grand total of .12 pounds. With Jim in fourth place, it became clear that although the water was bad, the top four places all came out of the same creek. Since my first draft of this article new information has come to light concerning a certain “battery” problem. I believe that it would only be right and proper for Jeremy and “The” Bob to enlighten the club at the next meeting on proper fuel management and the science of switchology. If not gentlemen, I’m sure that someone will stand up and slam (mer) the situation for you, (HEE HEE HEE), and finally, as if I’m not having enough fun here, an addition to “You might be a Hawg Hunter If”: You might be a Hawg Hunter if you have boat trouble when fishing with Bob Jones as your partner. Next month the club travels to the Perdido River for our July tournament. While the Perdido is closer than the Tensaw it doesn’t have the shade trees covering the creeks like the Tensaw so everyone plan accordingly. Remember just like June, July =’s HOT. Oh yes, did I mention that it was HOT. |
