December 2021 Newsletter

Minutes of the Meeting:

The December meeting of the Hawg Hunters was brought to order at Fournias Brothers restaurant by our President John Buck. We had 20 members present. Official start time was 7:00 pm.

Old Business

The minutes from last meeting were read and accepted.

The treasury report was read and accepted by the membership. We hope he’s doing it right. The numbers sound good.

The Booray money has rolled over another monthy. We currently have 14 members still in it to win by catching the largest 5.5 pound plus fish of the tournament. This month we didn’t make it to the 3 pound mark. The Booray fish is worth $1360.

The 50/50 was won by Bob Jones.

The Annual Awards Banquet was set for Friday night December 17th. We had 24 people show up for a great evening of entertainment and food. John Buck did a great job of hosting the extravaganza while Jeff Weaver put together another award winning slide presentation for us to see. Great job guys!

New Business

Jeff brought to the club the idea of dropping the 12 inch minimum size limit during the tournaments. Basically adopting the state rules for the body of water we are fishing. Currently there is no size limit on bass for Florida and Alabama. There was Pro’s and Con’s discussed and probably the biggest Pro was you had a pretty good chance of not skunking on your next tournament. Finding a 12 inch fish can be tough in the areas we keep fishing.

Rule changes can be submitted any time to an E-board member but no later than the August meeting.

From the Tournament Director:

Payouts for the November Clairborne Lake were handed out. Great job to all those who received money. My envelope was a little slim…probably because we only had 10 members who fished….and because I had to share Big Fish money with Mack.

The draw was conducted for the December Escambia River tournament. A better showing this time as we were local. We had 9 boaters draw out with 7 co-anglers.

Meeting was adjourned 7:38 pm.

What did the Salmon Cross the Road?

You Bowhunters...are you this good?

December’s tournament was held close to home on the mighty Escambia River. The weather was warm mid 70’s with sprinkled showers throughout the day. Just enough to get the rain suit on …then it would quit. If you took your rainsuit off…it would start up again. Water conditions were pretty good with a low tide at 9:am.

At the weigh-in almost everyone caught fish. It seems since Kevin moved up north he forgot how to find a 12 inch fish on Escambia. If we would have had Jeff’s rule in place everyone said they would have had a whole limit of “Jefferies”. In other words there was plenty of short fish (by our current standard) caught. In fact I myself caught two “Limits of Jefferies” but was only able to find one 12 inch (golf ball) fish for the weigh-in. Thank you Escambia River!

So we had 14 out of 15 members catching 37 fish that weighed 48.86 pounds. Big fish honors went out to John Buck who caught the only two 16 inch in the tournament. His biggest one tipped the scales at 2.76 pounds. Great Job John.

We also had another interesting thing happen. My fishing partner John Schaeff caught a fish….don’t interrupt me….that wasn’t the interesting part. He actually caught 3 and placed 5th.…but anyway the fish he caught and weighed had a Florida Wildlife Tag on it. Looking closely at the tag it said “call FWC $100 reward”. With only 15 people fishing the tournament that fish is worth more than the Big Fish. Good Job John! However I just might have to protest his weigh-in and fishing points. You see he didn’t notice the tag until after weigh-in. That means he weighed the fish with the tag on it and according to our Tournament rule #18 it says “Nothing can be attached to a fish at the weigh-in.” Well anyway that’s what I was thinking….but in John’s defense “he really didn’t know about it until after weigh-in”. Also the time has passed for protests as our Tournament rule #16 says “Any protest must be filed within 15 minutes of the closing of the scales…..” I guess you are off the hook so to speak John! Hope you get your reward! LOL

Tournament Results:

Place	Hawg Hunter		Total Fish	Total Weight

Also Fished

Tournament Results:

1st Place

Lee Brannon or Brandon, however you spell it, is back to showing us why he was the Angler of the Year last year. He caught a real nice limit of Escambia River bass tipping the scales at 8.24 pounds beating us all.

Great Job!

Congratulations Lee!

2nd Place

Back from his yearly hunting trip John Buck hunted down and landing a limit of fish too. His 5 fish (all over 12 inches including two over 16 inches) weighed in at 7.99 pounds. No “Jefferies” there. In fact John was the only angler this weekend to catch a fish over 16 inches!

Great Job!

Congratulations John!

3rd Place

Mack jumps up one spot from last month to claim 3rd Place. He also found a limit of fish and they weighed 5.96 pounds. This makes two tournaments in a row he was in the money slots.

Great Job!

Congratulations Mack!

4th Place

Fourth went to Terry Smith whose 3 fish total weight of 3.43 pounds edged out the rest of the pack to claim the last money spot available. The rest of us just fished to make the pots bigger.

Great Job!

Congratulations Terry!

AOY Analysis:

Place	Top Six Hawg Hunters		Points

Okay….last month’s heroes fade away and new ones take their place. This month we find Lee Brannon back up in the number one spot. A place he is no stranger to.

But he’s not alone. Mack Cramer also has 37 points to tie Lee for the First Place Angler of the Year position. Ties are allowed during the season for some reason…Bragging rights maybe….but at the end of the year we break them with 3 added conditions. Last year we had to invoke them to see whose names would get engraved on the plaques. I’m not sure who that Brandon fella was.

Third place is “Wild” Bill Armstrong with 31 points. Bill finished 8th this month but coupled with catching fish last month jumped him up from 5th to 3rd in the AOY standings.

Jumping up from 7th last month to Fourth this month is John Russell who has 30 points just one point back from Third Place.

Dropping down to 5th place from 1st place last month is Jeff Weaver who had a dismal tournament this month. I’m pretty sure he caught a limit of “Jefferies” like the rest of us but he only managed to find one “keeper” 12 inch fish in the tournament.

And we have another tie in the Top Six. Dave Bock also falls from 2nd place down the leader board to land at 5th with 29 points. Some go up…some go down. They say the cream always raises to the top or it our case the better fishermen.

CO-AOY Analysis:

Place	CO-Angler of the Year Race	Points
Gold
Silver
Bronze

Last month’s leader in the Co-Angler of the year race Randy Cole decided to bring his boat so that drops him out making room for our true Co-Anglers in the club.

Leading this month is Terry Smith with 24 points followed closely by Carlito with 23 points. Both these guys fished the last two tournaments. Fresh off his 5th place tournament showing this month is John Schaeff with 19 points to take over the Bronze Third Place spot. Lots of fishing ahead of us all anybody has to do is participate.

Yellow Ball Winner!

We have a winner in the Golf ball draw! John Russell pulled out the elusive “Yellow Ball”!

Hero to Zero Nominee:

This month we have two Hero’s to Zero’s. Jeff Weaver and Dave Bock. Last month they were First and Second Place respectively. This month they were last and next to last respectively. Not so great job guys.

Slammer Nominee

Now we don’t have any Slammer’s to speak of this month but how about we talk about a non-club related slammer by one of our very own members Mack Cramer. It seems last week while fishing another club’s tournament over on the Tensaw River Mack found the entrance to Game Warden Ditch just a little bit shallow. As you can see in the picture his big boat is listing just a little bit to the right indicating he’s ran aground.

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

My sources also told me he had to spend the night there before getting towed out. So now we can add Mack to the ever growing list of Game Warden Ditch Fools like Dave Dyess while fishing with Dave Bock and Frank Kelly while fishing with Bob Jones who also experienced getting stuck there.