Pensacola Hawg Hunters

The March meeting of the Pensacola Hawg Hunters was brought to order at PoFolks Restaurant by our President Buddy Yates. We had 10 members present.

Minutes from last month read by Dave and accepted

Treasuer report read by Mack and accepted

Booray Pot now stands at $708 for a 5lb pound bass

We discussed our Cookouts again with this month being Hamburgers & Hot Dogs. John Russell volunteer to pick them up. Terry volunteered to cook them. Mack had the gas.

We didn't discuss any new business although Lee asked if we wanted to the mullet fish fry for the April Tournament at Lake Jordan. I believe everyone agreed.

The tournament director handed out the payouts for the Febreuary Fish River River Tournament. Great job to those who received checks. The draw for the March tournament was conducted with 8 members participating bringing along 3 guests

The March Tounament was held up on the Cossa River at Lay Lake. As I was unable to attend as planned I can only assume it was a good tournament looking at the number of fish caught and their weight. Of the 14 times we've been to Lay this one is #6 with a winning weight of 21.64 pounds. The best was 27.02 pounds during the March 2023 tournament. The 8 members who fished averaged 8.8 fish caught with your Top Four filling their limits both days. Two of our guests even had double limits during the two day tournament. Saturday Guest number 1 and former club member, Terry Ferdinandt caught the Big Fish for the Day. A 3.24 pound bucketmouth.

Terry Ferdinandt - 3.24 pounds

I can also assume the Saturday night cookout went well as no one was in the hospital come Sunday morning.

Sunday the weights were bigger for 3 members including Buddy's heavy stringer of the tounament at 12.64 pounds. He also had the Big Fish of the Tournament.

The two day total fish count was 71 for the club members weighing 126.52 pounds while our 3 guests caught 22 fish for 42.10 pounds.

Back to Back wins for Buddy! Last month's winner at Fish River does it again at Lay Lake. He's on Fire! He says it was just a fluke. Buddy's two day total of 10 fish weighed 21.64 pounds

Great Job!

Congratulations Buddy!

Jeff Weaver also brought 10 fish to the scales. His weight was right at 20 pounds. even. That's a 2 pound average! His guest and former member Kevin Simmons had 10.30 pounds so they were definetly on fish the whole weekend. This is Jeff's 2nd time this season in the money slots. He finished 3rd place at Escambia in December.

Great Job!

Congratulations Jeff!

John Russell manages to go back to back 3rd places this month. He too had double limits totaling 19.30 pounds.

Great Job!

Congratulations John Russell!

The Top Six

We have a new leader this month. Buddy Yates takes over the lead of the Angler of the Year Race with his latest win at Lay Lake. He now has 141 points leading by just 3 points.

Moving up one slot is John Russell to take over Second Place currently.

Also moving up one slot is Tom Buck who finished 5th place this month with 9 fish weighing 14.44 pounds. Just 6 points behind John Russell with 132 points total.

Terry Smith moved up one spot to take over 4th with 126 points. Just 6 points behind Tom.

Falling down 4 spots is last month's AOY Race leader Kevin Izzi . Kevin missed this months tournament and got clobbered by all the participation points he missed out on not to mention last month's second place Buddy Yates who won this month's tournament maxing out on the available points. If you can participate in all the club activities and catch a fish or two you have a great change of being the club's Angler of the Year. Better than 50% of the points awarded each month are just from participating. Kevin is now 29 points behind the leader.

Maintaining his 6th place in the AOY Race is Mack Cramer with 110 points. Mack finished 6th this month with 8 fish weighing 13.58 pounds. Looks like he struggled the first day with only 3 fish but figured them out on Sunday with a 9.16 pound limit.

Next month we are going to Lake Jordan for our 15th year in a row for an April Tournament. That should tell you something. You don't want to miss this one as it's been year over year one of our better tournaments. 13 of those years it took over 20 pounds to win it. Will it be you this time. The best winning weight was caught out of the back of Dave Bock's boat by a former member, 2023 Angler of the Year & 4 time Co-angler of the Year Champion Brian Nall. I remember that tournament well. Everywhere we went Brain caught bigger,better, and more fish than me.

John Buck has won at Jordan 5 times! Can he do it again? Come to the tournament to find out.

We haven't seen a fish over 5 pounds caught at Jordan but they could be swimming around just waiting for a Hawg Hunter to capture the Booyray prize money. The pot is getting pretty big.