Pensacola Hawg Hunters
2026 Season
The November meeting of the Pensacola Hawg Hunters was brought to order at PoFolks Restaurant by our newly elected President Buddy Yates. All hail Buddy! We had 10 members present and one guest, Jan Bock, wife of our 2024 Angler of the Year Dave Bock.
As we started with a clean slate for the new season there were no minutes to read.
The Treasurer was absent so nothing to report here either.
We actually got a Booray Pot report. All eight members involved in the current Booray is paid up to date and the new pot for a 5lb fish is $644.
Since John Buck, one of the founding Fathers of the Club, was absent during the meeting we brought to the floor a nomination to name the Annual Fish Off after him in honor of his 50 years of membership. The vote was unanimous to honor him but like usual we couldn’t come up with and agree on a suitable name. Since we are in the age of Technology our Secretary decided to ask ChatGPT. Back in the late 70’s early 80’s when John was founding the club the computer’s name would have been Joshua if you remember the movie War Games with Matthew Broderick. Anyway here’s what ChatGPT came up with:
Classic & Respectful
The John Buck Memorial Fish-Off
The John Buck Classic
The Buck 50 Fish-Off (a play on his 50 years of membership)
The John Buck Invitational
The Buck Legacy Tournament
Bass-Focused / Club-Themed
The Buck Hawg Classic
The John “Hawg Hunter” Buck Fish-Off
The Buck Big Hawg Challenge
The John Buck Bass Classic
Creative & Meaningful
The Buck Fifty (fun and memorable — referencing 50 years)
The Buck Fifty Fish-Off
The Golden Buck Classic (50-year “golden” milestone)
The Buck Legacy Fish-Off
The Buck Years Tournament
Traditional Sports-Style
The Buck Cup
The Buck Fish-Off Championship
The Buck Anglers’ Classic
Playful & Catchy
The Big Buck Bass-Off
The Buck’n Hawg Shootout
The Buck Wild Fish-Off
The Buck-a-Palooza Bass Bash
The Buck’n Reel Rodeo
The Buckaroo Bass Battle
The Buck’n Hawg Stampede
Fishing + “Buck” Wordplay
The Buck Stops Here Fish-Off
The Buck’n Boat Brawl
The Buck ‘n’ Hawg Hoedown
The Buck Trophy Tussle
The Buckin’ for Bass Bash
The Buckin’ Big Hawg Throwdown
Fun but still tournament-worthy
The Legendary Buck-Off
The Buckmaster Bass Bash
The Buckin’ Classic
The Buck Bash Fish-Off
The Buck-Wild Hawg Hunt
One other Idea that sounds good was to name it the:
The John Buck Memorial (I’m Not Dead Yet) Fish Off
What are your ideas? The 2026 Fish Off is months away so why do today what we can put off until tomorrow.
Not discussed but needs to be mentioned is the Annual Awards Banquet! We are going to have it in conjunction with the December monthly meeting on the 17th of December. The meeting is open to all guests so we can take a minute and honor the 2025 Season Angler of the Year Randy Cole along with the other Top Six fisherpersons even though only the top three are receiving plaques to memorialize there success.
The website has been updated for the 2026 Season. Our front door is
located at www.pensacolahawghunters.com
and is open to all who want to
see it. The black navigation bar at the top helps you move around our
numerous webpages. Viewing the page on a mobile phone the black bar has
a button with three lines on it...known as a "hamburger". It opens up
the navigation links. 
Think about it as entering a house. As you come in the front door there are many rooms off to each side. You have the room where all the rules are kept including our club history and constitution. You have the room where the current season's schedule is posted. To the right is a room that is locked to “members only” where we keep all of our personal statistics on what lakes we’ve fished and how well we did. We don't need the world to know how good or bad you are. You need to know the “secret club handshake” to access that room.
Moving along to the right you have the room where we keep filing cabinets full with members’ performance records, monthly standings, and the monthly newsletters. Each of these cabinets have a link on the navigation bar. We also have a records room where all the past tournaments and newsletters are stored by season.
Tucked away in another room is the game room where we have all the club pictures plastered on the walls ready for you to throw darts at your favorite club members. We have pictures from just about every tournament we fished since 2006. It’s interesting to see how club members are aging through the years and also to see past members who are no longer with us
This year I’ve redecorated the Pictures page in hope of making it better and easier to sort through all the pictures. Hope you like it. I had Joshua the computer aka ChatGPT help me with the coding since webpage design seems to change quite frequently. The page is dynamic so whether you open the page on your computer, laptop, tablet or phone it changes to be pleasing to the eye. Not the people in the pictures just the display or format of them.
The retired Tournament Director Terry Smith handed out the payouts for the October Lake Martin monthly tournament and the annual Fish Off. Lots of money was handed out to all those who went and caught fish.
The draw for boat starting positions was conducted. We had 7 members commit to fishing the first tournament of the 2026 Season at Tensaw River.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 pm.
The
The November Club tournament was held over on the Tensaw River
launching out of Cliff’s landing. We had 7 boaters show up and 1 guest.
At the 4pm weigh-in we saw 30 fish weighing 38.59 pounds cross the Hawg
Hunter scales. Everyone caught fish with the top 5 catching limits.
Even our guest caught fish. Looking at the fish caught per person
average of 4.29 and the Average weight of each fish at 1.29 pounds it
statistically was a great tournament. Better than the 5 other times
we’ve fished Tensaw in November since 2006.
Big fish of the Tournament was caught by Buddy Yates! He now leads the Big Fish of the Year Race in the 2026 Season. His fish pictured here, weighed 3.08 pounds!
Winning
our first tournament of the 2026 Season is Kevin Izzi a new member to
our club who joined late last season. Kevin found a limit of fish
weighing 7.48 pounds to claim his first win in the Club. Who says you
need a fancy bass boat to catch bass? Surely not the big name sponsors.
Great Job!
Congratulations Kevin!
Last Season’s Angler of the Year Randy “Big Fish” Cole is starting to
take our money again. He too found a limit of fish on Tensaw. His limit
weighed 6.40 pounds. A good start to a new Season.
Great Job!
Congratulations Randy!
Terry Smith takes 3rd place with a 6.16 pound limit of keeper bass. No
Jefferies this year brought to the scales anyway. He might have caught
some as I’m sure others did but this year they don’t count.
Great Job!
Congratulations Terry!
To quote an old friend named George Jones “Now the race is on
And here comes pride up the backstretch
Heartaches are goin' to the inside”
Yep the new Season is well on the way. We had 7 members go to Tensaw and 6 of them made it to the Top Six. Imagine that!
Let’s give one more shout out to Randy Cole and congratulate him on his First ever “Angler of the Year” Title in the Pensacola Hawg Hunters. He really dominated the last 2/3 of the year. Not to mention owning us with his Big Fish catches throughout the season. Great Job Randy!
Big fish of the Tournament was caught by Buddy Yates! He now leads the Big Fish of the Year Race in the 2026 Season. His fish pictured here, weighed 3.08 pounds!
| Place | Hawg Hunter | Total Fish |
Total Weight |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Also Fished |
|---|
Great Job!
Congratulations Kevin!
Great Job!
Congratulations Randy!
Great Job!
Congratulations Terry!
| Place | Top Six Hawg Hunters | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|
To quote an old friend named George Jones “Now the race is on
And here comes pride up the backstretch
Heartaches are goin' to the inside”
Yep the new Season is well on the way. We had 7 members go to Tensaw and 6 of them made it to the Top Six. Imagine that!
Let’s give one more shout out to Randy Cole and congratulate him on his First ever “Angler of the Year” Title in the Pensacola Hawg Hunters. He really dominated the last 2/3 of the year. Not to mention owning us with his Big Fish catches throughout the season. Great Job Randy!
Total Number Fished Tournament:
Total Fish Caught:
Total Dead Fish:
Total Limits:
Total Weight:
Big Fish:
Total Number Fished For Year:
Total Fish Caught:
Total Dead Fish:
Total Limits:
Total Fish Weight:
Big Fish:
Next month we are going close to home since no one wants to travel very far right before Christmas. The mighty Escambia River is our next stop in the 2026 Season. It’s always a local favorite for those who win it. We’ve fished the Escambia River 26 times since I’ve been keeping track of the records going back to 2006. The heaviest stringer caught during a December tournament was 12.29 pounds caught by Mack Cramer in December of 2012. The biggest fish was also caught by Mack. It was a 6.32 pound brute! Do you want to guess when that was?
More recently last year’s December tournament held at Escambia was won by Mack also with a 5 fish limit of 6.62. Big Fish was caught by Dave Nason a 2.71 lb over 16” fish.
Are you in? Hope to see you there!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Location: PoFolks
Time: 7:00 pm
Any questions should be addressed to:
Dave Bock
E-Mail the Secretary
