The month of September found the Hawg Hunters in Louisiana fishing the Delacroix marshes out of the End of the World Landing. The weather was great, we had partly cloudy skies with temperatures hovering in the low 90's, however, the weatherman was calling for scattered thunderstorms. The water was clear to slightly stained in the upper 80's. It was a great weekend to be out on the water. All eight Hawg Hunters headed out looking for some Louisiana "Green Trout". I had the pleasure of fishing with Mack Cramer this weekend.

Mack and I headed straight for the bank that he had been fishing for the last couple of weeks. We started pounding the bank with our top water baits and didn't get the action that we had expected. After Mack and I had made fifty casts and thrown six different lures at the same point I finally coaxed a bass into taking my bait. Put him in the live well and we thought we were on our way. As the day wore on everyone was checking with each other to see what was going to be headed to the scales.

Mike Tyson and his partner, Paul Sullivan, were having problems with their trolling motor switch. Brian Metcalf and Dave Dyess loaned Mike a switch and they were back to fishing. Neil Springstead and Lee Brannon were getting there dragged stripped by redfish.

As the day was coming to a close I managed to put two more fish in the live well and my partner didn't get a hit from a bass. There were nineteen fish that weighed 32.40 lbs brought to the scales. The lunker of the day went to Dave Dyess for his 3.30 pounder.

Dave and Brian were headed back to the point that they had left the previous morning. They had left the fish biting the day before and wanted to catch a quick limit before heading out for bigger fish. Mack and I were working a point and a redfish jumped all over Mack's "torpedo". As Mack was wrestling his redfish I managed to put a keeper in the boat. I was tired of listening to Mack whine about how I was working the boat too fast for him to catch fish; so I gave him a fluke. As we continued to work the bank, Mack finally got his first bass of the weekend in the boat. What a relief because I was running out of "cheese and crackers" to support all that "wine". We decided it was time to move to a different area. We pulled up on another point and Mack put another fish in the boat. The count was now two to one in Mack's favor and he was much easier to talk to. I knew I was going to have to get busy if I was going to beat him for the day. On my next cast I set the hook on a nice bass and he jumped about 3 foot in the air, you guessed it he went one way and my lure went the other. We hit another point and on my first cast I put another keeper in the live well, from that moment on, Mack didn't get the lead again. We continued to fish points and pockets for the rest of the day to try and get Mack a limit of fish. I started culling at 10:45 and Mack had 3 fish in the live well. Mack finally asked me for another fluke, I asked him what he had been using and he said that he was using the ones that I was throwing on the bottom of the boat. I gave him another one and he managed to get his limit and cull one of his fish. I ended up culling three.

It was time to head to the scales and everyone had fish to weigh in. Paul "Sully" Sullivan brought in a career best of 4 fish. There were also 5 limits brought in. The total weight for the day was 56.25 pounds. It was Lee Brannon who would bring in the heaviest bag of fish for the tournament weighing in at 9.60 lbs and also have the lunker for day 2 weighing in at 3.40 lbs. Lee made a strong finish but not good enough to compensate for his dead fish on day one. Next month the Hawg Hunters will be headed to Miller's Ferry to fish their last tournament of the 2000 fishing season and their "Fish-Off". Good Luck to all.

Gator