John Buck

John's Club Report Covering The Pensacola Hawg Hunters 2007 Season Email: John Buck

Founded In 1975

Place Name Fish Weight 1. Mack Cramer 7 17.32 2. Dan Nash 7 12.15 3. Lee Brannon 6 11.13 4. Jeff Weaver 7 10.85 5. Jere Jaillite 7 10.67 6. Pete Potter 8 9.64 7. John Buck 7 9.37 Big Fish Winner Mack Cramer 4.68lbs

*** Tournament Winner *** Mack Cramer 7 Fish - 17.32lbs

Place Name Fish Weight 8. Kevin Simmons 7 9.04 9. Marc Churchwell 5 5.00 10. Dewayne Kimbro 3 4.80 11. Jim Bailey Sr 3 3.49 12. Ron Fairbanks 2 2.94 13. Ken Repine 2 2.60 Also Fished Glen Kittrell Dave Dyess-DNF

PENSACOLA HAWG HUNTERS
TOURNAMENT REPORT
SEPTEMBER 22/23, 2007

We held out September tournament on the Alabama River near Montgomery out of Cooter’s Pond Park. The weather was cloudy and breezy with the remnants of a tropical storm blowing through. We lucked out and never got rain during the tournament hours. Sunday brought partly cloudy skies giving way to blues by noon along with rising pressure. The water level was up about a foot from earlier this summer but still low by normal standards. The water temps were in the 80’s and the color was fairly clear.

Marc Churchwell and I were partners for the tournament. We started out fishing downriver from the launch around some islands just off the main channel. We were throwing shad colored crank baits and started catching fish early. The only problem was size. We continued fishing cranks for day and eventually caught limits each but the fish were small. We had a great time because we were each able to cull fish and boated over 30 between the two of us. Marc lost a couple of 2 lbers at the boat and they would have boosted him up there. Our fish came from 15 -30 feet of water on laydowns and standing timber.

At the weigh-in Jeff Weaver took the early lead with a limit just over 7 lbs. There were several of us trailing right behind him less than a pound away. He caught most of his fish on a baby brush hog. We tried soft plastics but couldn’t get the bite. Most of the fish brought in were caught on crank baits. Lee Brannon had the lunker for the first day a 3 lb large mouth caught on a chug bug….no surprise there!

Saturday night brought a storm with heavy rain for a couple of hours. We were all in hope of another busy day with lots of bites like Saturday.
For some of us it was not to be. Marc and I caught fish on buzz baits the first few casts of the day. I managed 2 small keepers right away and then we lost our bite. We managed to catch a few fish each but never got into the bite again. Both of us fished hard but couldn’t make it happen.
Even though Sunday was a bust for us, we had a good time and I really enjoyed fishing with Marc.

Mac Cramer was holding his mouth just right and caught 4 nice spots totaling over 13 lbs to grab the win from his partner, Jeff Weaver.
Mack had 2 spots which he caught on consecutive casts that were over 4 pounds each! One was good enough for the lunker on Sunday (4.68 lbs). Mack got the win with a total of 17.32 lbs. Dan Nash came in with a nice bag on Sunday totaling a little over 9 pounds and took 2nd place with a total of 12.15 lbs. Lee Brannon was 3rd with 11.13 lbs and Jeff Weaver got 4th place with 10.85 lbs. Sunday most fish were caught on buzzbaits and crank baits. This finish really put the top 4 fishermen in the standings in striking distance of each other going into our final tournament (fish-off) next month, why …even Jim Bailey is in striking distance!!! Looks like it will be a real shoot out among the top 4. There are several of us who could slip into the 5th and 6th slot so there’s a lot (pride/bragging rights) at stake next month.

Overall we had a good tournament a Cooter’s Pond. I hope that we get the chance to come back again. Next month we will fish a 2 day tournament at Lay Lake for our annual fish-off. It should be a really fun time for all who attend. Make your plans to fish as Lay can really produce some nice bags this time of the year.

'Til next time...Keep your hooks sharp.
Creek Chub