…And the South shall rise again!
Unbelievably great weather conditions lead to the best tournament this year at Spring Lake on May 24. Mostly sunny skies, light breezes and NO RAINS were enjoyed by our club for the first time in a tournament this year. And it showed at the weigh-in. We had an incredible 32 members fish and only a few (4) didn’t have fish. Let’s dive in and recount the day…
It truly was North versus South out on the lake. Only a handful of teams ventured over to the southerly portion of the lake, and even less stayed the duration of the tournament day there.
Of those that stayed, one emerged victorious and lead the South to glory - “General” Jerry Martoglio. His boat was on the warpath all day, with a reported 29 keepers passing through between him and his boatmate Chris Martoglio. The General brought three of his finest recruits to the scales to put a complete smackdown of the competition with a whopping 14.84 pounds, including the event’s big bass of 6.6 pounds! I stuck around and overheard conversations of his winning baits, and heard two disturbing words - Banjo and Minnow. Take that for what it’s worth. (Editor’s note: As I write this, I can feel his ego swelling inside that shiny dome of his. You can blame me, but that was a great sack.)
Trailing by over three and a half pounds in second place was Andy Wegner, hauling three fish topping 11.15 to the scales. I didn’t hear what baits he was using, so we’ll have to wait for the awards ceremony at the next meeting to find out.
Right behind Wegner was BNBC’s own wunderkind Brad “Minus One” Norris with three bass going eleven pounds even (11.0). Brad was on the side of the South, and marched to a third place victory. His co-angler and spouse, Lynn Norris, also had three fish to round out the top ten.
And what would a tournament be without mention of Scott Bree? He brought another three fish limit in weighing 10.28 pounds to claim the fourth place slot. Scott fished the mighty South, also. With his fish, the top four places have 47.27 pounds in 12 fish, giving them a 3.9 pound average.
Just a quarter pound behind Scott was Rod Wallace with 10.01 pounds in fifth place.
With all the great anglers in our club, this was a very memorable event. I would love to sit here and write a piece on every one of them, but I’ll dedicate just a bit more space to our newest member, Jason Horner. He fished his first tournament with us, and to the surprise of all of us, he brought in a limit (7.67 pounds) using a spinning rod and eight-pound test line. His co-angler, Dave Whalen, had some colorful descriptions of the day that I can’t really post here, but let’s suffice it to say that he was amazed at the newcomer’s prowess with the spinning tackle. Jason, we’re glad to have you as a member and congratulations on posting your first tournament limit!
There were a few notables during the tournament that I have to post. Short Bus (me) got a lesson in culling from our friends at the Illinois Conservation Police after he thought he witnessed an illegal event transpire on the craft. I had to interrupt the General’s fishing to check on the tournament permit at his request. If I had known he was going to whip us so badly, I would have stayed on the phone longer. Again, my bad! That same officer issued some warnings to another member (name withheld for privacy) for lack of a functioning fire extinguisher and missing documentation. Let that be a lesson to all of us to make sure we fully comply with the laws while out on the water.
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