June 28, 2009
Choke Canyon Reservoir – Three Rivers, Texas

This month our club traveled southward to endure the sweltering triple digit weather and light winds on Choke Canyon Reservoir. Since this lake is a bit of a drive for the club’s members it was decided that there would be an official pre-fish day allowed the day before the actual tournament. Several fishermen took advantage of this showing up the day before to get in some pre-fishing that would hopefully unveil a winning pattern. What the anglers would find that day was that the hot weather had definitely created some difficult fishing and it would prove to be a tough tournament. It became very apparent that the first few cool hours of the morning were going to be very critical with getting fish in the boats to fill out their limits. After a long tournament day of battling the burning sun and huge Choke Canyon alligators, it was club member, Ander Meine, who got the right bites to take the win with 16.13 pounds.

Surprisingly, Ander was able to put together his 16 pound winning sack with only four bass! It was one bite that Ander was able to get that made all the difference. In pre-fishing, Ander had found a couple of spots close to the Calliham area of the lake that he decided he would spend the majority of his tournament day. However, after launching his boat on tournament morning, he realized it was still too dark for him to safely travel to his spots on an unfamiliar lake filled with timber. Playing it safe, Ander began close to the launch ramp working a chartreuse / blue spinnerbait quickly around likely looking areas hoping to pick up some actively feeding fish. On his second cast, he hooked into a fish that he said was “somewhere in the 8-10 pound range” and fought it halfway to the boat before it came unhooked. Disappointed, he quickly made another cast burning his spinnerbait back to the boat over a submerged bed of hydrilla when another enormous bass engulfed the bait. This one made it into the boat and weighed a whopping 9.49 pounds! Ander caught one more fish out of the submerged weedbed by throwing a 6” Red Bug colored Creme Whacky Worm on a shakey head before making the move to fish his spots in the Calliham area. He caught his last two keepers from his next spot by drop-shotting a green pumpkin / watermelon Grande Bass Baby Rattlesnake around another patch of submerged hydrilla and some rocks. All of Ander’s keepers came out of less than 8 feet of water in the morning hours.

Taking both second and third places were guests fishing in our tournament. Second place finisher was Kelly Mauldin weighing in a full five fish limit of 15.24 pounds. Kelly used a number of techniques to produce his fish throughout the day. All of which were fished on Quantum rods and reels. First he fished the edges of the grass with a swim senko on a light c-rig pegging a 1/4oz weight about 10” above his senko. He also caught fish by flipping a baby brush hog around timber and fishing a Hot Lips deep diving crankbait around main lake river channel edges. Kelly also mentioned that using the Hot Lips crankbaits has produced several good tournament finishes for him on Choke Canyon and finds a huge selection of them at The Fisherman’s Corner at Canyon Lake (www.texasbasstackle.com). He also wanted to thank one of his sponsors, the Highlander Restaurant in Burnet, for all of their support.

Then in a close third place was our other guest, Jack Waldrop Sr. Jack was able to also put together a five fish limit for 14.71 pounds. He began his day throwing reaction baits around shallow cover receiving several short strikes. Making a switch to a Zoom Horny Toad, he put his first keeper in the boat early on. Finding the action to be a little slow, he determined to start probing some deeper water with a c-rigged lizard and picked up his second keeper. Still not getting the kind of action he was looking for, he moved to yet even deeper structure and quickly picked up three more bass on his c-rig. His last keeper was hooked deep, and now having found some fast action, decided to release it instead of risking it dying. Of course, as luck would have it, his fast action died after that fish was released. As much as he desperately tried to get another keeper for the next few hours in other areas, it didn’t come until he decided to return to his “hot spot” just before weigh-in. Finally, he got one to fill out his limit and even culled once before returning to weigh-in. Way to stick with it, Jack! Jack is the owner of Bee Cave BBQ, a favorite lunch time hang out of several ATXers. If you’ve never been, it is located on Bee Caves Road west of 360 at the northwest corner of River Hills Road. We highly recommend it!

Our next tournament is scheduled for July 17-18th on Lake Austin at the 360 Bridge launch ramp. This will be a night tournament, so we will be launching at midnight the night of the 17th, and then weighing-in at 9:00 AM the morning on the 18th. Those interested in club events are encouraged to come to our club meetings the first Tuesday of every month at Threadgill’s on Riverside at 7 PM