| 1st Bassmasters Tournament Results | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| White Lake, NY - June 3rd, 2007 6:30AM-2:30PM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1st Bassmasters
of Sullivan Co. NY fished it’s 4th event of the year locally on
White Lake this past Sunday. New fishing regulations for 2007 now
allow anglers to target bass before opening day, but only on a catch
and immediate release basis, so the club decided to try a “Paper”
tournament. Each angler measured, and logged the fish they caught,
and then released the fish. The top 5 fish (by length) for each
person was then converted to pounds using charts, one for
Largemouth, and another for Smallmouth. Utilizing the “Paper” format
can enable New York State Bass Clubs to fish within NY State prior
to opening day, cutting down on travel time to, and congestion on,
lakes in neighboring states. The conditions on White Lake were perfect for Bass fishing. The fish were in a post spawn pattern with the water crystal clear, at normal levels, and 76 degrees. The skies were very overcast, and a storm front was moving in. Even though it rained on and off, during the day, and at times the thunder sounded ominous, the conditions were never uncomfortable, and wind stayed relatively calm. Over the past few years, bass fishing on White Lake has been difficult, with extremely heavy recreational traffic, and a lot of deep water, it had become a real challenge to produce a 5 fish limit. Sunday was just the opposite. The lake was virtually free of jet skis, and the Bass were everywhere. Hundreds of small 8-10” Largemouth could be seen cruising just off shore and the tops of the weed beds, and larger fish in the 13-15” range were being caught consistently. This bodes well for future seasons on White Lake, with this abundant Largemouth population growing bigger each year. The weed beds in 4-12 feet of water were well developed, and this is where the fish were holding, laying in the open pockets within the weeds just off of the abandoned spawning beds. Virtually any slow presentation with a dark colored soft plastic baits would have yielded fish. Senkos, Drop Shots, and tubes were among the successful tactics on Sunday In the end, 17 anglers produced 11 limits, with only one angler not catching any “keepers”. Several competitors reported catching double digit numbers of keeper size fish. Ken Cutler continued the defense of his 2006 Angler of the Year title with a 5 fish limit charting in at 14.12lbs, Ralph Cheney spent his first day in his brand new Nitro, and suffered no “new boat syndrome” by charting in a second place total of 12.15lbs. Bud Cutler followed up his Highland Lake victory with a third place total of 10.85lbs. The “Lunker” for the day was a 22” Largemouth caught by Omer Wilson which converted to 5.23lbs on the chart. While the charts were very thorough, providing weight for each 1/8 of a pound, and converting the lengths to weight took less time than an actual weigh-in, the general consensus was that the charts were “light”, and the actual weights of the fish were higher. Were the charts more accurate, the average fish would have been in excess of 2 pounds. 1st Bassmasters next stop on their 2007 Tournament Trail is Lake Champlain on June 10th. Air Temp: 65 Start- 75 Finish Weather: Overcast, passing rain storms Water Temp: 76-77 Water Cond: Normal Depth, Clear
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