North Tampa Bass Club-Lake Tarpon Tournament

Well it was a struggle all day for me and my co-angler Eamon as we couldn't seem to muster up very many bites as we threw everything imaginable in countless spots! We started at the mouth of Salmon Bay (Anderson Park) throwing traps but couldn't get a hit. They must of turned on or moved in sometime after we left because rumor has it anglers from the Tarpon Toms Trail were slaying them there later in the afternoon. We headed south to the Cobbs Landing area where it was a little calmer and also where I got a few bites on Thursday but nothing doing today as I threw flukes, senkos, and texas rigged worms. Surface activity was non-existent as it was for the whole day. We then bounced around to John Chesnut area, south cove, mid-lake bar area, and several canals on the East side of the lake with still no fish. I had one hit under a dock but broke my line on the set. Very disappointing to work so hard for a bite only to have it break off! I missed a couple of other small hits through out the day as did my co-angler before heading back North to Salmon Bay for the last hour of the tournament to try and work some rattle trap magic! Unfortunately, my trolling batteries died on me so we had to do a couple of drifts ripping our traps through the hydrilla. I was able to get one 8 incher at 2:40 to save me from being skunked and then at 2:50 I nailed a 15 oz keeper to get me on the board! Thanks to Eamon for persuading me not to call it a day after the trolling motor went down! The winner was John McAllister with somewhere around 6 pounds caught on several different baits. Big bass was around 3lbs. The winners of the Tarpon Toms Trail had around 13 pounds with big bass around 4 pounds. Overall the weather turned out to be decent with no lightning and temps from 60-70 degrees all day although we did get rained soaked the second half of the day and the wind was howling! Water temps were between 62-64 degrees.