[Pappy]

Tournament Force Bassmasters held their 2nd tourney of the young season Saturday at Gardner Lake. What appeared on Friday to be another tough set of conditions thankfully began to adjust early enough on Friday to provide at least some decent fishing on Saturday.

The new ramp is AWESOME. Double launching with a nice double-sided dock in the middle. Plenty of lower level, near ramp parking and they still have the huge overflow area up top.

Two of the participants were able to catch a limit. Everyone caught fish with the minimum being 3 fish by caught 3 participants. Fish were caught on a number of different baits including, spider grubs, soft jerkbaits, crankbaits. hard jerkbaits, etc. I let each individual share their particulars. Most fish were shallow in less than 10' of water. Water temps generally were in the mid 50's except for the shallow western bay which almost hit 60 and had numerous empty beds. Winds were generally pretty brisk 12-16 mph.

Here's the results.

First place-
Mark Konarski - 5 fish - 7#4
A. J. Maxwell - 3 fish - 3#13
Total Weight 11#1

2nd place
Ryan Adams - 3 fish - 3#14
Dave Van Allen - 5 fish - 6#9
Total Weight 10#7

3rd Place
Walt Mayhew - 4 Fish - 6#5 (Luker Smallie @ 2#7 LMB @ 2#4)
Gary Zess - 3 Fish - 3#11
Total Weight 10#0

[stumpy]

nice job guys.

[Just4fun]

Although there were no large fish caught,..it was decent action for us throughout the day. In addition to the fish that we weighed,..we had a bunch of shorts and a ton of pickeral!!

AJ (aka Largefry) was throwing different baits but a good number of his were coming on a dropshot.
Mine came on either a dropshot or a finnesse worm rigged wacky on a jighead ("Flick-shake" style).
Neither AJ nor I know any "spots" on Gardner, so we just drifted the shorelines and threw anywhere from zero to about 8 feet deep!

_________________
"If people concentrated more on the really important things in life there'd be a shortage of fishing poles."
Mark

[SkeeterJim]

Congrats Mark & AJ on the win!
_________________
Eat, Sleep, Fish......I Love my SKEETER ZX225!!!
If I didn't have to work for a living....I'd be fishing.
If I'm not in my Skeeter then I'm in my Hobie!

[LargeFry]

Did somebody say pickeral!! I was begining to think we were at Moodus or something! Those pesky slime darts did a number on my DS supplies, I'll have to stock up double before we go to the Moo.

Great fishing with you again Mark, it been way to long. I was jusy happy I was able to shake some of those slime darts and hook a few bass. Looking forward to the next one!!

[Pappy]

My fish came on either spider grubs in a smoke / red flake combination or a wiggle wart crankbait dark green craw is the name but it looks like a translucent black and clear craw with a touch of red /brown. All my fish came on the eastern shore between docks and out in front of the chunk rock out from the state park.

I caught four of the biggest perch I've ever seen on that crankbait. Only three pickrel all on the spider grub. Two of the bass were very nice size for Gardener a 2#7 smallie which had an uncharacteristically nice belly for gardner where fish tend to be more on the skinny side and a 2#4 LMB that was on the skinny side. Other two bass were the normal 12-13" that are fairly abundant there.

We did fish the docks in the back and the cove with only one small LMB to show for it. Last few minutes we hit the very shallow bay/cove on the west side just out of the launch and past the island. Tons of empty beds over there that looked like they were in the making as opposed to finished and done.

[chuckc]

Nice job guys!

[SkeeterJim]

Very informative report Walt, nice job!
_________________
Eat, Sleep, Fish......I Love my SKEETER ZX225!!!
If I didn't have to work for a living....I'd be fishing.
If I'm not in my Skeeter then I'm in my Hobie!

[Nickp]

Look for fish on beds the next few days. The spawn is not at all done. With the full moon approaching they will be on beds like one can not believe. They were on beds last weekend and seem to have spooked off a bit.