Gary and I were fun fishing during the Spring River Ratz Open Tournament. We stopped at Furnace Bay first and things were kinda slow. We heard last week that 25# were pulled in this bay which won the tnx. I wouldn't have believed this since we only pulled 2 fish. Gary scored his first bass on a blue-purple T-rigged worm off a laydown. Then we went into this shallow area that didn't seem to be underwater in normal conditions. I caught a 2.5# bass on a white/chartreuse spinnerbait. This lure was modified with a #5 hammered nickel willow blade. This fish came off a fallen semi-sunken tree. We tried one more area in the bay and there wasn't anything happening. Then we went to the mouth of the Suskie by the railroad bridge with the sunken pilings. Right off I had a bass on the line with the Rebel craw crankbait, but it got off. I was cussing. The treble hooks have got to be changed out. Gary caught 2 more from the same general area on the Rebel craw. He had Gamakatsu trebles on his crankbait. I realized that I could've scored at least 5 more pounds in the Conowingo tnx if I had good trebles. I thought it was all about technique that I lost the 2-3 fish I had on. But after some research I realized it must be the hooks. I brushed my finger on the crankbait with the old hooks and my finger just slid by. I got a whole host of trebles from Dick's including the Gammies, Mustad KVD, and SureSet. For one thing, just increasing the treble one size up made a huge difference. With just a plain set of Eagle Claw #4 my finger was being stuck about half the time. Gammies and KVD faired better, but the KVD seemed the most consistent.

At the weigh-in the winners of the Open were fishing in Furnace Bay and pulled 25#. They said that they were using spinnerbaits and they pulled their limit by 7:30 and culled the rest of the time. Gary admitted there was one place we didn't try in the Bay.

A couple weeks ago I was fishing with Gary in the Conowingo tournament with the River Ratz. I learned a lot from this one tournament. Gary was using Spike-it to tip his plastics. He probably caught 6 good sized bass within half an hour. He also replaced his hooks on his Rebel craw crankbait. Bass were killing the cranks all day long. It was so good that one time we both caught a bass at the same time. I caught 3 bass before I started to lose them. I'm thinking it may have started when I lost one bass by trying to turn the bass into the net. It probably did something to the hook or the bait. I brought another to the boat only to lose that one too. There was yet another that I lost early in the fight. So I lost at least 2 fish and another that neither of us saw. That was a potential 9 pounds, or 6 pounds according to the paper.

I went out again with Tom later in the day since the fishing was so good. We went over to where Gary and I were fishing and Tom was slaying them! He caught a 19" bass before we left for Broad Creek where he caught his double limit to win the tnx. I only managed to catch a baby smallie and what looked like a 2# largemouth which got off. At Broad Creek, Tom caught some more. Within 2 hours, he caught about 7 bass.

Dan and I went fishing on the Bush on the friday afterwards. Right from the start, Dan's overheat alarm on his engine kept sounding off. He took off the weed guard and somehow the engine was working better. We went over to the boat works and there I caught a 3-4 bass on a watermelon jig with a Zoom watermelon Fat Albert 2 tail trailer. I was eating sunflower seeds and probably wasn't paying attention to the line. This bass ate the jig! There was a lot of blood coming out and I ended up cutting the line and letting her go. She seemed to be OK and would probably survive. then we went further into the Bush and fished this small cove with a dock. I caught one 2-8 bass on a tree stump with a BPS Tournament 4" Mag tube in Roadkill (greenpumpkin/red flake) rigged on a 3/8 oz jighead. An hour later I had another bass on a 5" green pumpkin/black flk wacky rig. This bass got off but we both saw it and had the potential of being a 4# bass. It caught me by surprise and I didn't give a hard enough hook set. All the fish I caught that day I used Chartreuse Spike-it Garlic Extra Salty.