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.