Good Ole Boys Bass Club

of

Central New York

Fair Haven

Northern Pike Tournament

Saturday, May 8th 2004

The day broke with a beautiful sunrise and no rain. What a great day to go fishing with a great group of friends. Because of the earliness of this tournament, and the fact that turkey season is open, we only had 8 members attend. These early tournaments make a great "shake down cruse" for all boaters and co-anglers. It is surprising how many things you find out are missing from your tackle boxes the first time on the water.

Larry LaClair & Jason Adams start out.

Blast off was at 6 am and soon everyone was fishing and catching fish.

Jason Waloven & Eric Wilsey working docks on the east side of the bay.

The bay was calm until 9:00 am and then a light east breeze came up. The format of the tournament was for every angler to  enter only their one biggest northern pike. This keeps the stress down on the fish by not having to keep up to 5 northern alive for each member in the live wells. Soon word spread that there were a couple of 6 plus pound northern were boated, so then even nice 4 and 5 pound fish were being released.

The weight table is set up, and Weight master Jack Loughrey weighs a fish

At noon, all boats were de-watered and the weigh-in started. All fish were released alive.

Jason Adams and Jason Waloven with their winning fish.

Boater, Jason Waloven won the tournament with a 6.76 pound northern, and second place went to Larry LaClair's co- angler, Jason Adams with a 6.27 pound northern.

President, Tom Hudson pays prize money to the winning members.

Now, how Jason won the tournament.

Jason Waloven worked a Kikuchi Minnow jerk bait along the shore line. As you can see, it has gold sides, orange belly and a black back. Jason uses a bait caster reel on a 6.6 foot rod with 14# test line. We know that he was telling the truth, because we had to get this lure out of the winning northern's mouth. Jason had used good sense to cut the line and not risk hurting the fish on the water. "Dr Eric Wilsey" extracted the lure on shore without hurting the fish, and the last time we saw that northern, he was swimming away, ready to fight again some day.