First I want to say thank you to Mel Cotton's and the guys who ran the tournament. I wish I could remember all your names but they escape me at the moment ;( You guys deserve a hand. This was my first Mel's tourney and I thought it was very well run and went off very smoothly. The payouts were awesome, to say the least, and there were some great raffle prizes on top of that.

It was a tough day fishin in the delta for everyone and the wind didn't help that much either.
I started out with all my usual stuff, topwater, blade, crank, swimbaits, senko's and flippin. I threw most of that stuff only a few times but flipped and tossed Senko's a bunch in the first hour and a half or so.
After having not been touched once the whole time I decided to pick up my dropshot rod. I worked my way through a couple of different baits and eventually settled on the trusty ole 6 inch MM Roboworm. That's when I found the money spot. I caught 7 keepers in all and all but one of them behind three docks that were next to each other. They all had 14 feet deep water at the rear of the dock, with the weed line that extended 3-4 feet from the rip-rap into 10 feet of water, and about a 6 foot gap with a bunch of shad in between. The spot was key as I fished that worm every where the rest of the day and only picked up one more random fish from a dock piling. Ended up with 8 lbs which was good enough for the surprise win.

Congrats also to Joey, Taylor and Paul for cashing checks and to all the tubers and kick boaters who came out, fished this tourney and took home some of the great raffle prizes donated by Mel Cotton's sporting goods.

I hope some of the float tubers who were there can tell us about their experiences also. The delta isn't as scary as a lot of tubers and kick boaters think and these low keyed tournament are a great way to get out to meet new people and learn new things in a very safe environment.

I will be back next year for sure!

MT

Congrats Mitch and all those who caught fish. I only had 1 14"r and a 3ft Otter :+

This was a good tournament. I will try and fish it again next year

I stumbled upon this website and found out about the day before tournament. I would like to try and fish one of these tournaments in the future. I looked through the rules and I had some questions that maybe someone could answer.

How often do tournaments like these come around?

I do not have any type of livewell, where would I purchase/find plans to make one of these?

Do tournament regulations/rules vary a lot from tournament to tournament?

Thanks you for any advice.

Chris from Livermore

Also if there is anyone who lives in the Livermore area interested in float tubing together/riding together feel free to contact me. I usually go off Cal Pack Rd.

Welcome to the board.

There are tournaments throughout the year. This specific event was a special tournament run with Mel Cottons, but BNT and SCBBBC hold events most months of the year. You can check the schedule out by clicking on the link above.

A couple people have been known to launch off calpac ;) so just make a post the next time your heading out there and I'm sure you can find someone willing to meet you out there for a day of fishing. If you see me up there in a red Z20 once the barrier is back down feel free to say hi.

In terms of a livewell, you will have to make one, best suggestion would be to look through the rigging pages, I think Mitch set up in the photo section in the BNT website. Also if you search the forum for the words live well in the search feature with the Float Tube board highlighted you will get a ton of posts concerning ways to setup a livewell that have been posted over the years.

You should go to the upcoming Sonoma event at Clear Lake if you can make it, it is a great tournament with a great raffle.