Yesterday was the 5th event for ABA Motherlode region. We were on the fence about going a few weeks ago since our season has been terrible, we were in 31st place in the points, and no where near figuring anything out at Pedro and McClure this year.

I spent all day Friday installing a 36v Fortrex 101 on the boat. Had to rearrange the battery compartment and do a bunch of little stuff. Big thanks to Dave Tencati for ordering the batteries I needed and having them there the same day. Dave at Scotty's Automotive in Campbell is the man if you ever need work on your truck. So no prefishing for us. Got to the lake and found 6 to 8 foot clarity with 58 to 60 deg. water.

First fish of the morning came right away on a rattle trap. A .9lb spot. Pretty typical start for us at that lake, catching a barely keeper spotted bass. Followed that up with a couple blade fish, largemouth in the 1 to 1.4lb range, which was more pleasant.

We blasted along down the bank and stumbled in to a school of spotteds which completed our limit on senkos. Then we started looking for beds more seriously. Didn't see much on beds but saw some cruisers and Nico started catching them just random casting around with senkos. These largemouth were all starving looking.

After a while we culled up to a limit of 1.3 and 1.4lb largemouth. Finally after miles of looking we ran over a nicer fish. On the first cast the fish went up on my bait and I thought for sure she was going to get it but she didn't take it. We fished it for 20 mins but the fish was acting funny, swimming in a long circle around a little bush.

Then it got breezy so we couldn't see the fish :( We left for a while and came back when it got calm. I switched to big hammer and on the 2nd or 3rd cast the fish ate it but I missed it. Then it got windy again right then so we couldn't see again. We blind cast for a long time without seeing the fish. We both hate blind fishing on beds.

Finally the fish started chasing the big hammer off the bed to the boat so we could see it. After the 2nd chase Nico pitched in with 6lb and she ate. The fish did a cartwheel out of the water and took off running. It was horrible because you know on 6lb your odds are diminished. It was a great fight though. Nico played it really good. We chased with the boat and the whole thing. The luck went our way and he landed the fish, a 7.3lber :) I was jumping around the boat like an idiot. It was a cool catch.

After that it was happy times in the boat, though I really felt we needed another to be sure of winning. We checked a ton more bank but only found one other good one, like 6lbs but it wasn't on a bed. 13.8lbs for 5 was enough to win and the 7 held for big fish. It sounded like big Fred had a 10 hooked but it came off so we were fortunate to win.

All told I figure we had around 20 keeper largemouth and a half dozen spotteds. 2 were on beds the rest were casting.

http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/2010_04_17_mcclure/weighin.JPG

1st=rob belloni/nico raffo..bf..7.30..total..13.88
2nd=matt dolph/sam balbas..bf..3.11..total..10.91
3rd=randy pierson/glenn pierson..10.01
4th=kyle rasmussen/keith rakoncza..9.58
5th=fred lopez sr/lancelopez..9.54