Rob and his partner, Chris Vanclef took first place on the Delta WON Tournament today on the CA Delta with 30.62 pounds including a 9+lber!! Way to go Rob! Congrats!

Dang Cal you beat me to it. Great job Rob and partner!! Very very nice sack of fishies :). Lemme guess swimbait :) Anyone got any pictures of the winning fishies??

Mike

It was a fun day.

"and partner"

off the radar, I like it!;)

Thanks guys. I'll do my best to tell about our day yesterday, it was an interesting one to say the least.

The right place to start telling this story is at the beginning :) I've lived up here in the Bay for going on 7 years now but I typically only hit the delta 2-4 times a year. This summer I fished the Bass-n-Tubes Delta Open and was able to win the tourney with a nice catch on the Slammer and a kicker fish on a buzzbait. That got my interest up so in the fall I started going to the delta regularly with my little boat.

Through the fall I had some real tough trips and a few decent trips. Ryan Thoni helped me out and showed me some basic stuff out there which was helped get me going. We weren't catching mega sacks but at least we were competitive. I fished by myself some, screwed around with striper fishing, etc. Cris Vanclef and I decided to with the WON team circuit.

Cris knows the delta very well and we had a simple plan. He would run the boat and make the calls on where to fish. My job was to sit in the back and try to catch something big. Our first 2 tournaments I didn't catch a single keeper bass! Cris caught everything and carried us to some middle of the pack finishes. In the third tourney I fished by myself and scraped out a tiny limit, then spent the rest of the day on big fish and caught nothing. In the fourth tournament I caught two keepers (big stud that I am) and we somehow got 4th place with 8.25lbs for 5 fish in a totally brutal tourney. Our finishes weren't terrible but let's be honest, we were having a crappy season.

This tournament we both had a chance to prefish which was a big plus. We had good condition and Cris found an area that was loaded with 2-5lb bass. My prefish was not as good but I did stick a 6.55 on an Assalt King Kobra jig. On game day I was excited to go out with the knowledge that we'd be fishing for some decent quality and that I'd probably catch a fish or two bigger than 2 pounds! I left all my light tackle at home and we both agreed to take our skirts off and go fishing for real. I told Cris that I know myself and I knew that I would never win a big fish tournament with a spinning rod in my hand.

Gameday comes, we run to Cris' area. First pass down the bank I miss 3 in a row on the Assalt jig. The fish were line jumpering the bait and then dropping it. I hook a small one finally and the momentum of the fish launching 10 feet through the water on the hookset makes the line go slack and it falls off (2 pounder).

Cris gets our next bite and it was a donkey. The fish comes up to the surface and half rolls half jumps throwing an 8 foot wide boil. It was dumping rain and I had my hood on and was reaching for the net when Cris yells "grab my rod, grab my rod!" I was confused about what was happening but tried to grab his rod. What happened was that his reel had broken loose from the reel seat and gotten sucked up in to the first guide by the pressure from the fish. Total disaster ensues as Cris tries to reel with the reel detached from the rod and I I eventually try to handline it. The fish of course got away. It was 9-10lbs minimum. The next bite Cris gets, you guessed it, another 2-3lber that comes to the surface and falls off the hook.

So our first 6 bites we dumped them all including a monster. I've never seen such bad luck in a tourney before in my life. It was the kind of deal where you don't even want to talk. Cris busted the rod with the bad reel seat in two. It was bad. We did talk though about our first tournament that we ever fished together. In that tourney Cris lost a 13lber on his 2nd cast of the day and we still won. You can never just roll over and die in a tournament.

We finally stuck two small fish, like 1.5lbers. Those fish and the big bite helped us to see a pattern that was developing. We talked about what to do and decided to leave the area and go to something similar, some water that Cris knew but hadn't fished in a long time. We get there and immediately the fish were just slamming the bait. Cris got a 3, I get a 2.5 then an 8 and a half, and then Cris sticks our big fish, a 9.74. All in like 15 minutes. We were jumping around in the boat like little kids. Then we hit more bad luck as I pitch out, get a big bite and miss it :(

We expanded on that area and I think I caught two smaller fish, one that culled around 3lbs. We come back to the good section and Cris gets another smaller one. Then we get to the same spot where I had missed the good bite and I get hit solid again. I get the fish up just in to view and it tears off the hook. It looked 7-8lbs, very likely the same fish I missed earlier. Again I figured we had just lost the tournament.

At the end we made one final pass on our good section and Cris gets another one about 3. As soon as he boats it I get hit and hook a bigger fish. There was an 'oh crap' moment of what to do. Cris goes to net my fish and the 3lber jumps out of the boat! We may have lost an ounce or two but we culled a 2.8 or 2.9 (can't remember) with my fish that was 6 and change.

That was it. We weighed 30.62 with the big fish at 9.74. It was a day of total bad luck and total good luck. We were definitely lucky to win considering that so many other teams had big bags. I thought someone would bring 35lbs today and it sounded like some of the other teams who finished high had their chances to beat us. The fish gods must have been smiling on us to allow us to win after losing two kickers :)

Here's a shot of Cris with his 9 and my 8 (yea we're the goofballs who take pictures during the tournament)
http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/2-10-07_cris_9.74_8.5.jpg

What a day Rob!

And what a SWEEEET picture!

Congrats again!

Great catch and great picture, Rob! Keep up the good work.

Congrats guys! Very nice fish.

Congrats, those are some lit up fish....

Jake J

http://calfishing.com/gallery/v/members/jakej/

Yes! WTG! Nice job boy's;) Nice when they get off and still win LOL!!! Way to hang in there.

Don.

http://calfishing.com/gallery/v/members/bassindon69/basspics/

Nothing like fishing!

Wow, wow and wow! I need a day like that during a tornament. Not the broken reel seat but those fish! Great job again and I'm thinking you guys are going to tear it up this coming spring!

Oh, just don't go to Clear Lake so I feel like I have a chance! ;)

Todd
http://www.bassanglerprofiles.com/toddiwamoto.htm

Great Read Rob!
Way to keep it together when things were going wrong.
Congratulations!!

Josh

Rob and Chris you guys are studs! Congrats

www.mattlures.com

Congrats. guys..you definatley earned that one!!..Nathan
www.Bettencourtbaits.com