July 10, 2010
Captains meeting was set for the Wednesday prior to the tournament. Food was catered by Chilis “Thanks Benny” after some grub and paying entry fees they raffled a few prizes and announced the starting boat. Boat 75 will start it off which means I am in the last flight. Plan was to fish PV, I was not able to get out and pre-fish and rumors of a red tide had us thinking about fishing deep for the spawning sandbass.

Alarm went off quick at 2:15 am, hooked the boat up, grabbed some tea and off to pick up Brandon in Newport. Next stop Marina Del Rey we arrive early “No Nerves Just Amped”. Check in with the SWBA team, and pay the Big Fish Side Pot. Back at the boat for a few last minute tweaks and we dump the boat in the Water. 50+ boats line up and wait for the National Anthem which followed some shouts and whistles and at 5:30am the starting boat was called out. As SWBA Director,James Shamblin called out the numbers Boat 65 was radioed and we were off to PV, about a 30 minute run in sheet glass and a minimal swell.

First spot wasn’t promising as the kelp was thick and in tight. I lube up on the Sauce and start firing away, and hook up with a 13 inch fish right off the bat. We drift down to a high spot with a boiler exposed and my partner Brandon Cotton hooks up with a bigger fish, NICE second fish in the boat and its a toad. PSYCHED!!!!!!!! We bounce around put a 2.5 in the well and we are in good shape with 3 in the well and its only 7am.

SWBA Tournament Director, Eric Bent rolls up on us and asks if JT from Inside Sport Fishing can join us. He did some quick on the water interviews checked out the fish in the livewell and kept invisible on the Whaler. Put a few fish on camera, hooked a big Halibut had a blast and he was picked up after a couple hours. JT is one of the coolest guys I have met and he is welcome on my boat anytime….

PV was a little stagnate so we bounced back into the deeper kelp lanes as the conditions looked really good. Got the rest of our limit but really needed to get rid of 2 of our smaller fish. The Bracket on my transducer cracked so deep spots were out of the question. We gave it our all and we left with 55 minutes till weigh in as we knew the ride up the line would take a little longer. We arrive at the MDR wall with 20 minutes to spare, see the check-in boat and decide to fish the wall.

I start flipping a 3\4 oz warhead matched with a 5″ Condor lubed with Hot Sauce and start working the wall. I get bit set the hook and cull out the smallest fish with a 2 pound calico 15 minutes to go. Brandon hooks up next and culls out a 15″ calico with a 2.25 sand bass. We are going crazy rack the rods life vests on and jam in with minutes to spare……

We weighed in our 5 fish for 14 pounds and our big fish weighed in a 5.6 which was good enough for 16th place. Tough day on the water but we made the most of it worked well as a team, and we have a little momentum going into Round 5.

We threw Big Hammer Swimbaits, Iron and Condors all day lubed in Hot Sauce………..

Scott Pohle
Fishtrax_65
http://fishtrax.wordpress.com/


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