July 18, 2009
Lake Austin - Austin, Texas

In an attempt to avoid the blazing hot sun and the rolling waves thrown off by all the pleasure boaters, it was voted that our tournament this month on Lake Austin would be fished during the darkest hours of the night and cool conditions of early morning. We placed our first casts at midnight and came back for weigh-in at 9:00 that morning. Many anglers found the conditions during the night much more favorable to fish than it has been during the day lately. Unfortunately, the bass didn’t seem to be on the same page as us. It was an incredibly difficult tournament resulting in some of the lowest weights we’ve seen in our tournaments in quite some time. Several sleep deprived hours later, it was Mark Peevey who was able to pull it together and weigh in the only limit of the night for the win!

Mark weighed in full five fish limit weighing in at 12.96 pounds, and even managed to take the big bass award as well with a 5.56 pound bucketmouth! His first fish of the night just happened to be the big one and came around 2:00 AM. Having already missed three fish, Mark pitched his green pumpkin Hags Tornado on a shaky head to the side of a lighted dock to catch the big one. After rigging up his Tornado on the shaky head again, he pitched to the other side of the dock and promptly stuck his second biggest fish of the night. With two quick fish in the livewell, the remainder of the night time hours proved difficult. However, before the end of the tournament, Mark did manage to get his final three keepers by fishing a Hoo Daddy Jr. around various types of cover and structure. He caught one fishing rocks, another off a creek channel, and the other on a retaining wall. All fish were caught using Team Diawa rods and reels. Mark also commented on how he didn’t really have much of a pattern going, but rather simply had confidence in what and where he was fishing in order to provoke his strikes. Congrats on dominating in a very difficult tournament, Mark!

In second place is our 2008 ATX Angler of the Year, Dan Taylor, weighing in two fish for a total of 5.71 pounds. Like most anglers in the tournament, Dan employed a bit of a “junk-fishing” pattern moving around a lot and throwing lots of baits. His first keeper was caught during the night on Texas-rigged senko fishing a deep brush pile. Then just before the sun came up, Dan caught his next keeper on a Baby Brush Hog next to a shallow dock. You know it’s a tough tournament when a guy like Dan is only able to put two fish in the boat. Dan would also like to thank Texas Tournament Zone for their great support in his bass fishing endeavors.

Finally, wrapping up our top finishers, was yours truly, Ander Meine. I somehow managed to sneak into third place also weighing in two fish just .03 pounds behind Dan for a total of 5.69 pounds. I primarily stuck to fishing a pattern I’d found last week throwing a Texas-rigged black Toledo Tickler worm around lighted docks and brush piles. I caught my first keeper around 1:00 AM on the worm, and then promptly lost 2 other fish halfway to the boat within the next 30 minutes in the same area. After that the next several hours were very difficult. Finally abandoning that pattern around 5:00 AM, I found a couple of underwater lights where I could see tons of shad with larger predatory fish chasing them. After throwing everything in the boat at them, I finally caught my second keeper next to the light drop-shotting a 6” Roboworm. At daybreak, I began running to several spots, but the only other action I had was losing a good w fish in a deep brushpile again on the drop-shot.

Thanks to those who fished with us in such a difficult tournament and again congratulations to those who found success. Our next tournament is scheduled for August 2nd on Stillhouse Hollow at the River’s Bend launch ramp. Those interested in club events are encouraged to come to our club meetings the first Tuesday of every month at Threadgill’s on Riverside at 7 PM.