Philipsburg Bassmasters 3rd Tournament of 2012: East Branch Dam July 7,2012

Our 3rd club tournament of the year was held this past weekend at East Branch Dam in Wilcox, PA.  I have never been to this lake before so going into the day, my goal was to just weigh in 1 fish in order to get some club points.     I took my dad with me and I met him at his house at 3am.  We met Woody in Bigler around 3:30am and we were on our way.  We ended up launching around 5:45 and there were only 4 boats in the tournament.  A total of 6 club members participated for the day.     Jeff Wood ended up bagging a limit real early in the morning on a topwater bait  and taking first place and Ed Eckess found a limit of smallmouth also for 2nd.   I was able to pull in 3 quality keeper smallmouth for a total of 6.03lbs with my lunker just missing big fish with 2.51lbs.  Lunker was 2.60.    

I was throwing a dropshot all day and with 45 minutes left, I found a place that wouldve won me the tournament if I could have had more time to fish it.  I ended up fishing it way too fast and was not able to take my time.    

Our next tournament is July 21 and 22 at the Allegheny River Pool 9 (East Brady.)    

If you are interested in joining the club, please email me at jtmoslak@gmail.com or call 814-553-4831    We could use some new members.  Tournaments are 25$ and we have a club meeting on the 3rd Tuesday of Every month at Reliance Fire Hall in Philipsburg across from Weis Markets.

Tightlines!

Philipsburg Bassmasters Lake Erie tournament: June 16,2012

Our second club tournament of the year took place on June 16, 2012 in Lake Erie, PA.  We launched out of Presque Isle Bay around 5:30am.   One of my good buddies came with me to fish the tournament who had a little bit of experience fishing the lake.  Jeremy Lake was the 2009 winner of the FLW College Fishing tournament held on this amazing fishery.

Going into the day, we had a pretty solid plan in place.  We knew we were going to dropshot... dropshot... and dropshot some more.    So after placing a nice Tackle Warehouse order, we were well ready to go for the tournament.

After blastoff, we made a run to just outside PIB to fish a pipeline that Jeremy found while fishing with Penn State.  We fished there for around an hour and I ended up putting 2 keeper largemouth into the boat.  Both Jeremy and I knew that those fish wouldn't be good enough to get me into the money so we made about a 4 mile run to fish 15ft of water.  As soon as we got there it was game on!  We ended up catching probably 25 keepers between the two of us.  I can't say enough about the Shimano Stradic and St. Croix Avid rod I was using.  They held up very very nicely this tournament and the drag on the Stradic was perfect.  Also, the Gamakatsu hooks I was using made for a perfect hookup everytime.  I think I only lost 1 fish the entire tournament.     Also, I could not have caught as many fish if it wasn't for the Tabu Tackle Whiptail worm I was using.  This and another bait that I won't name really produced some nice fish for us!

We had a great time and cannot wait to go back!  Jeremy has a Fisher's of Men Regional tournament there in the fall and I would love to go back up and prefish it with him.       I ended up in 2nd place for the day with 3 Smallmouth for 8.15 lbs with my lunker being 3.07lbs.   1st place was taken by Jack Lynch with 9.15lbs.     Jeremy almost won lunker for the day with a 3.74lb smallmouth.  Here is a couple pictures of our fish for the day!

Tightlines!