I fished the pro/teen through ncbf this weekend. Drove up to the delta on Friday (yes, that's the reason for the lack of harbor reports...) and got back about an hour ago today (sunday). I drew Angel Robles as my pro and I was stoked. Angel's a sweet draw. We were boat number 18 for blast off and with 71 boats they had two different flights. We were planning to catch most of our fish in the morning and we were the LAST boat in the first flight so we lucked out. After a rough ride in the Ranger 636V through pinnacling delta water (it was the first time I worried about my rods over my own safety, I don't know if that's good or bad...) we finally got to the area of Frank's Tract.
We started throwing buzzbaits in the morning. Actually Angel started with a popper. I pulled one keeper on a buzzbait and Angel got a short. We decided to go flip and pitch. Angel told me he had never thrown a senko in the delta before. I decided to flip it anyway. I got bit so Angel switched to the senko. He pulled a few fish and then I pulled a few fish. Angel had like 5 or 6 keepers (he's only allowed to keep 3 and I have to catch the other two for the limit) and I had 2. So, we had our limit by 8:45. Nice. From like 8 to 9 we couldn't keep em off the senko. At around 9:30 we decided to fish for big fish. We knew we needed a couple big fish if we wanted to have a chance at the top 5. Angel threw a buzzbait and crankbait for the rest of the day while I picked up another senko fish to cull out a small fish that was barely legal. (It was actually our biggest fish of the day, an entire 2 1/2) So, no big fish. At weigh in we placed 18th out of 71. Not too bad. Could've used those big fish we were fishin for. Angel was saving some water for a tournament he had next weekend, so I didn't mind. I wasn't fishing for money (actually trophies/cameron rods).
Well, they gave us about 100 bucks worth of stuff in this tackle pack including numerous bags of senkos, yamamoto grubs, lizards, craws, etc. Not bad for a 20 dollar entry fee!!! I also won a frog togs suit in the raffle. Nice. Well, I'm very happy with our finish. We made the top 20 and I was stoked. It was kinda funny that we finished 18th and we were the 18th boat for blast off. The winning weight was like 16 something with a 7-6 kicker. That fish was also big fish of the tournament (by a pro, biggest teen's was like 6-3 or something) As we suspected all the top 5 finishers had big fish kickers. Anyway, I had a blast. It was one of the funnest fishing weekends of my life and I'll definitely be back for more.
-Brian