Well, I headed up to Clear lake Saturday afternoon and arrived in Lakeport at about 6pm. I called my friend Dan Powers who was still out on the lake. It turned out he was at Willow point so he picked my up at Library park and we fished for an hour. I ripped a ghost minnow lucky craft pointer and threw a blade for zero. Dan also ripped for zero. He said he struggled all day. I had not been to Clear lake since last July but I had spoken to Sieg Taylor every night during the week. I knew what he had been doing but it is one thing to hear about what to do and another thing to have confidence doing it.

Stayed at the Mallard House since the partner draw was at the Cottage restaurant Sunday morning. I drew Mark Schroeder for the 9th boat. There were 20 boats in the tourney. We ran to Mark's water first. It was a tule point between Adobe creek and Long tule point. Mark started ripping a pointer and I threw a LV100 Ghost Minnow. If you didn't know, Sieg won the Everstart throwing the LV500. Mark hooked up right away (2lber). I then caught one about the same size. The bite was pretty slow but we both had our limit (4 each) by around 8-9am. Mark got a lot more bites than me with the rip bait but most came off as they were not eating it. I caught my big fish of the day around 5.5lbs by 9am. We then ran to one of the spots I wanted to go to which was Shelly creek. We both caught about 5 fish each there. Mark got one about 4lbs but all our other fish were between 1-2lbs and didn't help. We ran over to Catfish slough where Konocti Vista is located. I knew the Everstart fish had probably been let go near there plus it is a great prespawn area. Mark caught several more on the rip bait and I think I got one small one on the LV100. I then picked up a blade and nailed a 2lber on my first cast. About 10 casts later I nailed a 3.5lb. I think I was sitting with about 14lbs right about then and it was around 11am. We saw a 4.5lber came out of the water three times about twenty feet from the boat chasing a shad. Mark threw his rip bait and I threw the blade where we saw the fish. No love for me but right before Mark picked his bait out of the water the 4.5 ate it. After getting this fish in the boat it put us both with about the same amount of weight. We ran down to Rattlesnake for a couple more keepers that didn't help. It was around 1pm so we ran back north stopping a couple times on the way back for zero fish. Ended up back at Catfish. As soon as we pulled in I saw a lone tule. Picked up the dropshot rod (Roboworm greenshiner)and bendo! 5lber on and in the boat. We worked our way over to Wrights creek. I didn't get any more bites but Mark hooked one on his rip bait that he couldn't stop. It just kept peeling drag for about 30 seconds before it pulled loose.

I ended up weighing in 4 for 16.91 which put me in second place. 1st had 16.92. This lake is phenomenal and only going to get better with all the shad in there right now. Talk to you all later, Pat.