First I want to say thank you to everybody who came out to this tourney and all the Delta Region events this year.
I started the day with no real plan except for one thing. I was going to fish the lone tree on the bank to the left of where we launched since I had caught a good fish there a couple weeks ago while on a scouting trip to the area. At blast off I headed to the tree and tossed a frog and then a Beaver for about ten minutes for nothing. Not wanting to waste any more time on this spot I decided to head inside Mildred. There were a couple of spots I wanted to hit on the way there where I had also caught fish on the scouting mission. None of the places where I had picked up fish before produced anything for me so on to Mildred.
I went through the opening and had a look around since I had actually never fished inside the island before. I headed west once inside down a tulle berm that had some good hyacinth clumps mixed in with the tulles. About 150 yards from the opening I noticed the tulles way in the back dancing around indicating a current flowing through the berm. I started flippin the Beaver back in the junk. I flipped to the edge of a hyacinth clump and my line starts moving off under the stuff. I swung and fish on. It felt good but you can never tell when they are in the tulles and hyacinth I worked it out to open water where it came up and did a big head shake right into my net. Four pounder in the bag. I was stoked to get a good fish on my first bite of the morning. I continued flippin down the bank for another 30 feet or so and came upon a cut that extended almost all the way through the berm you could see the current flowing into the cut and it just looked like money. There were some sparse tulles in the center and hyacinth along both sides extending all the way from the tulles on the outside to the back of the cut. I put down the Beaver and picked up the frog. My first pitch went to the tulles on the outside edge of the opening and I worked it back, for nothing. Second pitch went to the center of the cut on the edge of the hyacinth. As I let the ripples subside the current carried the frog a little deeper into the cut. I started walking the frog out and as it approached the sparse tulles in the middle a fish launched out of the tulles and just annihilated the frog. It hit so hard I didn’t need to swing on it as it hooked itself. I knew this was also a good fish it made one strong surge towards the tulles but I was able to turn it and eventually lead it into the net. Cool fish number two in the tank and it’s bigger than the first. Turned out to be a 4-13 and the big fish for the day. I could hardly fish for a few minutes afterward cuz I was shaking so badly. I needed those fish if I was going to give Doug a run for the money in the AOY race. I worked this bank back and forth three more times. I missed one bite and put a skinny 13 incher in the well. I started working back towards the opening and the tide started falling so I picked up a blade and started working some weed patches near the opening and caught a couple of dinks. The rest of the day I continued with the blade occasionally tossing the frog or Beaver to likely looking spots. I caught another 13 incher on the blade to fill a limit. I worked my way back towards the launch and picked up a couple more dinks on the blade. After what seemed like hours I was finally able to catch another keeper and cull the little guy I caught earlier with a 1-4. As the tide fell some more I started throwing a buzzbait over the weeds that were to thick to run a blade through. About half an hour before weigh in I got the only blow up I had all day on the buzzbait and culled the other 13 incher I had with a 1-½ pounder. I never lost a fish and only missed one bite all day. Except for those two fours early it was a tough bite for keepers mostly. I ended the day with 11-10 for the win and big fish.

Congrats to Mark Goodrich for his second place finish and Chris Zaldain for third.