Congratulations to Lou Croce from CCBM who finished 2nd in the B.A.S.S. Northern Open in the co-angler division!
He's in line for his check as I type this!
Other local anglers also finishing in the money as co-anglers:
Jimmy Jeff Townsend from CCBM in 13th place
Randy Patton from Marsh Creek Bass Club in 21st place
Mike Dooley from Marsh Creek Bass Club in 27th place
Way to go guys! Let us know about your experience, the good, the bad and the ugly.
If I missed anyone local, let us know.
Lou sat in the hot seat with the lead for most of the weighin. Very last rider to weigh in needed 8lbs and had a 15+lbs. Great job for Lou with his 2nd place and 6.2lb lunker. Winnings were $5400+.
Jim Jeff got 13th and cashed $900+
Randy Patton and Mike Dooley of MCBC both cashed. Randy had the lunker yesterday.
And yes, Lou now has a BASS page in the Angler Search:
http://proxy.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/media/angler?anglerId=29814
and Jim Jeff...
http://proxy.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/media/angler?anglerId=29763
WTG LOOOOUUUIEEE!!!!
YOU SMASHED EM DUDE!!!
from the bass/espn website...
(http://a.espncdn.com//winnercomm/outdoors/bassmaster/opens/2009_NO1/D3_WI/p3g_09_Opens_N1_D3_WI_LouisCroce.jpg)
nice 6lber in lou's right hand.
You guys rock! Congrats! More details!!!
Good job Guys!!!! I'm real happy for you all!!! Wish I was there, though!
WOW! CCBM and MCBC members represented! Way to go guys!
I talked to Randy after each day and he said the experience alone was well worth the entry fee. The key factor though is getting drawn with the "right pro"!
Gman
MCBC
Quote from: fishinjim on April 20, 2009, 12:50:57 AM
nice 6lber in lou's right hand.
I'll settle for 5 of the ones in his left hand in our next tourney... :grin:
Quote from: dan61psu on April 20, 2009, 08:40:35 AM
More details!!!
not super detailed, but heres a little run down of my experience that i posted on another site...
spent the better part of the week down in maryland on the upper chesapeake bay.
fished the bassmaster open series tournament as a co-angler and had a great time.
caught some fish, drew very cool boaters each day, learned a thing or two, and almost best of all... had restroom success every morning before launching... very important. lol.
heres a little (will probably be long as heck) breakdown of how it went...
fyi... lots of guys were fishing the bay for the first time and had trouble figuring out the tide thing. also... lots of folks caught lots of bass... but minimum lenth is 15" on the bay until june... thats what really made it tough on most folks.
thursday. day one. boater... adam weiser... cool dude.
with about four hours of sleep, i met my boater at 4am. i think we were the third boat to put in at the ramp. not many others were silly enough to get up so early. lol.
hanging around the ramp and boats for two hours, i was impressed at how smoothly loading in went and how laid back everyone was. our boat was parked next to kotaro kiriyama's and we hung out and small talked a bit while other elite pros idled around... pretty neat.
we launched and made a long haul to a rocky area of the susquehanna river. my boater had an aluminum rig that i normally would have been a little weary of if the weather report had been bad, but this boat suited where we fished quite well.
we spent the day around rocks and tons of current. not too cool, as it was the last thing i was prepared for, but very cool, as i fish the chesapeake a lot, but had never been up the susquehanna river that far before.
though we were fishing for smallies all day, my boater landed a close to 4lb largemouth that surprised us both. at the end of the day, he had added a 2lb smallie to his livewell, and i had two smallies... one close to 4lbs and one close to 2lbs.
figuring in the weather and time of year, we weren't all that happy with our catch. thought that most of the other guys would've been slamming em. turns out that wasn't the case, and our 6lb bags actually had us both in contention. lots of guys struggled. lots of guys blanked. we'd done alright.
friday. day two. boater... chris daves... cool dude.
much different fishing than day one. chris had told me that we'd be doing a little bit of everything and he was right. we mostly fished grass in one of the few community holes, but did some flipping and pitching too. i was really impressed by his tournament-ing style, which involved a lot of moving around based on tide and water temps. smart stuff. this day i would learn that i don't know how to throw a rattletrap right. lol. i usually do pretty well with a trap, but when we were trapping in the grass, i was catching about 1 fish to every 15 that chris caught.
as the day was ending, chris had two in the livewell and i had none. it was almost time for us to leave, so i took a minute to get all my stuff together and organized in order to be ready to go if we fished down to the last second. i even put on my life jacket. i had left one rod out with a rattletrap on it. made what was going to be one of the last few casts of the day... and surprise... caught a dang 4 pounder.
put him in the well, and we motored up.
back at the ramp, there had been more struggling that day, and that one 4 pounder put my in 12th place in the cut to fish the final day. i owe a lot to that fish. lol.
saturday. day three. boater... brian bylotas... cool dude.
first, i gotta say that bryan is one of the nicest fellas i've met in fishing. heck of a pleasure to fish with for sure.
we did a lot of running, but spent most of our time in one area that bryan had caught a couple of good fish. they weren't very active this day though and we spent most of the day hauling water. brian did have a four pounder come off at the boat there... a heartbreaker, but other than that, it was tough fishing. we found some docks, and between catching lots of short fish, we were both able to scrounge up a keeper. time flew by faster than any other day i remember fishing and before i knew it, we had to head back in.
pulling up to the ramp, i was surprised at how many people were there to watch the weigh in. looks like there are quite a few fishing fans down in maryland.
end of the day... my last fish went 3 and a half lbs and landed me in 13th place.
i'll take it.
couple things...
if you sign up for one of these things as a co-angler and the tournament is on your home water, prepare to be frustrated. i spent a lot of time going 60mph past spots that i knew had good fish potential. at one point, we were fishing up to an area that had a small hump/ledge that i had found and caught good fish off of in the past couple of weeks. before we reached it, my boater pulled up the trolling motor and we split. ugh. lol.
the biggest reason i signed up for this tournament as a co-angler was to fish with and learn from some seasoned guys. most of the guys who fish these things have quite a bit of experience. there'll be a few that will be clueless, but for the most part, fellas who are putting up a grand to enter a tournament have some skills. its a good opportunity to learn a thing or two. just something to think about if anybody out there wants to "up their game."
i was fortunate to draw some good boaters and not only learn some stuff, but also get turned on to some new spots on a water that i fish a lot.
funniest thing that happened over the weekend...
final day after weighing my fish i came down off the stage and was standing around talking to some friends. while we're talking, two little kids ran up to me and asked me for my autograph.
right after i signed their hats, they asked me where mike iaconelli was.
:laugh:
Great writeup. Are you giving a clinic next meeting? :smiley:
What did you mean by "i didnt know how to throw a trap right"??
Quote from: dan61psu on April 20, 2009, 09:39:40 PM
What did you mean by "i didnt know how to throw a trap right"??
i'm not sure exactly, but we were fishing the same areas and he was pulling in shorts left and right while i was barely catching anything. i was getting in the grass and pulling the trap out just like he was, but he either had on the right color or had something going on with his cadence that really got the fish hungry.
i asked him what the heck his trick was, but he said he was doing the same thing as me.
who knows, maybe he was just casting to the right spots and i wasn't. lol.
whatever it was, it was driving me crazy.
btw, his dad is woo daves.