S. W. V. B. NEWS
Volume 1, Issue 1                                                                                                            January 2001

TOURNAMENT REPORT

September 15^th – Kanawha River, St. Albans (Night)

     In what may have been our first ever night tournament on the Kanawha River, the fishing was pretty average but members came away with an enjoyable night on the water.  You could say we rolled the dice by scheduling a night tournament so late in the year and we paid the price by way of very cold temperatures.  But those who bundled up and got some bites enjoyed night fishing on the well-lit river.

     New club member Eric Jarrett came away with a win in our first tournament of the 2001 season.  He caught two nice smallmouth weighing a total of 2.85lbs with a chunky 15 ¾ incher being his big bass.  According to Eric, the fish were caught on a special creation using a tube bait and a plastic craw.  Way to go Eric and welcome to the club.  Here are the rest of the results:  2^nd place – Randall Coleman 2.17lb/2fish

                                3^rd place – Joe Hanson 2.11lbs/2fish

                                4^th place – Steve Davis 1.97lbs/1fish

                                5^th place – Lorn Walker 1.52lbs/1fish

                                6^th place – Todd Harless 1.36lbs/2fish

                                7^th place – Andrew Albert .96lb/1fish

September 30^th – Kanawha River, St. Albans

     The fishing didn’t improve much since our night tournament, but 7 members managed to bring fish to the scales in our “warm-up” for the central qualifier.  The weather was wonderful for fishing but a heavy fog bank upriver forced some boats to drop the trolling motor and fish while waiting the fog out.  For one boat in particular this proved to be a good strategy.

     Todd Harless stopped his boat in the fog and decided to fish until it lifted.  He may have changed his mind about running away too quickly when he boated a huge 3.49lb smallie within minutes of fishing.  He stayed in the area and boated another 15inch+ smallmouth before running to another couple of spots and banging out a 5 fish limit weighing 7.18lbs.  The impressive bag came courtesy of a firetiger Rapala shad rap crankbait.   Congratulations to Todd for figuring out the fish on a pretty tough day.  Here’s how the others fared:

                  2^nd place – Joe Hanson 3.11lbs/2fish

                  3^rd place – Jeff Moore 2.36lbs/2fish

                 4^th place – Mike Chestnut 1.43lbs/1fish

                 5^th place – Eric Jarrett 1.39lbs/1fish

                 6^th place – Lorn Walker 1.02lbs/1fish

                 7^th place – Andrew Albert .95lb/1fish

October 21^st – Summersville Lake, Long Point Marina

     Our October outing on Summersville was planned to give our club’s State Tournament qualifiers some possible patterns and ideas for the upcoming state final.  A cool, breezy, sunny day on a lake that had a falling water level made it a mission impossible.  The fish weren’t very cooperative in trying to help us out either.  Only 3 members managed to catch one keeper a piece from the cold, clear lake.

     Jeff Moore continued his string of high tournament finishes by winning the tournament with a nice largemouth weighing 1.97lbs.  He said he caught the bass from a bluff wall while sitting in 80 feet of water.  A tube bait did the trick on this bass for Mr. Moore.  Congratulations to Jeff for catching a nice fish on a day when many anglers failed to get a single bite.  The other anglers placing were Steve Davis, with one bass weighing 1.26lbs and Dave Tyler, with one fish weighing 1.19lbs. 

*  A special recognition goes to the six members who represented our club in the central qualifier and the four who went on to the state tournament.  Nobody made the state team this year but Mike Chestnut was in the running and a few others did pretty well too.  Congratulations guys!

Andrew Albert

S.W.V.B. NEWS 2