2002
Tournaments Fished:
The Niagara River Anglers Bass Tourney on July 27th, 2002 on
the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. There were 81 entrants in the adult division
and 11 in the youth division. The winner was Earl Smeal with 7.45 pounds and the
cash bash (big fish) winner was Jay Wick with a 4.40 pound slob he caught right
in front of boat launch while waiting to pull his boat out. I wound up 10th with
5.37 pounds, I had the same problem as most of the other anglers you couldn't
get thru or away from the small fish (1-2 pounds)! A lot of boats had catches in
excess of 100 Fish! The highlight of the Tournament was my 8 year old son,
Travis finishing 2nd in youth division! He had 3.505 pounds that he caught all
by himself and is now hooked on tournaments. The winner, John Rowan had 5.34
pounds.
I fished the BassEye Celebrity Challenge on July 16th
to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation search for the cure. It was a unique
fishing tournament that you were limited to 3 rods and object was to catch
walleye and Bass together to make a BassEye (1-15" Bass and 1-18"
walleye). You would get 150 points for your first BassEye, 300 points for each
after that or 50 points for each additional legal fish. I was teamed with Chaz
& Chuck Kreiner, Justin White and our celebrity KC Bryan. She is outstanding
and enthusiastic young woman that has Cystic Fibrosis and is a spokesperson for
CF. She has a great outlook on life considering with her disease she has a life expectancy
to about 35. She believes the will find a cure before then. I think and hope
they do, with more money going to research from these RedBone Tournaments series.
They made over $80,000 from this tournament! The winner was led by Jim Gorden
and had 1050 points. We had 550 points and wound up 12th out of 34 teams. We
could have done better if we got to fish the whole allotted time but, KC and
Justin both had to go to work. They work for the Buffalo Bisons organization
(they had to take care of pre-game festivities) so, we were back at the dock at
12:45 and every else got to fish until 3 and not have to be back until 5. Those
are the brakes! We trolled jet divers with spinner/worms for the walleyes (went
2 for 5). Then started bass fishing on Senaca Shoal about 10:30, we wound up
catching about 30 Bass and sheepshead on minnows drifted off 3-ways, of which 4
were over the 15" minimum. I can't wait until next year!
The annual 6-Bang Tournament
was canceled at the
last minute, but the Wagon Wheel Restaurant was kindly enough to
put on a replacement Tournament on June 30, 2002. If you like Fish Fry's give
these people a try, it's the best I've had! They're at 7201 Niagara Falls Blvd,
Niagara Falls right across from Tops Market. My partner Joe Fonzi won it with
9.44# and took the Lunker Award with a 5.42# Monster! I was tied for 5th with
7.81#. We fished out of Dunkirk, we caught most of our bigger fish out of 29-31'
on green Cruncher and melon-pepper Bass Pro Tubes.
The Wagon Wheel Restaurant Annual
Smallmouth Tournament on June 15, 2002, We had a clean sweep between my
partner Joe Fonzi and myself; I took 1st place with 9.22 pounds for 2
Smallmouths (my big fish was 4.68# not bad
for postspawn) while Joe took 2nd place with 8.75 pounds and the big fish award
4.82 pounds Smallie out of the 71 entrants. We prefished Thursday and Friday
finding most fish were coming off their spawning beds (some are still on beds, I
don't like to fish them on beds with all the egg stealing Gobies around), the
bigger fish seamed to hanging in 22-28', with many smaller fish around in
the 1 1/2 - 2 pound range just a little shallower 14- 22'. We took all our
bigger fish on Tubes (green Cruncher & melon-pepper Bass Pro) while the
smaller fish were coming on minnows. I got a big surprise when I set the hook on
hit on a Cruncher Tube, the reel started screaming and after a 7-8 minute battle
up comes a 29 3/4" (15# +) Channel Cat!
The 2nd annual
MAKE-A-WISH Tournament
on May 18,2002 at the
Buffalo Small Boat Harbor was a huge success making over $6,000 for this great
charity and producing the Biggest Smallmouths to date. The Winners, Brad
Brodnicki and Todd Walters had get this, 13.56 pounds for two Smallmouths with a
7.34 pound Monster (one of the biggest I've seen)! There were 5 other Teams that
had over 12 pounds, 2 other fish over 7 pounds and 16 over 6 pounds! My partner Joe Fonzi and
I zigged when we should have zagged. We prefished Friday finding 5 good
spots that held big fish, some of our other favorite spots were to muddy to
fish. We found out the hard way how much your fish and water can move overnight.
We fished our first 4 spots with out a fish! (had 2 bites) Finally a fish
at 12:04 a 3.6 pounder on a chartreuse Kalins grub, then another 45 minutes of
nothing. We had one last ditch effort, run to the spot we won this tournament on
last year, it was too muddy on Friday. But with the North-east wind we thought
maybe the water had cleared up some and we could see a few boats working the
general area in the distance. We caught 5 bass in the last hour we had to fish,
which were all in the 4.5- 5 pound range to rebound a little to late. We had
10.22 pounds and finished 50th out of 89 boats. Normally, this weight would be
respectable and probably a solid top 10, but not this year with the mild winter
has producing some of the biggest Smallies ever! We found out that 6 of the
top 10 fished the same general area where we ended up, Only If we would have moved sooner it would
have been a lot different. We stuck to our game plan and didn't adapt quick
enough to changing conditions (water clearing and fish moving). A lesson well
learned that should make us better tournament fisherman in the future.
I was paired with Angie Ridalfo from St. Catherine's in the
Millenium Bassmasters Tournament at the Buffalo Smallboat Harbor on May 5, 2002.
We found some good fish first thing in the morning catching a 4.6 and breaking
off a 5 1/2-6 pounder (this time I broke it off). The bite slowed so we left to
try a few other spots, bite was slow everywhere we tried (probably because of
light North wind change from WSW). So we went back to where we started and
hammered them for the last hour catching 14 or 15 with more than half of them
being book-end 4.5 pounders. We wound up 19th with 9.28 pounds, while the
winners: Rob Orosz/Dominic Boissonnault had 11.56 pounds. The Lunker award was
5.96 pounds.
I fished Chautauqua Lake Bassmasters Tournament
on May 4, 2002 out of Dunkirk Harbor with Joe Fonzi. We were in the right area
but just couldn't find a consistent "Big Fish" pattern or land the big
ones we had hooked up (Joe broke one 5 1/2- 6 pounds off and we lost 2 other big
ones). The winning Team caught their fish within 100 yards of us, we
watched them land the 7.10 Monster that took the Lunker Award. Joe Battaglia and
John Conley had 12.25 pounds with the 7.10 pound slob to take 1st place. With
another huge Smallie weighing 6.91 and three others over 6 pounds, the fishing
was very good for big fish. We wound up 16th with 9.73 pounds.
2002
Tournament Results:
2006
2005
2004
2003
2001
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