Summer 2009 Tournament
Lake West PointJune 13-14, 2009
Lagrange, GA
The summer 2009 tournament offered plenty of anticipation and drama for all teams involved. The club had previously visited West Point in June of 2005 and returned this year with the same team match-ups as before, as well as a new entry. The defending West Point champion team of Bill Green/Russell Fackler squared off as the early favorites. The other entries included Bo Crawford (winner of 9 of the last 10 tournaments, and 9-in-a-row when competing)/Benson Murray , Lance Granger (Winner in the past two TMT Tournaments)/Clint Jacobs, and Jason "Shawn" Mitchell (defending AOY)/Skip Davis.
Although this was the first daylight summer tournament in several years, the mid-June date offered pleasant weather with a mixture of clouds and wind as well as bluebird skies. And even though we had to share the lake with two large two day tournaments, in addition to the usual weekend Jet skis and ski boats, everyone had a good time and caught plenty of fish.
For practice sessions, most teams were content to launch out of Highland Marina, the site of our lodging and what was originally going to be our launch and weigh-in site. After learning that 2 large tournaments would also be blasting off from Highland about the same time as our first cast, we called an audible and moved the launch and weigh in to a nearby public ramp. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we had a considerably shorter no wake zone and plenty of room to conduct our weigh-in. The new scale, purchased and donated by Lance worked excellently.
The first day of the tournament was generally overcast and comfortable compared to Friday's sunny skies and near 90 high, but heavy pressure made fishing tough after the early morning hours. Not surprisingly team Greene/Fackler staked an early lead, and pulled in a 10 1/2 lb bag, four pounds more than the second place team of Crawford/Murray. A 3 1/2 pound spotted bass caught by Bill Greene set the mark for the Big Bass prize. Every team reported catching lots of fish, but with a 14" limit on largemouth and general unfamiliarity with the lake, weights were generally low.
Saturday evening, as was the case on Friday, was filled dinners of catfish or steak, depending on whether dinner was bought at the marina restaurant or grilled back at the cabin, as well as with entertainment from the stories of the life of professional music as witnessed by Clint Jacobs. There was much enjoyment of the local "scenery" down by the marina restaurant as well.
On day two, with a weather outlook of bluebird skies and near 90's again, teams knew they would have to swing for the fences if there was any hope of catching the leaders. But fishing remained tough for most of the field again with many fish caught, but small weights. On the second day all teams were able to weigh in a limit of keepers, and while team Crawford/Murray was able to momentarily take the lead, Team Greene/Fackler pulled out a bag that was even bigger than their previous day's catch, and would have been competitive with other tournaments that weekend.
In the end Greene/Fackler took home both 1st place and Big Bass prizes, breaking both Bo's & Lance's winning streaks and placed Bill & Russell in a tie lead for Angler of the Year with Bo in third place.. Skip's 4 oz Longear Sunfish secured the trash fish prize for Team Mitchell/Davis over Russell's shad (yes, you read that right, Russell, hooked a shad in the mouth!), which were the only trash fish caught during the tournament. The entire group had an enjoyable tournament and we are looking forward to reconvening to decide the Angler of the Year at Lake Guntersville in September.
