Panhandle Bass Club fished Millers Ferry for our December tournament.  We managed to fish the coldest weekend of the year!  Twenty brave members were strong enough to fish the tournament along with four guests.

The water was very good, a light stain, good level and water temp of about 50 degrees in most areas.  Nine boats went up Friday and a few found some fish.  Reports were that Walter found some Hawgs in Shell Creek and could not leave them.  Carolina rigs were responsible for the other fish found on Friday.

A shocking 19degree morning greeted us Saturday but a warming forecast gave us hope for a good day.  Before blast off we had some surprises, Walter and Chris found their steering frozen, Cliff had battery problems, linkage problems, trolling motor problems, paddle problems leading to swimming problems and I am sure there are others associated with the temperature.

 After listening to the ‘reports’ from Friday I ran to a stump field to try to locate a largemouth bite before heading to the river with the c-rig.  Unfortunately, the fish did not read my plan.  We saw turkeys, deer, beavers but no fish.  As we headed to the river, we saw John and Steve Meadows (guest).  They were ‘looking’ too.   Walter came up the river with a long face, he caught them yesterday!  Finally 4:00 pm rolled around and it was time for the weigh in.  Almost half the field Zipped!  Only 11 fishermen managed to catch fish.  Finesse and C-rigs seemed to be the ticket.  Lee Brannon took 3^rd place with 5 fish weighing 5.9 pounds, Steve Graham had 2^nd with a 7 fish limit of 14.68 pound and lunker 4.19, and lucky Ritchie squeezed out 1^st with 7 fish at 14.92.  Congratulations to all who braved the weather especially those lucky enough to boat a keeper.

Keep your line wet!

Fred

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