– Photos courtesy of Alabama FOM NW Div.
Well, maybe more than just a little tough. The teams in the Northwest Alabama Division of the Fishers of Men (FOM) first tournament of 2014 backed their boats into the water of Wilson Lake at Safety Harbor February 15. Most probably expected the fishing to be fairly decent. There was even a slight rise in temperatures forecast for the day- not warm, but not the lows recently experienced.
However, the bass in the venerable old impoundment had not been consulted and were not on notice tournament anglers would be on the water and energetic strikes would be expected. According to Donny Beck, who along with teammate Tony Harvey took first place in the event, the fishing on Wilson during the tournament was tough. Beck, a very accomplished bass fisherman, especially on Wilson, said, “We only caught six fish all day”. Now that’s a very tough day on Wilson.
Beck and Harvey managed to boat enough keepers to take a 10.7 pound bag of fish to the scales at the end of the day. Beck
First place winners Harvey (left) and Beck show three of their six keepers. -FOM photo
revealed how he and his partner finally managed to catch some bass. Beck said, “We were fishing a creek channel with Brush Hogs and a drop shot rig moving them very slowly. The bottom had about four inches of grass”. He added the surface temperature was reading 42 to 44 degrees. Beck and Harvey also brought in the only five fish limit of bass from all the contenders.
Second place went to the team of Garrie and Garrie that brought one fish to the scales. Just so happened that fish weighed 6.92 lbs. that also took the big fish honors for the tournament. The duo of Hallmark and Sparks took a close third with three bass in their bag weighing 6.91 pounds- just a big drop of water from second place! Two fish were enough for fourth at 5.46 lbs. boated by the FOM team of Smith and Smith. Fifth place was 5.12 lbs. bagged by partners Olive and Hellums.
Only eleven of the 35 teams fishing the tough event brought one or more fish to the scales. Five of the competition boats had one fish each, four teams had two fish in their livewell, one had three tagged and of course the winners had a limit of five. There were no other competitors for the big fish award. A mixture of largemouth and smallmouth were represented in the 21 bass brought in. A total of 53.36 lbs. of fish were caught in the tournament for an average weight of 2.54 lbs. per bass.
The remaining schedule for the Alabama Northwest Division FOM is:
Guntersville Lake, Guntersville State Park, Mar 15, 2014
Pickwick Lake, McFarland, Apr 12, 2014
Wilson Lake, Safety Harbor, May 10, 2014
Wheeler Lake, Joe Wheeler State Park, Jun 7, 2014
The Alabama Northwest Legacy FOM, where an adult fishes with a youth angler, has the following 2014 schedule:
Pickwick Lake, Riverfront Park, Mar 8, 2014
Wilson Lake, Safety Harbor, May 24, 2014
Wheeler Lake, Joe Wheeler State Park, Jun 28, 2014
For information on the Northwest Alabama Fishers of Men contact Joey Wimberley, Director at [email protected].
