Benefit results please post here.

[Jmax]

Well I have been looking for the results and have not yet seen it so I guess I will start and hopefully we can all chime in here. Great morning to be out and lots of fun as always. CCSM and I really thought we had this one in the bag so we were humbled again.emoWorthy We had our chance but we need to figure out how to not loose fish in these here Txs. CCSM was using a Carolina rig deep where I have been using a finesse worm and he was getting lots of hits but not a lot of hook ups. He finally set it on one and the line broke on him.emoBang He than caught a couple slicks and finally rared back on a good one that he got to the boat, 3.09 lbs and ended up being the big fish of the day. At that point I changed to the C-rig also. About thirty later I get a hard hit and set the hook. Big fish and tell CCSM to get the net. Got it coming to the boat with rod doubled and it comes off. emoAngry This is getting frustrating! Little while later another hit and again tell him to get the net and we get it in, 2.80 lbs, and just barely hooked.emoScratch Those fish were not hitting well at all. We fished in WT and fished drops, points, and creek channels where we caught most of our fish. Most came from the 20 foot range. We did go shallow for about 45 minutes and CCSM got one slick there. In all we boated around 10 bass but only the two nice keepers. No current and no flow makes for a tough time in the WT where I prefer to fish. Still it was a lot of fun and as always I enjoyed CCSM's company.emoThumbsup Jmax

 

[fisherpal2k]

Pointer 78 and I fished up at Ware's creek?? I think. I am not sure where he took me emoLaugh . We had 4 fish for the day and came in second I think. He had a couple of fish on a buzz frog or something like that. I had a fish on a fluke and then we caught a few fish on frog, fluke, worm, brush hog and 1 bream on a crank bait. WooHoo! emoLaugh I lost a couple of keepers and Pointer broke off twice on two nice keepers. Weather co-operated like we liked it and we had a barrel of fun. emoParty , Wish we could have done better but we went to have fun and donate to the lil guy.
Sorry to hear that a few of the folks didn't make it for whatever reason. I know JTF had car trouble but he was able to make the weigh in. A BIG thanks to him for the donation of the rod. Thanks to RR and Cutthroat lures for their donations!
Thanks to Fishin Fool for his donation and to Wal-mart for the gifts that they donated. Thanks to fishin fun ( I think that is right) I hope I haven't overlooked anyone, If I did maybe Ranger Rob will bring them out. Please forgive me if I did. Thanks to all who got to go today and for all the time and effort that was donated. It is a wonderful thing that was accomplished today and my hats off to all the folks that participated whether they were there or not.
Ranger Rob did an excellent job of bringing this together. And as always Flip did a good weigh master job. Congrats to the winner of the tourny. That was a really nice bag of fish!!!

 

[ChooChooSnakeMan]

Well Jmax pretty well said it all concerning our efforts. It was a frustrating day, but still a good day to be out enjoying what the good Lord has blessed us with. I really like fishing with Jim. I think our styles compliment each other and I learn a lot from him. I really think that if we would have had some current during the event hours we would have had a limit. Of course that is just wishful thinking, but I believe the fish were there they were just not overly aggressive due to the lack of current / active baitfish. I was very pleased to be able to participate and help out even in a small way for someone in need. This type of event shows the best of what the CFF is all about. It was great to see everyone this morning and exchange fish tales! I think everyone had a great time, even poor Davo --- who had to have had one of the worst combination of things happen to him that I've heard. Maybe he will share on here his difficulties. Even with all that happened he seemed really glad to have been able to participate. We all need to keep the Joyce family in our prayers as I'm sure there will be difficult days ahead.

Best to All,

 

[Pointer 78]

Like Britt said, the weather really cooperated today for the pattern we fished. Kinda figured there would be a topwater bite for a while. We started in Ware Branch. Fisherpal2K broke the ice by putting our first keeper in the boat on a blue glimmer Fluke. They were hitting the Strike King Ribbit Frog pretty good but no keepers to show for it initially. We ran into Rob and Chris. While we were talking, a good keeper finally sucked down my frog. I waited until I felt the weight before I set the hook. I slammed the rod back and promptly broke off... to the great amusement of my partner. I made up for it 20 minutes later with our second keeper, also on the frog. We ran a bit farther and fished a cinder block wall with Flukes. Just against the wall it's 3 feet deep but it drops into 12 feet quickly. Hooked up with a good one but mistakenly reeled up trying to catch up with it. Never got a good hookset and while Britt was ready with the net, this one came off. We lost another on a breakoff. Caught a small keeper off the wall shortly thereafter. We both caught a few more fish including a monster Bream that gave Britt the fight of his life. With a bit over an hour to go in the tourney, We decided to finish out the day pitching to docks in 5-8 feet of water. We were able to catch our last and biggest keeper of the day on a green pumpkin Baby Brush Hog off a wooden ladder. For those of you who pitch to docks, ALWAYS hit the ladders if they're present. You'll be rewarded. We just couldn't land that last fish to give us a full bag. As Briit wrote, we finished in second place but had our opportunities that we couldn't take advantage of. No shame to lose to dec1 and his lovely wife. He's one of the best that fishes these dang things. Congrats to them. I got a kick out of fishing with fisherpal2k. We'll do it again Britt. Rob poured his heart into this and it was an honor for fisherpal2k and I to fish it. Always great to see Flip, Jmax, ChooChoo, JTF, and of course our moral compass....Rob. Looking forward to the night/day tourney next month.

 

[carolf29]

Guys, although I didnt get to fish..... it was a great blessing to be able to meet some of you guys today and put a "code name" with a face. I have actually thought about telling the old man that tomorrow after church, "I" want to take a cruise out to the river and try our some fishing again for myself. (there is alot to explain in why i quit fishing on the boat with him so we wont even go there" I think you guys today have just fired me up to where i need to be to start going out and slinging a few craw dads and worms myself...... I have always been a night time gal.... that is just when I catch the best bass. One of these days.... I promise I will be a CFF tourney fisher with the rest of ya'. Thanks for sparkin' my fire back up!!!!! The hubby may or may not appreciate it since at times this ole gal has outfished him but then again..... that is when "when gotta move" emoHoppingmad

 

[jason]

We fished a little bit of everything on the bay with a little bit of everything in the tackleboxemoLaugh. Unfortunately, our largest out of thirty or so bass went a smidge over 14". We had a blast fishing the jumps along rip-rap...any idea what those tiny minnows were that the bass were feeding on? After the weigh-in, we went back out until six or so and ended up with another load of slicks. We had a great time and look forward to the next one.

 

[dec1]

It was good to meet everyone and put names with faces. I didn't even think about fishing this one until I told my wife what this T was about on Friday. When she said she was interested in fishing and helping out, I couldn't believe it and got someone to cover for me at work. I caught my best 5 on what is pretty typical for summertime fishing on this part of the lake. Deep ledge 20-25ft with a big jig and worm. I did catch one keeper on a point early in the morning just off the main channel in 15-18ft. Again, I enjoyed it and thanks.

 

[Jmax]

Concrats dec1 on the win, it was a good cuase so everyone in my book is a winner on this one just for fishing it. I was wondering if you had that worm rigged T-rig, C-rig or what????? Thanks for showing it to us, I have never tried that color on the lake. Were they on top of the ledge, side or bottom??? Thanks, JmaxemoScratch

My wife used to go with me but now she says I take it too serius and am is "NO FUN" . Now the truth I also want to know is did she catch any???

 

[Davo]

My brother and I had a great time for most of the day, eventhough we weren't catching tons of fish. We started in a cove chunking topwaters. We caught a few dinks and one keeper. We also had a couple of BIG hits that naturally, did not make it to the boat. We moved up river a bit and fished some grass and again, got some decent strikes and a ton of small spots. I was working a Sammy along a plain clay bank when about a foot from shore someone dropped a cannonball on my lure, rod doubles and I get a decent hookset when a nice 4-5 lber decides he no longer wants any part of the Sammy and throws it back to me, ahhh the good life. Shortly after this my Tx took a slightly sour turn. I pulled up on a hump near the main channel. I reached down to grab my C-rig rod and it gets tangled in another rod which immediately falls into the lake. Not thinking at all, I just dive in after it. As I'm in the air I realize that I am about to have an issue. As soon as I hit the water, my Mustang auto inflating life jacket springs into action. Wow, those things work fast. Apparently my rod didn't sink as fast as I thought it would and was still near the surface. I'm floating there griping about the life jacket when my brother says "Hey, are those your sunglasses?" Duh, they were just sinking past my leg when he saw them. To make a long story even longer, I realized that I had jumped in to save what turned out to be my least expensive and oldest rig, while losing my favorite sunglasses, my REVO H2O's. So, I saved a $60 rod and reel, lost a pair of $270 sunglasses and now have to buy a recharge CO2 cartridge for my life jacket. Well, after this fiasco it was kinda hard to wrap my head around fishing, plus having wet underwear sucks large. After the Tx I got to enjoy lunch at Sweeney's BBQ with DHaun, RR, JTF, Chris and DHaun's son. All are great guys and the I'm proud of the people that fished and contributed to the tourney. We have a very charitable and stand up group of guys here and that's pretty hard to find nowadays.

 

[Fat Albert]

Davo, so sorry to hear of all your excitement during the tx... However, it sure was good to meet you and bro.... and there is nothing quite like being on the water with a bro.... now, I know you must recover from all the calamities you suffered, but you know the life jacket works and the sun glasses don't float and wet underwear is not comfortable..... I HAVE A SPONGBOB ROD AND REEL FOR SALE IF YOU WANT IT.... NEVER OPENED..... Just a thought..emoQuestion emoGeezer

 

[ranman]

Well, I made my usual long run to familiar water and spent most of the morning chasing a school of very crafty 2-3lbers.Everytime they would surface chasing baitfish they would be about a cast-and-a-half away from usemoBangwe fished a creek channel in about 12-15 feet of water with everything you could imagine,but only seemed to hook-up with the crankbaits.My partner did get some action with a carolina rigged bannana/chartruse tube(he fishes some funky stuff sometimes) emoScratch we only caught small fish while being mocked by the bigger school chasing bait around us before I had had enough and decided to move with about an hour left to go.I ran back down the river to a main lake point where I got our only keeper on a buzzbait in about 3 feet of water.I had fun anyway and I'm glad we could help a family going through a tough time,congrats to everybody that fished because I think everybody won with this one!

 

[RangerRob]

I had a great day on the water with Chris. We did, however, determine that our fish were up in Grasshopper Creek watching the wakeboard comp! We elected to stay shallow all day, figuring the cooler temps, clouds, and periodic rain would have a few takers in the shallow stuff. We started in Ware Branch within sight of Pointer and fisherpal, throwing BBs and toads. The closest we came to a bass was when we got the watch the excellent team work of fisherpal (the angler) and Pointer (the netman) put one in the boat. Upon leaving Ware, we went out to hit some main lake docks in hopes of better action in slightly deeper water. I managed a double - though one came off at the boat - on one of Tr19's awesome balsa cranks at the first stop, and then the action ended as quickly as it began. We tried some more docks with jigs, various plastics, CBs, and BBs with no takers - besides a pair of willing and scrappy bream. We were up almost to Possum Creek with 20 minutes left to weigh and the cranking battery was shot! A quick change to a trolling motor battery and we were off.

I can't keep from thinking that yesterday's conditions SHOULD have meant better results for the teams, but it just didn't happen for all of us. To have weather that condusive to good fishing in late July ... I dunno. Fishing and not catching ... right!?

I enjoyed the fellowship (and chillidogs & CBs) with The Godfather, Chris, jtf, and Davo afterwards at Sweeneys. Good times!

Where to begin here ... Though dec1 and his lovely wife spanked us on the water, I think we all know who really won yesterday. It was a true testament to the character of the Characters behind the CFF. Currently, over $1000 has been raised for this trust fund and we've all benefited from it in one way or another. So let me to at least try to give some credit where credit is due:

To Dhaun - thanks from all of us for this tool. Without the CFF, this could've never happened.
To the members of the CFF - you ALL made this happen and your contributions came from the heart.
To jon the fisherman - jtf kicked in a beautiful Emory River custom rod that he built specifically for this event
To cutthroat - Cutthroat Lure Company kicked in some awesome goody bags for our winning team.
To Chattanooga Fish-n-Fun - thanks a million to Lee Haas and Bumble Bee Kid for the Gift Certificate
To Video Park Superstore - this local business is owned by Fishin Fool and he kicked in a Gift Certificate for the event
To Pepsi - cutthroat's employer (a front for Cutthroat Lure Company!!) donated an awesome wheeled travel duffel
To Wal-Mart - Wal-Mart donated a baitcast reel for the raffle
To Freebird - Greg brought over two cases of bottled water for us when he brought his donation over to my house. That cold water came in handy!

I had a blast yesterday. With or without a cause, it's always good to see our members.

RR

 

[jon the fisherman]

I did not get to fish for the car trouble I had at 4 a.m. (sorry to stand you up Flip) But it was great meeting those who I have not met yet and as always great to see those I have had the honor of meeting before. I had a good time talking with Dhaun and son,RR,Davo, and Chris(sorry I did not Remember you, but I won't forget now) over lunch and CB's. Thanks for the compliments from everyone on the rod. I may make a few for some members after I get moved, so if you have any ideas write them down and let me know. I also had the pleasure of meeting Fat Albert and he showed me one of his custom rods, and all I can say is "I have alot to learn" he is one heck of a rod builder and I hope I can learn from him in the future. Thanks to all of you...JTF

 

[dec1]

Jmax, I used Tx rig 3/8oz. weight. Wife had a couple come unbuttoned on C-rig. Don't know what her problem was? Last time we fished a T together she won big fish pot using C-rig. It did swallow the hook though! LOL