TAzGa, Chick - Ratman's tourney, Bass, 05/15/2006, Kaizer0306

[FishNews]

We fished the Rainman's tourney Friday evening. We swam with our boat out to the cover of the bridge at WT with all of the other anglers and awaited the blast off emoRain <br />I think it was supposed to have been a single file start, but with the rain and confusion, apparently everyone was just turned loose to get going... lol ... I dunno, I couldn't hear a thing and just sat back waiting on everyone to get out of the way then moved up to the river side of the bridges.... man, it was raining.... I didn't want to go when they called my number anyway emoRolleyes <br />We ventured out, with vinyl raincoat on and headed upstream some, trying to stay out of the rain. We fished in a cove and caught several fish on carolina rigs, and spinner baits in a cove at around 5 ft... nothing big. Saw the rainbow over WT and the dark clouds behind it and was thankful I was west of that creek emoSmile <br />Headed on out as the rain slowed and hit another flat with some current... picked up a keeper soon on plastic (2.11 LB) ... caught a few shorts, and then hooked a decent fish (3.5LB) on a crank bait... removing the hooks on this fish made it bleed like I've never seen one bleed emoEek ... the whole left side was covered in blood... decide it wouldn't survive the stress of staying in the livewell, so we turned it loose, hoping it will fare well on it's own. Fished there some more with spinner baits, plastics, and cranks... caught a few small ones, including a short smallie emoSmile . Hooked a good fish, ripping drag and pulling away... I turned it, and he got all arobatic on me emoCrazy jumped a couple of times and sent my lure back to me emoBang emoBang Looked like it was a good 5 LB fish.... as it became dark we moved closer to WT (in case we caught something to weigh..lol) and caught a few shorts, and lost a good keeper on rattle trap that looked around 2.5 to 3 when it decided to let go of the hooks. We decided to just turn the 1 we had in the well loose, load the boat and hit the road. <br />We put in over at HBSP for the tourney.... I with they would consider moving the tourney over to HBSP... with 42 boats at the WT ramp, along with any other casual boaters... it's extremely crowded over there... just my 2 cents <br />This is the 3rd or 4th tourney I've fished that they run, and it's really run well ... the work those folks are putting into it is really appreciated... great bunch of guys emoTongue