Youth Championship is a Winner!

[BassinColorado]

Pueblo Reservoir was the place for the Colorado FLW/TBF Youth State Championship for 2009. As every tournament of late, 70 to 80 degree weather was replaced by 45 highs and the water dropping! Once again, Mother Nature tested FLW/TBF competitors spirit and choice of clothing!

Connor Santos, Colorado Bass Anglers member, competed in the 15-18 age group and was disappointed with his overall performance, although he had a couple of chances to run away with it. A lost Smallie, guesstimated to be about 18-19 inches by the boater, "tore off" an added treble hook, that his stepdad, Joe Conway, had put on a special bait for him.

Joe, feeling pretty small and guilty for about 2 minutes, found out the rest of the story and heard from the boater that Connor had tried to hurry the big fish, tried to jerk the fish into the boat and had it tear-off the hook and hit the outside edge of the net, as the net was just entering into the water. Oops!!!! One tough lesson to learn when fishing a tournament of that magnitude! WAIT FOR THE NET, Boy!      

Sorry, Connor, but most of us have been there before--Once, twice or maybe more! Lesson learned the hard way!

He did weigh one fish and missed a couple others in the late hours of the tournament, but ran out of time to run down the leader. 

Good Job, Connor!  Love Ya, Man!

I also had the pleasure of fishing with a newcomer to bass competitions, Cooper Gunther (11-14 age group) from the Denver area, and last years state champion qualifier, Adam Burkhart (15-18 age group), also of the Denver area! After floating in the middle of the lake for about 15 minutes, and answering some questions from these little guys on how any type of fish live year round, Cooper and Adam worked together, looked at their map, and came up with their own plan.

Adam, being kind of the experienced leader, coaxed Cooper into going "flipping" back up a creek arm that they didn't know the name of, but showed me where it was on their map. I took them to where they pointed and showed them how to find the same area on my electronic graph map. All and all, a very educational 25 minutes or so.

After arriving at the new area, Cooper told me he had a snag, again, his second in ten minutes. Not knowing how to "Flip" very well, Cooper was dragging his Dad's suggested bait, down the channel behind the boat, while Adam was "flipping" the banks. Uh Oh! Cooper's second snag was actually moving! Shortly after that discovery, Cooper was learning how to hold a fat, keeper, 3.72 pound, female Largemouth. Adam did catch a good keeper also, but it wasn't enough for him to win his slot. Turns out that Cooper's fish would be "Big Fish of the Day" and Cooper would win the slot to go to Pennsylvania to compete as the Colorado TBF/FLW 11-14 age Representative in late July!

Way to go Adam and Cooper!

 

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