Good Tourney finish

[DerekG]

We got 2nd in The JC outdoors Open Jackpot tourney on lake fork sat. first time ive gotten paid in the bird..
Cold water temps really been keeping the bite slow at lake Fork, but its a good time to catch some Toads!! going into a good warming trend decided to pre-fish and hit a tournament last sat.
Prefishing was tough for the most part until mid-day the bite cranked up and i caught some quality slot fish, but the keepers under 16" over 24" eluded me..
Sat was our warmest day in forever topping out at 70
We finally got on a good keeper bite and put 3 in the boat off one point, that slowed and went searching and duplicate that pattern.. could only find more slot fish though.
We returned to our hotspot with an hour left in the tourney, and found a group of fish with 20 minutes to go. I caught our 4th keeper of a secondary point, a couple minutes later stuck 2 4 pounders out of a bush. the sec ond fish wrapped me up and i wrestled it in the boat.. without re tying 10 minutes left i set the hook again and a good 15" keeper flashed beside the boat and SNAP!! broke me off
I quickly re- tie throw right back in there and catch another slot fish but time has run out...
We head to weigh in
Only one limit weighed and is less than 1 pound over us... lost out to first because i was in too much of a hurry to re-tie, lesson learned but i had that school fired up and its hard to stop.. but we were happy with the outcome

Any way here is a couple bass i caught prefishing

[Chuck D]

Good work Derek and congrats! You boys sure grow em right down there in TX. One day I'm going to get me some of those mean arse TX large mouths and really get my string stretched!

Always wanted to see Fork, Falcon, Amistad, and Choke! Maybe one year I'll do a TX vacation road trip and hit 2 at a time over the course of a couple of weeks then try for the others another year.

Best fisheries management in the USA bar none.

[DerekG]

We had probably 15 or so this size on tournament Day! no time for pics though, not only that they were hammering a black/ blue jig which is my favorite..
I cant wait for spring, were about to get hammered with another cold front that will shut em down again for a couple weeks, plus we need rain.. Fork is flat dangerous right now.. Stumps are showing up in the boat lanes just feet from where im usually full tilt boogie

[Phnx#22]

Awesome job and great looking photos...#2 is a bona fide pig.

There is nothing better than a good jig bite.

[EdDavisKY]

Time for some of these after a job well done
You got bass slim on your carpet now, dam wish I had that problem