Alice Bass Club tourney successful despite summer heat

Alice Bass Club's 16 anglers from Alice and the surrounding area called Falcon home for the purposes of this weekend's club tournament. The lake level has been dropping slowly from a level of 289.48 feet to 280.18 feet. Temperature of the water was in the mid-to-upper 80s.

Water clarity was fair-to-good unless you were fishing up the river, where an algae-stained water condition was affecting the bite and a number of dead fish were noted all the way to the Marker 8 area and beyond. Most of the fish were tilapia but a few other rough fish were mixed in as well. Some small bass and catfish were noted to be dead or dying. I doubt that this kill has been checked out by biologists and usually, when we see and/or report dying fish this time of year, it ends up having to do with oxygen content of the water. This is especially true as water from Amistad reaches Falcon full of silt and low in oxygen. At the very least it is a stinking mess. I spoke with Game Warden Marshal Davidson on Sunday and the kill seems to extend all the way to the lower end.

At this level, launching at the Zapata County Ramp is working fine, and the shoreline adjacent to the ramp and out to the end of the point has just the right slope and is very usable for beaching of boats. There is an abundance of parking as well. There is still a lot of litter, dead fish, and trash so watch where you walk because our esteemed County officials, who now have ordinance-making authority, continue to ignore the litter problem around the lake and on the roadside of highways and subdivisions in Zapata County. We have ascended to the distinction of being the litter capital of Texas .

Because of the summer heat, the Bass Club decided to weigh in once at noon and then have a second weigh-in at six pm Saturday. This gave the fish a much better chance of surviving the heat. John Adami took the first weigh-in heavy stringer honors with 13.27 lbs. for three fish. The big bass was caught by Rodney Jackson and weighed just north of 7 lbs. Jamie Peña and his dad had a couple of fish weighing 5.95 lbs., which was pretty typical. The big concentrations of good-sized fish did not show up on Saturday and most of the real aggressive fish were small 3 lbs. and under. The fish were found primarily in 12-14 feet of water in hardwoods and off brushy main lake points. Watermelon red magnum lizards produced Saturday's winning stringer for Rocky Portell, weighing 14.17 lbs. and whipping a small hurt on the morning leader's 13.27 lb. stringer. Sunday was another day about like Saturday as far as temperatures and results.

Pat Ball and his partner Brandon teamed up for 23.72 lbs., and Brandon 's second heavy stringer of 13.64 lbs. was anchored by the 4.43 lb. Sunday big bass. If we took the numbers down correctly, Day one winner Rocky Portello out-ounced the Ball boat with 23.76 lbs. Israel García had Sunday's winning heavy stringer of 14.12 lbs., just a few fish scales less than Rocky's winning Saturday heavy stringer.

During the last two days, we sold a number of the new YUM Wooly Hawg Craws and Ugly Otters by Gambler to club anglers and these baits worked great and produced a lot of fish. In fact, a number of big fish break-offs were reported. The Ugly Otters and Yum Wooly Hawg Craws are similar in design and function to the popular plastic Sweet Beavers, but better because you can actually order and receive them. We have had an order in for Sweet Beavers since April 28 and so far we have been unable to secure even a ship date. We found and purchased these two lookalike baits by Gambler and YUM only because of the inability to score the Sweet Beavers.

Have a great day on the water and always practice catch and release.

(Larry E. Bridgeman is the owner of Falcon Lake Tackle in Zapata , TX . Visit the Falcon Lake Tackle website at www.tackleandrods.com.)