Bubba Bassin club returned
to their annual trip to Shirley Reservoir during the Massachusetts Free
Fishing weekend on June 3rd, 2007. This waterbody always has a great
turn-out for a Bubba tournament, as well as other organizations. Shirley
Reservoir is a 354 acre impoundment that borders Shirley and Lunenburg,
MA. It may seem small in acres but it has plenty of shoreline with over 16
coves and sub-coves. This lake does see the pressure with a tournament on
this lake almost every weekend of the tournament season.
With 69 anglers ready to take on the postspawn bass the send-off was
started just after 7:00 AM with the return time of 3:30 in the afternoon.
The forecast was calling for some thunder boomers during the day. The
thunderstorms never came but the hot 85 degree temps and 95% humidity did
wear down a lot of our anglers. The water temp hovered around 74 degrees
and the water surface was layered in pollen which proved almost impossible
to see in the normally semi-clear water. The Bubba Bassin club members
still found a way to weigh in a total of 165 largemouth that totaled
243.35 lbs. All but four fish were release back alive into the lake
(97.58%).
With so much pressure from the many anglers Martin Look found a way to
beat the field by using numerous baits. Martin caught his 4 fish limit
using at least three different baits that weighed in at 9.89 lbs. Martin
caught his limit on Senkos, Carolina Rigged lizards and a DropShot. He
admitted it wasn't fast and furious but he had his limit by 1 PM. He only
had 7 to 8 bites which came mostly in 10 to 12 feet of water. His dad,
Dan, fished in the back of Martin's boat but only came in with 1 fish.
They were both pretty excited about the win and thought it absolutely
necessary to come back the next day for the Team Bubba Open on Shirley.
Unfortunately, for Sunday's tournament they didn't have anything to weigh
in. As they say, "Some days you're the dog and some you're the hydrant".
Congrats to Martin for this win and he will receive a plaque at the end of
the year Bubba Bassin awards banquet/cook-out scheduled for October 20th.
Coming in second place is John Diaco who fished a lot of main lake points.
John was seen covering a lot of water with both the big motor and the
trolling motor. He was on a drive to win this one with some good fish he
had in his live-well by 12 PM. John said he caught over 10 fish but only
half were keepers on either his Jig or Senko. His biggest fish caught on
the Senko weighed in at 4.06 lbs. His total limit of 4 fish hit the scales
at 9.52 lbs to take the second place spot of this tournament.
Gary Croteau brought in a nice 5.17 lb largemouth that he caught on a
Black/Chartreuse Jig under a shoreline overhanging tree. This would come
in as the first Lunker Largemouth of the event. Gary said the bite was
slow for him as well with him catching his limit by 1PM. He fished a lot
of shore line structure and out to about 5' with his jig. His limit of 4
fish landed him into the third place spot of the tournament with 9.17 lbs.
The top 3 places came in with 9 plus pounds to crown their spots. The next
highest weight was 8.33 lbs caught by Tournament Director, Jim Peake. This
put Jim into the First Loser's Pool spot. Jim caught all his fish on a
Junebug Senko in 6 to 7 feet of water including the open water weeds next
to the launch and weigh-in site. Jim had his limit by noon and caught
about 12 fish through out the hot and muggy day. Jim especially felt tired
through-out this day because he just came off an all-nighter with Bruce
Acox and catching about 20 keeper Striper bass. Talk about hardcore and
dedicated fishermen (and they both came back on Sunday).
Since none of the fish that were weighed in were smallmouth due to, "there
ain't none" in Shirley we award the second half of our split lunker to the
2nd biggest lunker largemouth. Taking the second largemouth lunker pool
prize went to yours truly, Rob Frye. The 4.10 lb largemouth was taken off
a Jig in less than 1 feet of water. I was fishing a buzzbait parallel with
the shoreline and came up on a long concrete wall and saw this big fish
still on a bed. I was totally amazed that this fish was still on the bed
and no one saw it at as of 11:00 AM. It took me about 40 minutes into
coaxing this fish into biting my jig. It was quite the challenge to catch
this fish because of the pollen mats that would drift into this corner and
cover the fish and bed completely out of site.
At the Bubba Bassin Club tournament we also gave away some free items by
drawing the boat numbers during the weigh-in. The first prize was a Free
Entry to any 2007 Bubba Bassin Draw trail tournament. The lucky winner was
a non-boater, Dan Vasquez. We want to thank Bill Lentine of NorthEast Prop
Repair for a t-shirt that we gave away to Dan Look. If anyone needs to
have their props done, make sure you contact Bill. He does an excellent
job and he is a big supporter of Bubba Bassin. Also given away were a
couple of buzz baits, thanks to Marc Hamel and we gave away a couple of
Beans Bladebaits. Thanks again to Bob Laverriere, also known as Beans, for
donating a bunch of his productive baits to be given out at our club
events.
We also want to say thanks to Robin at the Shirley Campground for all her
hospitality. She reserves the same weekend every year for us so we can
have this event during the Mass Free Fishing weekend. Great job to the
tournament directors Bob Hurst and Jim Peake for holding a professional
run event. We definitely want to give a big "Thank You" to Dave Tsao who
always volunteers to help run the registration in the AM. Make sure you
check out the Photo's page on our website and see about 60 pictures from
this event with a lot of great pictures taken by Gerry Blanchette. Thanks
for volunteering and being our camera guy Gerry!
Our next stop for the club trail is back in New Hampshire on beautiful
Lake Winnisquam on June 16th. I hear the smallies are in the near-end of
the spawn and on fire right now with gold jerk baits and fast moving
spinnerbaits. We all know this glacier lake holds some quality bronzebacks
and we look forward to seeing you there catching them and bringing them
into the weigh-in.
Quit Wishin, Go Fishing!!!
Rob F.
Martin Look bares the
load on high pressure Shirley Reservoir for the win.