Team Peake & Jean blowout the rest of the field on Shirley.

The third Team Bubba Open occurred on June 4th on Shirley Reservoir the day after the club trail held their event. On this day Mother Nature showed us how she could change the New England weather with the snap of her fingers. On Saturday during the club trail the weather was in the low 90's and hot and muggy, zapping the energy out of many of our anglers. On Sunday, the weather changed to breezy and colder temps around the high 50's. Would this affect the bite, one would assume so but of course, someone always finds those fish for the weigh-in.

The night before the Team Bubba Open Chris Jean practically had to beg his partner into fishing the event. Jim Peake was very hesitant about fishing the tournament because of many reasons. Jim had just pulled an all-night fishing for Stripers on Friday night and then drove directly to the club tournament without any sleep. Jim was also worried about catching fish on the pressured Shirley reservoir with such a large field the day before. Fortunately for Chris and Jim, they chose to fish the Team tournament and what do you know, they found themselves in first place at the end of the day. They started throwing Junebug Senkos in a cove at their start spot and were able to muster up 3 good fish. They continued throwing senkos and even experimented with other baits but it was the mighty Senko that found their limit by noon. Their limit of 8 fish blew out the rest of the field weighing in at 15.48 lbs. Congrats to Chris and Jim for their first Team tournament win together.

Coming in second with a 3+ pound deficit was the Team of Woodman and Watson. John Woodman (one of our Team Bubba Tournament Directors) and Dennis Watson threw a lot of Spider grubs which is one of their favorite baits. They fished a lot of shoreline and out to 5 feet of water catching their limit of eight fish that tipped the scales at 12.15 lbs. This would definitely help boost their Federation club points being members of the Lakes Region Bass club, one of the Federation child clubs in Bubba Bassin. Lakes Region members use the Team Bubba Opens for their point standings to qualify themselves as boaters or non-boaters to the New Hampshire Bass Federation State Team Qualifying Tournament. Congrats again to John and Dennis for their second place spot on Shirley.

The top 3 teams of any Team Bubba Open automatically qualify for the end of the year Team Bubba Tournament of Champions. Taking up the last qualifying spot for taking third place was the team of Harvey and Zyla. Bob Harvey and Gary Zyla came in with 8 fish but needed a courtesy check on one of their fish but unfortunately did not reach the 12" mark on the Golden Rule. So with their 7 fish they still managed more than enough weight to take 3rd place with 10.44 lbs. They caught all their fish on one particular old wooden crank bait. Gary proceeded to continue catching their fish on a shallow diving crank bait which was the only one that produced for them and the only one of its like. After they caught their limit they unfortunately lost the lucky bait to a pickerel and that ended up being the last bite of the day for them.

Coming in the last money spot was the team of Bill Lentine and Ed Rivera. We also want to mention and thank Bill who is a supporter of Bubba Bassin with his company, NorthEast Prop Repair. If you want to have your prop done, Bill is the Man and he is always willing to give the Bubbas a break. Bill and Ed caught only 8 fish but it was sufficient enough to weigh-in at 9.89 pounds which took that fourth spot of the day.

Team Frye and Acox continued their flurry on Shirley by taking the First Loser's Pool. The FLP is a pool that everyone enters during registration in the AM. The winner(s) of the FLP are the first one(s) out of the money, hence the "First Loser". It sometimes pays to be a Loser, especially when the pay-out for the FLP pays more than the others who cashed a pay-out spot check. Its also makes the weigh-in more suspenseful waiting to see who cashed a pay-out check and who slipped into the FLP spot. Rob Frye and Bruce Acox fished all day for only 8 bites. Their last fish came at 2:15 PM, 45 minutes prior to the weigh-in. The only bait to produce their bites was the Junebug Senko as well. Fortunately, for Team Frye & Acox, they are still holding first place in the Team Bubba standings but closing in are Peake/Jean and Phaneuf/Weinhold who are only 63 points behind at the furthest gap.

Just like the previous day's tournament we awarded two Lunker Largmouth awards since there are no smallmouth bass to cover the split lunker award. The first lunker went to Team Lentine Jr and Shibles. They had the biggest fish of the tournament that was just under five pounds tipping the scale at 4.86 lbs. Nice fish guys, way to go! Taking the second lunker of the event was the Team of Babin and Walker who weighed in a 4.86 lb fatty. Fortunately for them, Bubba Bassin has a rule, "Lunkers Must Be Alive". This is a rule that has been long standing with Bubba Bassin since its start in 1996 to show how pro-active we are with wanting and keeping our catch alive. Unfortunately, for Team McNamara & McNamara they had hooked into another big 4.86 lb largie that did not make the trip back to the weigh-in scales alive. This was due to a deep hook when the fish swallowed the bait. Tough break Mikey, we know you did your best to keep it alive and we appreciate you trying, again, tough break, it happens to the best of us.

Congrats again to our winners at Shirley during the weekend of Free Fishing in Massachusetts, (granted by the time its all over, its far from free with the money we spend on Gas, Entry fee, etc). Our next Team Bubba Open tournament brings us to Lake Winnisquam on Father's Day for June 17th. We look forward to seeing all of the Dad's out there to join us on one of New Hampshire's premiere smallmouth lakes. We'll see you then, and as our motto states, "Quit Wishin, Go Fishing!!"