Mike Vining wins the Midweek Season Opener on Lake Winnipesaukee

Mike Vining wins the Midweek Season Opener on Lake Winnipesaukee

Story by Mike McNamara

It was our first Midweek for Bubba Bassin and New Hampshire Bass Casters (www.castyourdreams.com) of 2009. We had a chilly start but it was a great day overall.

Happy New Year. And with that Mike Vining picks up just where he left off last year winning on Winni. Well the morning was cool compared to the day’s past to say the least. Our long time friend Gerry Blanchette showed up just in time to draw our winner Mike and Gerry got to see it all. Mike talks to catching his limit by 11 and on spinner baits. Made a hard decision to trade in his spinner bait to go to a jerk bait. Working that jerk bait for the rest of the day looking for that kicker fish. He actually found two kicker fish and guess what they weren’t green fish, they were smallies. One at 4.87, yes our lunker smallmouth, and one just under that 4 pound. Wild day. The jerk bait paid off and who would have guessed that smalleis would have won this tournament. I think I said this already, these big smallies are hard to come by and I know from seeing Gerry smile at the scale he was wowed. Congrats Mike. Well done. It was good to see you

Coming in second Joe Perez throwing a Steve Graham perfect jig. Joe had his limit by 10:30am and culled four times starting at 11 am. Joe was damn good today and his smile showed it all. Mr. Perez also got our lunker largemouth just beating out our Greg Day by 2 tenths. J Damn that must have hurt! XOXOX Luv ya Thanks Joe for the coffee and the smile. Well done.

Third place went to Peter Weeks. Peter had his limit by 8 am and culled four times including tossing a 3.60 largemouth. Can you believe that? But that is the kind of smallies he was packing. Peter just missed out on lunker smallmouth with 4.64 and believe this it was caught on a superfluke. Wow what a day!!

Coming in fourth and taking our last pay out spot, Steve Lucarelli. Steve caught most of his fish by 8:30am culling 8.5 pound smallies. He had a decision to make and it was to go green. He went to a couple of nice spots throwing a wiggle wart. So as he all know ribbing is good stuff so at the scales we had Steve and a couple others, like John Wright weighing in kinda early, and Steve bumping John out of first place and all you hear in the background was “Steve you didn’t need to do me like that.” But that’s OK, its all in fun. Everybody had great smiles. It was good to see everyone, but at the end of business we all know being the first loser pays. So John Wright, yes he is our first loser with a sweet bag of smallies. Caught most of his fish on spinner baits.

And not to forget our giveaways – the free entry for any midweek for 2009 goes to Joe Perez. The Grizz Baits went to Steve Graham and the gift certificates for Purely Woods went to Gerry Blanchette ($50), Joe Andrews ($25) and Greg Day ($25).

See you all in June.

Quit Wishin, Go Fishing!!!