Cross Creek Lake in Avella was host to the 2011 Cabin Fever Tournament, this marked the first tournament that The Bass Hounds will fish this year. Team member Derek Severns partnered up with Jim Lambert to fish this early season buddy tournament. With air and water temperatures still cold you know the fishing will be slow, the question with this tournament each year, is how slow? There were 28 boats signed up for this tournament.
The anglers were greeted with a beautiful morning and a promise of temperatures to be warming up in the afternoon. The water temps started off around 45 degrees but warmed to 50 by the afternoon. The fishing was slow, the guys started off flipping jigs and throwing lipless crank baits. Between 8am and noon, the guys only had one bite which was a swing and a miss, but they kept a mental note of where the bite was. Around 12:30 they made a sort run to a point that has always given up one fish or two during these early tournaments. The point did not disappoint this year either. Derek hooked up with what ended up being the tournament lunker, a 5.3 pound largemouth. That fish really got the blood pumping on this slow day. Both guys knew with just one more fish they would really have a shot of doing well. After an hour or
so of no bites, the team decided to move back up the lake to where they had missed the fish earlier in the day. Jim flipped in the bush and bang, the fish was on, it was the team’s second keeper! This really gave the guys a chance now, but they continued to think, if we could get one more good fish, it could be game over. But that bite never came, they fished hard all the way to the end.
At the weigh in it seemed that not too many boats were bringing in fish. There was rumor of a 6 plus pound fish, which never surfaced, Derek’s 5.3 ended up being the tournament lunker and with Jims fish, the team ended up with 8.05. This was enough for second place, the first place team of Bill and Rob Tarr had two bass for 8.16, so it was close. Only 6 teams weighed fish. Washington County Bassmasters does an excellent job with this tournament and hats off to all of the people that help make this event possible.
This is the first of many events The Bass Hounds team will be fishing this year…this weekend, March 26th, team members Brad Bressler and Derek Severns will be teaming up to fish the Mariners Buddy event back at Cross Creek, and then it is off to Erie for the opening district tournament for the TBF D-6, and then to Washington DC for the TBF Mr. Bass East Event. The Bass Hounds would like to thank all of their 2011 Sponsors, Valvoline Oil, Nervous Waters, Metal Menders, Strauss Automotive, Poor Boy Baits and FishPittsburgh.com without the help of these companies this would not be possible.
