June 2024 Lake Pleasant

June 2024 Lake Pleasant Tournament Summary

Location: Lake Pleasant, Arizona

Date: June 19, 2024

Overview:

The June 2024 Lake Pleasant Tournament was a thrilling event that showcased the skills and perseverance of the participating anglers. Clear skies and warm temperatures created ideal conditions for competitive fishing over the half day event.

Winners:

- 1st Place**: Bryan Colby and Tom Atherton

- Total Bag**: 9.37 lbs

- Big Fish**: 4.13 lbs

- 2nd Place**: Allen Wacker and Eliseo Flores

- Total Bag**: 8.65 lbs

- Big Fish**: 4.01 lbs

- 3rd Place**: Clinton Bell and Jeff Mason

- Total Bag**: 7.96 lbs

- Big Fish**: 2.65 lbs

Key Highlights:

- 1st Place Team (Bryan Colby and Tom Atherton):**

Bryan and Tom started fishing up the river with reaction baits before switching to dropshotting. Their persistence paid off as they caught their first fish around 9 am and continued to hop from spot to spot, ultimately filling their limit. Tom caught two of their better fish, contributing significantly to their victory.

- 2nd Place Team (Allen Wacker and Eliseo Flores):**

Allen and Eliseo started on the east side of Coles Bay to take advantage of extra shade. Allen quickly caught their biggest fish, a 4+ pounder, with a Rio Rico, and they reached their limit within twenty minutes. Despite a slow remainder of the day, they secured their second-place finish with a few minor upgrades.

- 3rd Place Team (Clinton Bell and Jeff Mason):**

Clinton and Jeff had a straightforward day, focusing on dropshotting in 20-30 feet of water on reefs and ledges. They managed to catch three good fish, with the final one being a crucial upgrade that moved them up several spots.

Notable Moments:

- Team Dynamics and Strategies:** The winning teams demonstrated excellent teamwork and adaptability. From prefishing challenges to adjusting strategies on the tournament day, their efforts and coordination were key to their success.

- Effective Techniques:** Dropshotting proved to be the most effective technique across the top teams, with various baits like violet watermelon, salt river craw, morning dawn, and red crawler being successful.

Community and Environmental Efforts:

- Volunteer Support:** The event was supported by volunteers like Floyd, Manny, Steve, John, and Jim, who assisted with various tournament operations, from helping anglers at the ramp to managing the weigh-in process.

- Environmental Stewardship:** Emphasizing catch and release, the tournament aimed to preserve the lake's fish population.

Bryan Colby

First I'd like to thank Floyd, Manny, Steve, John, and Jim for their awesome efforts in putting on and working these tournaments. Sincerely, thank you to all involved.

Normally I'd like to prefish but had just got home from fishing in Canada (which was amazing) and had a poor attitude about fishing in Arizona again. I had expressed this to my friends and they promptly gave me grief for after the tournament.

Tom and I started fishing up river with reaction baits for the first few hours, and when that didn't work, I put all those rods away and pulled out the stinking dropshot. Wasn't long we caught our first fish about 9am on a spot I had a waypoint on, but had seen boats on all morning. So we hopped from spot to spot up river and finished out our limit. Tom was great to fish with and super happy that he caught two of our better fish, I'd fish with him anytime.

Great seeing you all there.

Tom Atherton

First, I’d like to thank Floyd, and Jim for helping people back down the ramp. Second, thanks to our weigh in team for all they do.

I spoke to Bryan on the phone, unfortunately we were not able to pre fish together, so we first met at the lake tournament morning, our plan was to head to the river, which we did, being boat 22 most of the points and flats already had boats on them when we got there. We started throwing different top water baits with no success at all, we threw some glide baits, swim baits, and under-spins. I threw some swivel head jigs, and shakey heads, still with no success.

I think Bryan caught our first fish around 9am on a drop shot, I didn’t catch my first one till about 10am on a MM3 drop shot. we had been fishing up River, and as we worked our way down, we finally started catching them, and were able to cull a few times. I think all of our fish came on the drop shot in 16- 24 feet off main and secondary points on the East side of the river. They bit the violet watermelon, salt river craw, morning dawn,(no chartreuse), and our 2 biggest came on the red crawler!

I had a great time fishing with Bryan, hope to draw him again sometime!

Allen Wacker and Eliseo Flores

Big Fish: 4.01#

Total Bag: 8.65#

Allen Wacker

First I want to thank the weigh in crew for all their hard work. Next I want to congratulate Bryon Colby and Tim Atherton for their win. Great job!

I had the pleasure of fishing with Elisio Flores for this tournament. We fished Friday and Monday and only caught one bass for two days. On Friday we noticed that if we stayed on the east side of Coles Bay we could stay shaded for an extra hour after the sun came up. Our boat number was number 15 so we decided that should be our starting point if we had any hope of top water at all.

On tournament day we headed there and started out. There were no boats around us at all. We both started throwing walking baits. After five casts I decided to switch to a Rio Rico. On the second cast I caught a four plus pound bass. The next cast I caught a 2.5 pound bass. Ten minutes later I caught a 2.25 and we had our limit in twenty minutes. We fished the rest of the day and only caught one more fish that gave us a quarter pound upgrade.

I want to thank Elisio for his expertise and for being a great person to fish with. I hope we can do it again someday.

3rd Place

Clinton Bell and Jeff Mason

Big Fish: 2.65#

Total Bag: 7.96#

Clinton Bell

I wish I had a great story to tell , full exciting fish catching action. Stories of the big one that got away , but thats not the case.

But I did have the pleasure of fishing with a friend of mine that has played this game as long as I have, and Wednesday was the first time we ever shared a boat . Our day was atypical of most of the field. We started with top water soon to realize that wasn't it. I picked up a drop shot and ground the day away. We stayed in 20-30ft on reefs and ledges and were blessed to catch 3 good fish .

Jeff Mason

Congrats to Bryan and Tom on their win! Thanks to the whole MWB crew for once again for a well run tournament from the meeting to

weigh in.

I have not fished many tournaments the last two years so it was great seeing everybody again and catching up with old friends. I was lucky enough to be paired up with an old fishing buddy, Clinton Bell who caught all 3 of our keepers on a drop shot, with the last one being the most important culling a 1 1/2 pounder with a 2+ pounder with about 15 mins left. That fish moved us up about seven spots since the weights were so close.

Third cast of the morning with a DT10 off a point on last turn to go up river. Knocked the hell out of the lure, I’m huffing and puffing, fighting this fish, thinking what a great start! My partner Bryan burst my bubble with the fish half way back to the boat, that’s a catfish!

Thanks Clinton for a great day, and I’m looking forward to Bartlett. We fished Islands in main lake 15-30 ft.

Laron Porter and Steve Tinsley

Big Fish: 2.96#

Total Bag: 7.83#

Steve Tinsley

I was surprised and excited when I got paired up with Laron again after just fishing with him in March on the same lake. I learned a lot the first time and enjoyed the conversations while fishing with Laron.

Laron got us on fish right off the bat and caught our limit within 30-40 minutes. It took me a little while to get my first fish, but ended catching 3 bass that day. Laron boated 7-8 bass and we both lost a nice fish. All of our fish came early in the day and were caught on a drop shot.

Laron is a lot of fun to fish with and has a ton of knowledge. I feel very fortunate to have fished with him twice this year.

5th Place

Manny Madrid and Joe Edgett

Big Fish: 2.66#

Total Bag: 7.68#

Joe Edgett

Congrats to Bryan Colby and Tom Atherton on their 1st place finish. Both your team and the second place team found those 4lb. kickers. Nice job!

Once again I had the great fortune of drawing one of the top anglers/boaters in the club, Manny Madrid. The pleasure and experience of fishing with Manny was very rewarding to me as a new member of the club. Thank you and look forward to fishing with you again.

Manny and I pre-fished Monday and Tuesday before the tournament. Boy, did we cover a lot of water. From the entire Aqua Fria river to every main lake hump and point. After two days our tournament game plan was to go hump jump’n.

Tournament day we started on our first hump where I had caught a good fish in practice. After 1.5 hours we had only one blowup and no fish in the boat. At this point I did something Manny told me is his number one rule in his boat, “if you have something you want to do or say, just say it”. I told Manny there is a shoreline in Goose Bay with submerged trees that had fish in them in the spring tournament. We decided to go try it. After several casts, with a crankbait, Manny had our first 2.5 pounder in the boat. We were now in the game.

The rest of the day we stuck to our original plan of hump jump’n. My go to bait, and the only bait that caught us fish was an Arizona Custom Bait - Morning Dawn dropshot worm. Go figure!

Thanks again Manny and the rest of the staff/crew for another safe and great tournament.

6th Place

Ron Pikul and Mitch Vitkovich

Big Fish: 2.89#

Total Bag: 7.33#

Mitch Vitkovich

Big thanks to my partner Ron Pikul in this tournament. Ron pre-fished for us the Monday before the tournament. He let me know he found some fish, but they were DEEEEEEEP.

We started on the westside of main lake in about forty feet of water. Ron was drop shotting and I was free rigging. We caught 7 fish for the day and most were caught by Ron on a seven-inch Red Crawler Robo Worm. I think I showed Ron I can net with the best of them.

We moved around a little and found a spot over in Navajo cove that held a couple bigger fish that Ron was able to get in the boat. Again, these fish were caught in forty to fifty feet of water. Hit the dam on the way in and caught one there but no help.

Congrats to the winners and a big shout out to Allen Wacker. Also, a big thanks to all the guys taking care of the weigh in. See you all at Bartlett.

Doug Moore

I had the good fortune to draw Nick Teschler as my boater. Great guy and great fisherman. And, turns out he went to high school with my daughter. Man, do I feel old…!

We did not get a chance to pre-fish and Nick had not been to Pleasant for a while so we hit some spots he knew - main lake humps and points. We had a limit by 6:00 (well, Nick did) and we upgraded a handful of times throughout the morning. We moved around quite a bit and caught 12 or so total, all on drop shot in 20-30 feet of water. Another great tournament - congrats to the winners!

Kevin Smith

I'm not real familiar with Lake Pleasant so I felt the need to get out multiple times before tournament day trying to find spots and determine the best way to catch them. Going into tournament day I had determined that dropshot was going to be my best method of catching fish. So that's what both Bob and I did all day.

But the bite was a bit tougher for us on tournament day as we only got 3 decent bites. We were targeting main lake points and cuts on steeper banks. Our general target depth was 15 to 25 feet and most of the time I targeted where the water goes from light to dark. I had experimented in prefishing with different methods and colors and determined that slow and brown seemed to work best. We threw dropshots all day using 6" Oxblood, straight tail roboworms. I caught two of our fish in the first 15 minutes and didn't get a keeper bite for the rest of the day. I hooked Bob up with a rod reel combo that would work well with dropshot and he caught our best fish (3.04 lber) at around 8:30 AM.

Bob and I worked well as a team and had fun. Bob is a good dude. He stayed positive the whole day and did a great job reeling in his 3 lber. Congrats to the winners!!

May 2024 Lake Alamo