Report by, Jayson Quimby
On Saturday morning, July 24th, ten FIB’ers competed in the Newport Bay Bass Team Tournament #2. The format is simple: grab a fishing buddy to be your teammate, stay in the harbor, you can make your first cast at 5:30 AM, catch your three heaviest bass with artificial lures, and take them to the weigh in ALIVE by noon. When I loaded up the boat and noticed stars shining down on me at 4 AM, I was worried that it was going to be a bright and shiny small fish day, but I guess I was wrong! It turned out to be a relatively overcast day until 10AM, and 15 beautiful Spotted Bay Bass were weighed in on the Department of Fish and Game Back Bay Science Center docks. Competing in the event this year were Floyd Spangler and Dave Shill, Jayson Quimby and Ron Withers, Jim and Jeannie Kiech, Tom and Valerie Handzus, Jerry and Eric Bent. Most of the teams are pretty hush-hush about techniques, lures, and fishing spots, but the following are some observations I made and gathered from my fellow anglers:
1. There was about 4 feet of incoming water movement that day which caused a 5 degree drop in the water temperature in the areas closer to the harbor mouth. I watched the water where we began fishing fall from 68 degrees to 63 degrees in the first few hours of fishing.
2. They are still dredging areas of the bay, and the silt runoff makes the waterways a unique kind of off-colored emerald green.
3. No Sand Bass or Calico Bass were brought to the scales by our teams, but Dave Shill caught and released one short Whiteseabass.
4. They are in the process of replacing the sheriff’s station, Coast Guard, and guest docks at the south end of the harbor.
5. There were a lot of rental boats out fishing the bay catching a wide variety of fish from short Barracuda to Spot Fin Croaker.
6. If a Sheriff approaches you, you need to treat them with utmost respect, or you will be getting a citation – we observed some folks on wave runners make this mistake, and they ended up with citations.
7. The bigger Spotted Bay Bass were caught close to the top of the incoming tide.
The weigh in went really smoothly as each team weighed in a 3-Bass limit of good-looking Spotted Bay Bass.
