The sun rose over Long Beach on May 25 and 9 FIB’er teams were in the hunt for big bass and halibut. Our events allow teams to drive to the spot they want to start their day at before the beginning of the tournament with a “lines in” time of 5AM. Some teams started in the harbor in search of Spotted Bay Bass, and others chose to start on the Federal Breakwater or on one of their favorite rock piles out at Izor’s Reef in hopes that they wouldn’t need that fourth fish in their limit because of the brutes they intended to catch before the first rays of light danced upon the water and shut the bite off. In this tournament, you could weigh four fish in your limit only if you had a Spotted Bay Bass in there. Four teams brought a Spottie to the scales and three of those teams placed Frist, Second, and Third, so having that Spottie in there proved to be the key to one of the top spots. With the help of Brant McGlothlin, we were able to move the weigh in to the Long Dock at the Long Beach Yacht Club, and man, what a nice upgrade that was compared to using the “public dock” in front of Khoury’s Restaurant!! Thankfully, all the teams made it to the weigh in on time, but unfortunately, one team member was in the hospital having a hook removed. {At 4:45, on the way to our first spot in the inner Long Beach Harbor, Neil Richie accidentally buried a treble hook into his calf. We tried to remove it, but it was buried, and we decided it was best that a professional remove it with the added benefit of anesthesia and sterile tools. We dropped him off at the dock around 10, but he didn’t leave the hospital until after 7PM}
Nearly all the teams weighed a decent limit, but one team really hit a grand slam. On their first spot of the morning they landed a nearly 3 pound Spotted Bay Bass, and book ended it with a nearly 8 pound Calico Bass for the win! Congratulations to Andrew and Art Gomez: their 4-fish limit weighed an impressive 13.52 pounds! Not only did they win the tournament, but their big Calico won them the Megabass sidepot!Holding down second place, for the second time this year was Jayson Quimby, Dave Belden, and Neil Richie: Our 4-fish limit weighed 11.66 pounds. When we dropped off Neil, we had a decent 4-fish limit in the livewell, but we knew we would need more to be competitive with this crowd, so we made he decision to go back to the inner harbor, and we were able to cull out our Spottie with a bigger one and cull out two of our Calicos with larger Sandbass.
Coming in a very close third were Jerry and Eric Bent: their 4-fish limit weighed 13.53 Pounds. Eric said he caught his Spottie on some ripwrap outside the harbor, and on a 7 inch swimbait…WOW, that doesn’t happen everyday.Congrats!!
No shortage of smiles were had by all as each team weighed their fish.
Maynard, John and Ed with a nice bag that earned them 4th place: 9.88 pounds.

Rounding out 5th place were Jim and Rich with a nice limit: 8.64 Pounds.
Jim also won the Halibut sidepot with this nice 9.28 pounder! Taking CPR to whole new heights, Dave Shill made all of us laugh trying to resuscitate a nice Calico that died on him. We are so thankful that God blessed us with another great day of fishing and catching! Our final tournament of the year will be on June 28 with the same boundaries, but a different format – CALICOS ONLY – We hope to see you there!

____________________________________________________________________________________