Recent Happenings

The weather was barely cooperative as the Southern Junior Bassmasters decended upon Wheatly Lake in Gilbert Run State Park in Charles County, for the annual SJB Fish Cover and Wood Duck Project. Forty Christmas trees were carefully fitted with cinder blocks and placed on key drops throughout the lake. We also installed a new wood duck box in the shallow end of the lake. Special thanks to Rick, Mike and Danny Rosell, Brian and Michael Nutter, and Jeff and Jesse Colie for organizing the john boats, cinderblocks and wire for the project.

Regulars at the lake have commented about the brush piles. Large fish, up to 8 pounds have been caught off of them in the past. Want to know where they are? A printable map with GPS coordinates will soon be available here.

Club Tournament- November 9, 2008

Nanjemoy Creek

Hey what's up guys, It's Jesse your club reporter. Hope you all have been well and had fun at our most recent and last tournament for the year that took place on Nanjamoy Creek. That's what I'm here to talk about. First off, I would like to send a special thanks to our boat captains who were once again able to pull through for us in providing boats not only for this tournament but for the year. We've had the privaledge to have 4 boat tournaments. Remember, be sure to thank your boat captain each time we go out.

Now on to tournament stuff. For starters,congratulations to William for his win and Brandon with a close 2nd place. Since it's geting into late fall, most fish were found deep (8 feet or deeper). The fish were deep but certainly not slow! The crank bait bite was awsome, especially on the rock banks. Most of our anglers found fish this way. The slow presentation, like a jig or weighted soft plastic, came through for some anglers.

I hope everyone learned something and enjoyed the tournament. Good luck fishing and see you at the annual awards banquet on December 14.

That's all for now!

Club Reporter
Jesse Colie

Charles County Fair

Michael Nutter's Award Winning Duck Decoy

Michael Nutter is a talented young man. Not only is he a fine bass angler, Michael makes his own fishing lures and carves and paints duck decoys. Michael entered the duck decoy pictured above in the Charles County Fair and recieved a champion ribbon. Michael also recieved a reserve champion for his homemade hair jig.

Other members entered projects in the fair. Frank Bohne won a champion ribbon for his bottom fishing project, Carl LaNore recieved a reserve champion ribbon for his project on buzzbaits, William Tomlinson entered a variety of cooking projects for which he recieved several awards, and Johnny Sims won a blue ribbon for his project on spinner baits.

Junior World Qualifier

On August 23, 2008, seven members of the Southern Junior Bassmasters fished the Maryland Junior World Qualifying tournament held at General Smallwood State Park in Charles County Maryland. Two of the SJB Team members fished well enough to earn a spot on the 2009 Maryland Junior State team, and a trip to the 2009 Junior Invitational next summer in Conneticut.

Danny Roselle weighed in a good limit of fish weighing 7.29 pounds. His weight was good enough for a third place spot in the older 15-18 age group. Michael Nutter brought four fish to the scales for a total weight of 8.21. His weight was good enough for third place in the younger 11-14 age group.

It was a beautiful day for bass fishing and everyone had a great time. The Southern Junior Bassmasters would like to thank all of our boat captains who gave up their day to take us fishing, and to the Maryland BASS Federation Nation, especially MBFN Youth Director Jim Kline, 2nd VP Randy Dotson, and the Southern Region Tournament Director Randy Elliot. It was a well run tournament, and we appreciate all you do for the MBFN Youth.

Maryland Junior State Team

On June 25-29, Johnny Sims and I represented our club, and our Dads participated as boat captains in the Federation Nation Junior Invitational in New Jersey on Lake Hopatcong. It was a great, exciting, and fun trip with a lot of learning experiences involved. A couple of things I picked up were the drop shot technique, fast tournament tactics, and how to be a friendly competitor. I would like to thank Maryland B.A.S.S Federation Nation for the all-expense paid trip. .

Johnny and I began to pre-fish on Thursday. The lake is not very big and has a lot of milfoil grass, deep ledges, and a million boat docks. The shore was mostly sea wall or rock. During the pre-fish we were successful in catching fish up to two and three pounds. A lot of fish came on spinner baits in the grass or a weightless Senko. My most favored color throughout the trip was chartreuse and orange.

On tournament day the weather was slightly windy and the boat traffic was fairly thick with a bright sun in the morning and throughout the day. Towards the end of the day, about an hour before weigh-in time, some brief and tiny storms blew in. Unfortunately, one of our states senior anglers and I blanked [no fish brought in]. Johnny and Nick, a senior from Junior Pro-formance, were able to weigh in one fish each. Thankfully, a senior from Boonsboro, Andrew, was able to bring in a five fish limit and win in his age group. In the end, Maryland just didn't have enough to win the tournament and Pennsylvania took the cup. Congratulations to them!

I would like to thank the Bryan Kerchal Memorial Fund and the B.A.S.S organization for helping to put together the tournament as well as the folks from New Jersey. I hope you enjoyed my report and hope to see you at the next tournament.

Jesse Colie

Club Reporter, Southern Junior Bassmasters

Recent SJB Happenings

Potomac River Clean Up

April 4, 2009