Tournament this weekend?

[Phil Lilley]

Jeremy Rasnick is heading to the Current this weekend to fish a small mouth tournament- anyone know about this? Supposed to be a big thing.

[Kicknbass]

What part of the River is the tourney being held?

[Phil Lilley]

He said they would put in at Van Buran?

[Brian Sloss]

Memorial weekend sounds like a real bad time for a fishing tourny near Van Buren. The traffic should be insane there.

[Phil Lilley]

He said there were 50 boats in the tournament last year... I didn't think the Current was that big.

Insane would be putting mild I'd say.

[Kicknbass]

He said they would put in at Van Buran?

Thanks. I'll be on the river upstream a few miles. The current is pretty be in this area. Not too far below Van Buran Big spring flows in to the river. The river is fair size below the spring. The first 8 miles above Van Buran is nuts. Lots of floaters and tubers. If you get above Waymeyer access. It is not too bad. The next major access is Log yard and the outfitters consider this a two day float to Van Buran. Log yard is 10 river miles above Waymeyer but about 50 hwy miles. Not a very good shuttle.

[Kicknbass]

Any news on the tournement results? How many pounds to win? The fishing was good where I was.

[Jeremy Rasnick]

The Current River Tournament was an incredible success as far as fun and the experience. The cost of the tourney was 7am through 5pm $70 per boat and they had 25 boats. It is my assumption that most were locals. We had almost 10 lbs, and that was without a trolling motor for the remainding 7 hours of the tourney. Without a trolling motor on a river is virtually impossible, if we anchored we got hung, if we drifted we couldn't stay were we needed to be. The winners had nearly 19lbs, incredible stringer of 8 river smallies. It was a great learning experience and a chance to meet H.S. Struts spokesman Alex Rutledge which got 5th place and his brother which got 1st place and big bass. Winner had almost 19lbs.

There is another tourney on the 24th.....casey and I will probably give that one a whirl as well. $70 isn't bad for an education

This was a great group of guys who really know their stuff.

Soft plastics were the ticket, green pumkin was our color of choice.

[BrianK]

just curious, how big were the biggest fish in the tourney? There's gotta be some good pics out there. Anyone??

I wonder how well all those smallies hold up under that stress of catch, keep in a live well all day, and release. Just catching em sometimes stresses to the point of needing some reviving.

I presume they are all released but do they all / most survive and are they all returned to the water at the same access? Do they migrate back up or down?

I have only fished one tourney in the past and watched alot of the fish not survive after weigh in.

Just wondering. Would hate to see some old monster die for the tourney.

Brian

[ColdWaterFshr]

I agree completely BrianK. The idea of a smallmouth tournament on the Current makes me ill.