TENKILLER TOURNAMENT 5-7-16

2016 Lake Tenkiller Crappie.com tournament details/sponsors



When: May 7

Sign up: Big Reds Cafe 5:30-6:30 (They have a fantastic breakfast buffet)

Tournament Hours: 7:00-3:00

Weigh-in: 4:00 @ Big Reds Cafe

Membership fee: $20

Tournament fee: $60 per boat(that includes $10 big fish pot)

* This tournament will be open to any techniques with in the rules. You may use 4 rods per man 2 baits per line.

* Also there is a state law on Tenkiller that all fish kept must be 10 inches in length.

Tournament Sponsors:

Todd Huckabee Rods: Big fish caught on a Huckabee rod gets there choice of a Huckabee rod.

Die Tech: $200 in the tournament pot.

Bonehead Tackle: $100 Gift certificate to the 1st place team.

Mikes Custom Baits: $50 Gift Certificate 1st place big fish

Timmy Tom Weedless jigheads: $60 Gift Certificate to the team a place out of the money.

It was great to see everyone at the tournament! Congratulations to Doug and Brian, Jeff and Jonny, Redge and ?, and the two other teams in the top 5 that I didn't get to meet. After pre fishing for a few hours on two different days, I was convinced 6-6.5 lbs would win it. I was wrong. I don't have a picture of the board, but the top 5 teams had some phenomenal weights for the conditions. I had a blast getting to fish with Chris Buck, and got to hang out with Darrell and Sheryl on a new lake. Sometimes you learn more when you struggle than when it comes easy, and I learned a lot.

I would like to thank Brian and Doug for putting on this tournament and Crappie.com. Congratulations to Brian and Doug for their 1st win and Big fish. Any fish over 2 lbs is a pretty good anywhere you fish. I would also like to thank all the sponsors for their generous donations to the Crappie.com Oklahoma tournament circuit. It was a real pleasure to see some old faces and to meet and see some new ones. I know I haven't fished any tournaments since the very first year they put them on, but I may be able to fish a few more this year. Great tournament and great people to be around.

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Some good weights for how tuff it was Thursday/Friday when I was trying to catch a few fish. Had boat problems so I went back home Saturday morning to get a few Mother's Day points to be used at a later date.

I was like Jamie, I didn't think anyone would break 9lbs. Good job Brian/Doug

Well, going in I knew it would be tuff for Nip and me. I have no days just prior to any gig, let alone on a lake as beautiful as Killer. I had gone down the weekend before and never took my eyes off the screen (never wet a hook, just looked). Thanks to Jeff and Johnnie for slowing down enough to get our attention. They led us up the river quite a ways and then Jeff mooned us and claimed we were on our own! LOL. Had a great day with a great group of people. Thanks and congrats to Brian and Doug, they earned it! 6 more pounds is all we needed to stick this one! And thanks Nip for the stitches!

I was just setting the hook on anything that moved!

Anyone get a pic of the jet black crappie Johnny caught?

Congrats Brian and Doug and the other winners! The lake sure humbled me and dad, but it sure was good to see everybody again.

Congrats to Brian/Doug!! Sure enjoyed seeing everyone. I am surprised there weren't more fish over 2# caught.
One note about this being a great group of people. We had motor issues late Friday afternoon, was offered a boat and Jeff and Jobnny were ready to come wrench on it!! Thankfully C & R marine got me all fixed up in about 15 minutes.

What a great group of people we have!!

Thanks to the Sponsors, and Big Reds for opening early for us.

I have to "second" Redge's comments about great group of people. I also had problems up on the river Friday, my prop hub gave up could only go bout 4mph without it slipping. Ran into Jeff & Johnny they offered to pull me in but I told them I thought I could make it back to Elk. They said call us if you need help. Great guys!

Congrats to all participants and job well done to those that was able to put a limit in the boat......I had to go hit the big "E" yesterday just to get the bad taste out of my mouth, regardless of the whippin' Killer put on pop's and I it's always enjoyable to be able to fish another tourney....Thanks to all that make it possible....Until next time God Bless and "fish on"........

Congrats to Doug and Brian and others....always fun to fish a tournament but we had a rough day, just couldn't find bigger fish....you guys are right there are always people on this board and on the water willing to help others out, thats what makes this group special.....appreciate you all and have a great week

Andy

Doug and I had a blast catching fish now it didn't really start getting good for us until around 11:00. Even pre-fishing on Thursday was lots of small fish only 2 tournament fish. On Thursday Doug taught me something, for the last few years he had always told how many crappie they caught fishing from the bank on roadrunners. Well about half way through the day Doug picked up a roadrunner and started throwing it he caught 5 in a row, 5 cast, 5 fish. So I tie one on and I didn't catch one for an hour and Doug is jerking his arms off so I stopped and watched him just to see and learn from him. I finally figured it out I had been fishing it wrong. When you cast and drag you hold your rod tip at a 45 degree angle so you can drag the jig over the limbs real slow, but when you throw a roadrunner you count down to 8,10,12,etc then real it only fast enough to turn the blade keeping your rod down so the bait will touch the limbs. In that clear water those fish will come out of the pile and nail it. Doug and I also figured out that in the predicted forecast for 25 mph winds we could fish the roadrunner when we couldn't cast and drag. Now we only found 2 banks with tournament fish on them but both were 4-5ft visibility with brush or trees in 15-20ft where the wood came up to 10-12ft under the water.

Now I would like to thank all of our sponsors for this tournament and all the guys who fish it, we have a great group of guys willing to help in any way possible. We all share the same passion of crappie fishing. I am truly blessed to have met some of my now closest friends because of crappie.com and this tournament trail. My last thank you goes to a man that had helped me when I started guiding 16 years ago. He also was one of our first and biggest sponsors of our trail. Larry Russel at Crappie Pro. God rest his soul. Love you Larry.

Now I have bunch of pictures from the weigh in I will get them posted ASAP! EB

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Great work Brian and Doug! It was a very tough day for us. We had only three keepers by the end of fishing time. We decided to just let them go, and go grab a bite to eat at Skeeter's Pizza in Keys (great Pizza!). Looking forward to Gibson next!

This is how we were able to catch our fish. As Brian mentioned we were casting and dragging piles. I had about 50 different piles we were targeting. More like a run and gun. Make about 5 cast apiece and then move on unless we caught fish there. We had been catching bigger fish until about a week before the tournament then it was like the short fish took over. Made a decision the day before fishing that we were going to my go to bait and fish it casting and dragging. Then we would move in once we thought we had all active fish caught and finesse with a smaller bait deep into the piles. We only stayed on a pile no more than 10 minutes. Well casting was the ticket. Caught very few from deep within the piles.

As Brian mentioned Doug had told him how they caught fish back in the day with roadrunners. Well I am surprised Brian didn't pick up on my technique that I had shown him about 4 years ago. We too used roadrunners for cast and drag over and in the piles. We were fishing piles in 10-25 FOW with the tops coming as high as 5' from the surface. Make a cast let it fall for about a 4-6 count then start reeling back slowly. You would feel your line start to get tight and that meant you were getting ready to come over a limb. Once we would come over the limb we would stop reeling and let it fall for about a 2 count and they were hitting it then most of the time. We were also catching them just over the top of the deeper and shorter piles. We fished pretty much mid-lake area not going any further up the lake than Chicken Creek. Our biggest fish (1.88 lbs) came on a pile in 15 FOW about 8' deep.

Just a little something to think about when fishing a clear lake, don't be afraid of fishing a big bait. I showed Brian 4 years ago the bait I use on TK and he kind of laughed at me. I think it was more like that baits to big for clear water you don't use those except for muddy water. Well here are the pictures of our baits we used. Notice roadrunners are 3.5" baits which is what most all the fish came from. Smaller baits were the finesse choice. I guess we are all still learning some on how everyone fishes and what works best. The pumpkin/chartreuse triple ripple is my go to bait during the spring I use it on TK, Broken Bow, Eufalua.

Don't know what I'm going to do once I run out of my wasshoppers that Mr. Russell made. I use them for the winter bite on TK.

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Are these the wasshoppa's you speak of???

Hook Set Tackle :: Hook Set Tackle :: Crappie Pro 2" Li'l Wasshoppah

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Originally Posted by DrNip

Are these the wasshoppa's you speak of???

Hook Set Tackle :: Hook Set Tackle :: Crappie Pro 2" Li'l Wasshoppah

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That be them Travis. Thanks for the link. Got a feeling the wife is fixin to get a new pair of shows out of this.

That's them, Nip. I still have a small stash - even some of the big ones. There is definitely a market there but I believe Bobby Garland bought the rights to them.

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Originally Posted by IkenI

That's them, Nip. I still have a small stash - even some of the big ones. There is definitely a market there but I believe Bobby Garland bought the rights to them.

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The Company that Makes Bobby Garland baits in Tulsa bought the molds. The product shows in their catalog, however that is the only place I have seen them.

Glad I could help. Never fished them myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frank300

The Company that Makes Bobby Garland baits in Tulsa bought the molds. The product shows in their catalog, however that is the only place I have seen them.

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Gene Larew?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eufaula boy

Doug and I had a blast catching fish now it didn't really start getting good for us until around 11:00. Even pre-fishing on Thursday was lots of small fish only 2 tournament fish. On Thursday Doug taught me something, for the last few years he had always told how many crappie they caught fishing from the bank on roadrunners. Well about half way through the day Doug picked up a roadrunner and started throwing it he caught 5 in a row, 5 cast, 5 fish. So I tie one on and I didn't catch one for an hour and Doug is jerking his arms off so I stopped and watched him just to see and learn from him. I finally figured it out I had been fishing it wrong. When you cast and drag you hold your rod tip at a 45 degree angle so you can drag the jig over the limbs real slow, but when you throw a roadrunner you count down to 8,10,12,etc then real it only fast enough to turn the blade keeping your rod down so the bait will touch the limbs. In that clear water those fish will come out of the pile and nail it. Doug and I also figured out that in the predicted forecast for 25 mph winds we could fish the roadrunner when we couldn't cast and drag. Now we only found 2 banks with tournament fish on them but both were 4-5ft visibility with brush or trees in 15-20ft where the wood came up to 10-12ft under the water.

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Thanks EB and Crappie_Jiggin for the details on how you guys did it! For new guys like me, Zeke, and George, this sort of thing is very helpful. I had roadrunners in my tackle, but I didn't even think to try them out. Now that you've talked about them, and had success using them, I will think to use them in the future. Thanks so much for taking the time to share.

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Originally Posted by DrNip

Gene Larew?

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Yes.

Donald, they are trying to contact you on another thread. You won a prize pack for fishing the crappie masters.

Odie

Beetle spins also work great KCmaster

I contacted them Friday.....thanks.....