"We found several points up in the north fork that are loaded with fish, so I think we should start there," said Albert. "You can try throwing topwater baits if you want, but I'm going to start with a spider jig and look for a deeper bite. We didn't start fishing deep until almost 10:00 am yesterday and that's when we started catching fish. I think our best bet would be to start out fishing deep right away today."

Tournament director Larry Newby announced the blast off numbers and we were drawn as the second boat out. Following a quick recitation of the rules for the day and an official time check, Newby had us on our way and we were screaming across the lake in Albert's new 20 foot Procraft.

Our first stop was on a submerged island top in 22 feet of water about half way up the north fork. This is the spot where Albert had spooned a 3 pound largemouth along with a couple other smaller spotted bass the day before. Albert started out with a Yamamoto spider grub and I decided to try something different and rigged up a 4 inch Magic worm on a drop-shot rig. As we prepared to start fishing, several other boats headed straight for our island top, but had to turn around when they found we were already there. "This is one of the best secret fishing spots on the lake, just ask anybody," Albert joked.

We made a quick circle around the top of the island looking for baitfish activity. We graphed a few fish on the pinnacle of the island, but Albert said there wasn't nearly the amount of activity he had seen the day before. I started dragging my drop-shot rig behind the boat while Albert worked the spider grub over the sharp rockpile. Within a couple minutes, I had the first bite of the day that turned out to be a small spotted bass around 12 inches. Probably ten minutes went by when I had another bite, this one was also an undersized spotted bass. "These definitely aren't the fish we're looking for, commented Albert. "We better make a move."

Our next stop was on a steep wall about a mile further up river. Albert had spent some time with his Aquaview during pre-fish and found some quality fish holding along the wall in 10 to 20 feet of water. "I couldn't get these fish to bite yesterday, but maybe they'll bite today," he said.

The drop-shot rig produced once again and we had our first keeper of the day, a 13 incher that barely weighed a pound. We caught a couple more small fish and decided to keep moving towards a small cove near the end of the wall. As Albert positioned the boat along a stand of timber in 20 feet of water, we both noticed big schools of bait and fish showing on the electronics. "It's party time," said Albert. "Let's see if these guys are ready to eat."

His question was answered immediately when a fish grabbed his Berkley drop-shot worm before it even hit the bottom. As Albert was bringing in his first fish of the day, my rod loaded up and we were into a double hook-up. Both of these fish were small keepers, one just over 13 inches and the other around 14 inches. We spent the next hour on that same spot and put at least a dozen fish in the boat, half of them small keepers and the other half undersized fish running 10 to 12 inches.

With a small limit in the livewell, we decided to make a move in hopes of culling some fish. Albert thought the small submerged island we had started on might be worth another shot now that is was nearly 10:00 am, about the same time he had fished it the day before. By now, boat traffic was heating up and there was probably a half dozen ski boats working the small stretch of water we were hoping to fish. When I commented on the boat traffic, Albert said these fish deal with heavy boat traffic every day of the summer and it really doesn't seem to affect them much.

When we scanned the island this time, things looked much better. Large schools of bait were showing on the Lowrance and we could see large arches above and below the bait. Most of the action appeared to be happening 10 to 15 feet below the surface in 20 to 30 feet of water. Albert quickly grabbed his spoon rod and cast it out across the island. He counted it down 10 feet, gave it a sharp snap and let it continue it's descent. A few feet into the fall, his line suddenly jumped and went slack. He reared back and set the hook into our first respectable fish of the day, a largemouth right at the 2 pound mark.

Unfortunately, that was also our last respectable fish of the day despite catching another 10 fish and culling some of our extremely small fish with 14 inchers. By 3:00 pm, we had worked our way up to a 10 pound limit and had to head back for weigh-ins. While we fell a couple places short of a paycheck, we were only a few pounds behind the winners of the tournament, Russell Okubo and Nick Dedier, who weighed in 7 fish for 13-1/2 pounds.

Okubo and Dedier reported catching all of their fish on split-shot worms in 5 to 25 feet of water in the south fork and the main body. "We had a three pounder and a couple two pounders and the rest were smaller fish in the 1-1/2 pound range," explained Okubo. "We didn't find any big concentrations of fish all day. We hit as many points as we could and never caught more than two fish off any single point."

All in all, I would have to say it was a surprisingly productive day of fishing considering the extremely warm weather and heavy boat traffic. Albert and I probably boated 30 fish on the day and most of the other anglers also reported catching good numbers of fish. While a large percentage of fish being caught right now are undersized or barely legal, there aren't a lot of lakes that will produce that much action at this time of year.