Last Sunday July 17th marked the 14th annual Conroy Oakley Pro Teen Classic on the California Delta. This year we saw more then 75 teens matched up with Local Pros take to the water for this fantastic event. Andy “Cooch” Cuccia with Cooch’s Fishing hosted the event putting together an all star line up with Vince Harris of the Future Pro Tour being the weigh master, Scott Dipman with SC Environmental Services helped obtain sponsors and coordinate the weigh in, Roger Nelson being the computer brains and photographer, and TNT Baits provided Wadda Jigs and Claymores, Ron Howe with RBbassfishing.net reached deep with sponsor support to bring together some of the biggest raffle packs and fishing gear for the teens raffle.
Saturday the 17th was the Nutcase Rally, we had 20 boats come together from Westernbass.com for fishin, food, fun, and fellowship. Saturday was an excellent day of fishing for me on the Delta, the fish were really chewing on the high low switch and I followed this tide for about 3 hrs. My starting line paid handsomely for me. My first stop was in Franks Tract I through the Super Spook around some tulles with current and stuck a nice 1.5lb fish. I then ran over to Lil Mandy and cought a 3.5lb fish on the Black Limit Lures Buzzbait, and a solid 2.5lb fish on the Trash Fish. I proceeded to fish rock walls with a short hydrilla grass line and tulles in about 8’ with the Brown TNT Wadda Jig with a Double Tail Yamamoto 284 trailer and pulled 8 nice fish that averaged 2.75lbs these fish were absolute clones of each other. The jig fish were in the hydrilla clumps and the best bite came on the High Low Switch – with current moving across the grass. Excellent day of fishing my best 5 would have gone for 14.5 – 15.0 lbs. Needless to say I was stoked about the possibilities of what was in store for the C.O. Pro Teen Classic and was looking forward to fishing on Sunday.
For the C.O. Pro Teen Classic, I had an Excellent day as well, I was fortunate enough to draw a young man named Aranz, who showed up with his Dobyns Rods, Skeet Rods and was dialed into fishing. These young men have better mechanics and instincts then a lot of the guys I have fished with over the year. We met up on Saturday evening and had a care package put together of a Black Dog Shell Cracker, Miller Punching Weights, Limit Lures Buzzbaits, and TNT Wadda Jigs and Claymores - this alone had Aranz beside himself and stoked about being apart of the CO PRO TEEN CLASSIC.
We fished our buts off Aranz cought two crank fish first thing in the morning to start us out with our first keeper a nice 1lber and a few rats then dumped a nice fish, it happens especially out here on the delta fishing structure. We through the topwater and swimbait around the flats with nothing to show for it, then we proceeded to fish the TNT Wadda Jig in the 1/2oz Brown with the 284 Yamamoto Double tail grub, for the better part of the day we caught quite a few fish on the TNT Wadda Jig but had a hard time finding the keepers. We limited out on the brown Wadda jig at about 11:30 - I looked at Aranz and I said OK decision making time - we can go fish cranks, drop shot or punch for the next hour what do you wanna do - he looked at me like hugh you want my input - YUP - the way I see it is we can catch a ton of numbers drop shotting, we can crank and stumble upon a nice fish or go punch and look for that one good bite. He asked, what would you do? I grin and said if it were me I would go punch and look for that ONE good Bite. This guy was such a sport he grins back and says LETS GO PUNCH!
We ran down to Sandmound and started punchin Aranz had a fish just blast him and just couldn’t connect, about 5 minutes later he gets doubled up - GOT HIM! now how do we get in there - I tell him you just do what you do and I will do what I do keep that fish pinned up in the grass and Ill go gettum - unfortunately when we pulled pu to the area the fish was no longer there - it happens and we both were
Big Thanks to Cooch, Scott Dipman, Roger Nelson, Ron Howe, and Vince Harris and ALL OF THE BOATERS for stepping up and making this such a successful event - I am sure that there are more people that worked behind the scene's and I am sorry if I missed your name.
We fished our buts off Aranz cought two crank fish first thing in the morning to start us out with our first keeper a nice 1lber and a few rats then dumped a nice fish, it happens especially out here on the delta fishing structure. We through the topwater and swimbait around the flats with nothing to show for it, then we proceeded to fish the TNT Wadda Jig in the 1/2oz Brown with the 284 Yamamoto Double tail grub, for the better part of the day we caught quite a few fish on the TNT Wadda Jig but had a hard time finding the keepers. We limited out on the brown Wadda jig at about 11:30 - I looked at Aranz and I said OK decision making time - we can go fish cranks, drop shot or punch for the next hour what do you wanna do - he looked at me like hugh you want my input - YUP - the way I see it is we can catch a ton of numbers drop shotting, we can crank and stumble upon a nice fish or go punch and look for that one good bite. He asked, what would you do? I grin and said if it were me I would go punch and look for that ONE good Bite. This guy was such a sport he grins back and says LETS GO PUNCH!
We ran down to Sandmound and started punchin Aranz had a fish just blast him and just couldn’t connect, about 5 minutes later he gets doubled up - GOT HIM! now how do we get in there - I tell him you just do what you do and I will do what I do keep that fish pinned up in the grass and Ill go gettum - unfortunately when we pulled pu to the area the fish was no longer there - it happens and we both were
Big Thanks to Cooch, Scott Dipman, Roger Nelson, Ron Howe, and Vince Harris and ALL OF THE BOATERS for stepping up and making this such a successful event - I am sure that there are more people that worked behind the scene's and I am sorry if I missed your name.
