Castaic Bass Club Blog

February Meeting

Well the January tournament came and went. With one of our best turn outs in a while with 17 teams. The day started out as calm as I have ever seen Castaic Lake. How ever by weigh in time the winds were a blowing. At weigh in only 3limits weighed in with Kevin and his guest taking 1st place with 8.20 coming in 2nd with 7.67 pounds was the team of Jeff and Tony and rounding the top three was the team of Mark P. and Adam Boyd with 6.82 pounds. Big fish Honors of 4.59 go to Ralph Rosa fishing by himself due to a sick partner. Kevin and his partner reported going through a lot of fish through out the day. Most of the teams all agreed that it was a tough day all in all. Afterwards a small group showed up at Mc Donald for a quick lunch. February has the club returning to Castaic Lake. With the weather ideal for fishing we’ll see if the fish think so too. Hope to see you all at the Thursday meeting @ El Torito’s come out early and have some dinner before the meeting. Please remember if you can’t make the meeting please call a Board Member to let them know if you are fishing on Sunday so that we can make sure you get paired up.

Thanks,

Ron

Mike’s Place

First and formost is this report on Wes. This is a copy of what Mark Poulson sent me. This is dated 1-27. The second part is an update from my call with Wes on Superbowl Sunday.

Mike,

Wes just called me with an update, and asked me to pass it along to you to send out to the whole Club. Wes finally had the CT scan that had been postponed, and they found a total of three spots on his liver, and two on his left lung, the original and one small new one. They’re not sure if the three spots on his liver are really three, or just the result of the biopsy on the first one. The first tumor on his lung had “only grown from 2cm to 2.6cm” since it was first detected, and Wes said that was good. They also found several abdominal lymph nodes were infected, but the cancer hasn’t spread to his bones. His doctor and nurse practitioner both said he’s treatable. The doctor said there’s a pretty good survival rate with no bone involvement. He is waiting now to meet with the oncologist to develop a treatment plan, and he says they’ve fast tracked him, so he expects to meet with him early next week. He’ll know more once they’ve met, and mapped out a plan of attack. He was much more upbeat when we talked. Fingers crossed.

Sunday 2-6

I called Wes this morning to find out how he was feeling. He had his first Chemo treatment on Wednesday. Wes said he felt fine afterwards and went fishing on Friday. Well all was good until Saturday when the effects of the treatment finally kicked in. His joints hurt and he felt like cr@p. Today, Sunday, he feels a little better but not good. Seems like he is passed the worst part of his first treatment and he might be able to fish with us next weekend. Prayers and best wishes for a speedy recovery to Wes. We’ll see you all on Thursday.

Take care,

Mike

September Meeting

Our meeting got off to a roar as always we had Jeff Jue share some of what he found to be working along with some of our other members as well. Personally I found none of it to work but that’s why it’s Castaic. Our next tournament will be held at Pyramid lake this coming Sunday Oct. 17th.  Lake opens @ 7am this will be a launch and go start with weigh in at yellow bar dock @ 3pm we are no longer in the 6 hour rule.
For those of you that have perpetual plaques from years past that have room on them for please make sure you bring them to Thursday nights meeting. We need to get them to the engravers to add this year’s achievement to them. Right now we are looking at our banquet being on December 19th location to be determined.
With our November meeting right around the corner nominations for board members are going to be taken at this meeting so that we can hold elections in November. Current board is as follows:

President: Mike Iljin
VP/TD: Ron Licari
Secretary: Tony Franks
Treasurer: Kevin Miner
Weigh master: Nick Langer
Asst. to the President: Eddie Carr

Tournament Results

Well the Manny Nunez Memorial Challenge Tournament went off with out a hitch 7 different clubs 38 boats total from all over so cal showed up and fished a very tough bite at Castaic Lake. Top honors for the day went to 911. Our club ended up in what I recall as third place. Seemed like most anglers got their fish early and then struggled the rest of the day. I would like to thank all those who jumped in and help get things going during the weight in and getting the BBQ started. Special thanks out to Mike’s wife Donna for her help.

Mike’s

The end of another year is drawing near. We have accomplished a lot and the Club is still growing with the addition of new members. Next year will be interesting with us trying something new in the June and December tournaments. This will mark the first time for the Club fishing Castaic Lower Lagoon. This body of water holds an extraordinary amount of large bass. We are looking into events that will include fun for the whole family. Start making plans to set aside December 19 for our annual awards banquet. Please remember to bring you plaques from last year so that all the spaces can be filled in. For you new members, plaques will be handed out that will have plates attached on them for any tournament finish in the top 4. You will also receive a plate if you caught big fish in any month.
See you all at Thursday’s meeting,
Mike

July Meeting

We spent more time on the August, Santa Margarita tournament then we did on the July tournament at Castaic that was coming up in just 3 days.  Oh well, we all know Castaic SO well, I guess we just didn’t need to spend time on it.  We are booked in with more then enough campsites and a couple of the members are sharing cabins.  These cabins are very well equipped and limited so if you are just learning about them, you maybe too late. The club is not making any of the arrangements for the cabins so you are on your own.  We are fortunate in that John Barron will be the guest speaker at out August meeting.  Not only is John an accomplished angler but he was virtually raise on Lake Santa Margarita and maintains a residence in the area still.
On a personal note, September is likely to be my last meeting.  That means the club will be needing a Treasurer and someone to write the newsletter.  Think it over.  If you want to help the club let Mike Iljin or one of the other board members know.

Tournament Results

Again, great weather. What a drag. It makes it difficult to complain or have excuses for not finding fish. Oh well, it’s just the burden we have to live with here in Southern California.  Anyway, lots of boats and lots of fish and good conditions made for a good tournament.  First place when to J&J Fishing, Jeff  Jue and Jessie Benavidez with a Langer Limit of 11.82 pounds and Jeff again had to tournament Big Fish at 4.86 pounds.  Mark Poulson and Chuck Valenzuela also had 4 fish.  Theirs weighed 9.35 pounds and was good enough for Second place.  In Third were Nick Langer (creator of the world famous Langer Limit) and Tony Franks with another limit, this one was 8.97 pounds.

Mike’s

As you know, Mike is currently vanquished to the beaches of Maui being forced to endure the beautiful surf  and snorkeling conditions.  I, therefore, took it upon myself to step up and write something profound in his place.  Actually I think it is important to say something about the Mike Hart situation.  If you are unaware, Mike Hart, a local angler, was Banned for Life From all WON Bass Tournaments.  A few of our members have suggested possible consequences of this occurrence to me with regard to Mr. Hart’s future and the residual fallout to tournament fishing at large and to our club specifically.  As far as Mr. Hart is concerned, he baited his own hook so to speak. The legal system will do whatever it does.  As to tournament fishing, this is not the first, nor unfortunately will it be the last episode of cheating here in California or anywhere else for that matter.  With regard to our club the answer is easy.  We play by the rules, we always have, we always will.  We have nothing to hide.  If the D.F.G. or any other enforcement agency wants to see what we have in our live wells, all they have to do is ask.  Frankly, speculation is fruitless at the time.  For me, I am going to just keep on fishing.