Berry Brawl'N 3/21/15- Fun had by All!

It was great to see ya with the fam Pat. In fact, one of the best parts of the weekend was watching all the little ones running all over, playing well with each other!

Berryessa Brawl'N Top Finishers

1st John Patz w/621pts for 5 bass=$420 bucks

2nd Daniel Chavez w/588.5pts for 5 bass=$240 bucks

3rd Pat Kuhl w/384.75pts for 3 bass=$160 bucks

Congrats to All the winners, that was some fun exciting fishing!! I arrived on friday around 2pm to cloudy but perfect evening fishing conditions. unloaded and headed right to the launch. After rigging the New Revo, which btw, was a pure comfort dream being on with the vantage seat, it was go time.
Lets just say fridays evening fishing was EPIC! I was catching bass on topwater and lost one pig to a bent hook! Then the middle of the cove came alive with huge balls of shad on the surface being chased by bigger fish. paddled over to the feeding frenzy and tossed a white crappie jig and wham, Fish on. Didnt fill big at first, but it came rushing for the surface to show itself and it was a easy 5+ Largy! Fought it for a lil bit and it spit the lil hook.Darn, oh well. Everyone who was out that evening could vouch for the epic fishing that night. Tournament Day was a lil different with clear blue skies and lil wind. Nonetheless, fishing was pretty decent with lots of bass caught. I would have to say everything went pretty well from launch time to potlucks end and personally enjoyed seeing everyone enjoy themselves. Yeaaaaaaa.
After the award ceremony, a couple of us went back out to fish the evening again and its was nothing short of Fantastic! Thanks to Novofish for putting me on his spot after reporting landing a crappie on the fly, i ended up catching a fat 12-13in. crappie for my first fish. That evening just better with multiple bass caught and few again on the topwater baits. Even the shad balls came out again. Just Epic. I was happy.
On behalf of Freshkats, I would like to thank all who came and supported this event. With only 4 weeks to get it going and countless hours of planning, coordinating, putting all the connections together, I am thrilled to see its success   with such little time. This is just the Beginning Gents, it only gets Better from hear. Lets thank All the Sponsors including Adventure Sports, CCK, Headwaters, Ego, Lowrance, GVF tackle, Seps Pro Tackle, and Procure for supporting this event. 3 Events to go....Rollins, hear we come!! Thank you All

Berry Brawl'N

Launch Time

Having problems uploading pics..damn!

ok hear we go...

Classic NCKA Potluck

fish

Whoa dudes, Awesome pics. I wish I didnt work weekends cause I keep missing all the good stuff. I am asking for time off for Tahoe Salmon Slam . and I hope to make it to Clear Lake too. Looks like I missed another great one DAMN IT!!!   HAHAHHAHAHAH

My game plan was to troll for trout and bass out to the main body and then drop the downrigger for some kokanee.  Trolled a silver Krockadile and a shad pattern jerk bait for a dink bass and a 13.5 incher.  Got to the main body around 9:00 and did some fast crusing around looking for kokes on the sonar for 45 minutes but didn't see one fish. 
Decided it was time to go to Plan Two and started hitting the rocky points and steep banks with minnows. Caught a total of 8 keeper bass but nothing of any size, the biggest at 15.5".
At noon I figured I'd better pedal back to the launch.  With the hot bite the night before I was hoping to place mid pack but was astounded when told I might be in the running for the top three. Could hardly believe I took first!
Thanks to Ricci, Mike and Jim for all the hard work on putting together this series. I had a great time meeting new people, eating good food at the pot luck and bringing home the $$$

PORT HERE I COME!!!

Awesome to hear you did well there, John! 

I honestly did not think I was going to be able to attend the Berry Brawl, but the day before I finished up with some out-of-town guests and started to put my fishing stuff together.

It was a great day out on the lake, but at first I could not find any bass willing to hit my trolled crankbaits or the casted wooly booger trolling fly given to me by Ricci/Rockfish. Finally while throwing the fly, with a nitecrawler on a carolina rig drifting on my 2nd pole, I was treated to the sound of my Shimano Symetre's drag going wild. I quickly picked up the spinning rod and set the hook on what I hoped was a biggass LMB, then frantically reeled my fly line in. I grabbed my Ugly Stik med. 2nd pole and immediately knew I would be in for a good battle with my 6lb topshot.

After 20 mins. of getting towed around in one of the coves by the power lines I got a glimpse of a fair sized catfish. I jokingly attempted to net the big kitty twice with my panfish sized net - once from the head and once from the tail - it was a no-go situation! Finally I was able to tire the cat out and tail it, it was kinda hairy paddling toward shore with the big cat's dorsal and pectoral spines between my legs in a sit-inside kayak.

Kitty was 27.5" fair sized and a put up a brawlin' style fight on the little spinner.

I quickly high tailed it toward the launch hoping there was a big fish award, the Wilderness Manteo I was paddling made the sprint to the weigh-in in about 30 mins.

After the awards, I went out again and was able to find 10+ Smallies, Spotteds, and a bonus Crappie on the fly. Where were these fish when I need them during the tourney LOL!

Overall a great day on a great lake, and the Berry Brawl lived up to expectations as a fine tourney, flawlessly run by Ricci, Mike, Jim and others. Congrats to the top three, and Oldfart - my townmate taking 1st! Way to represent the Woodpile John!

Some great Pics being put up!  I was too busy having fun and not catching many fish to play with my camera/phone.  Next time I will not forget my waterproof camera and will get more OTW shots.


Ricci did a great job and I was happy to help organize.  My favorite part of the weekend was watching all the little kiddo's run up and down the hill at the campground.  Henry sure had a great time and I know Amy did as well.  See y'all at Rollins

Nice fish Tony!

Awesome time at Berryessa! Big thanks to the Freshkats crew for putting on such a great event for us to participate in. Congrats to the winners ,job well done !   It was great to see friends and meet some new members. NCKA Rocks