The 28th annual Clear Lake Team Bass Tournament kicks off Saturday and with cool but decent weather conditions in the forecast, the tournament should produce some huge weights. Each team will be allowed to weigh in a maximum of five fish per day during the two-day tournament and most of the experts predict it will take at least 60 pounds to walk off with the first-place money.
The winning team will receive at least $5,000 if the tournament draws 100 or more boats. The team that catches the big fish of the tournament receives about $1,000.
Co-sponsored by the Lake County Chamber of Commerce and the Konocti Vista Casino, the tournament is expected to draw at least 100 boats and will operate out of Konocti Vista Casino and Resort. Weigh-in times are 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Without question this is one of the more popular bass tournaments held on Clear Lake. At one time it also was one of the largest bass tournaments in the nation with up to 225 boats taking part in the early 1990s when the payback was $25,000 to the winning team. Teams came from as far as Chicago, Denver and other Midwest cities. The tournament has always paid back 100 percent of the entry fees and local businesses pay the fees to run the tournament.
The first tournament, which was a one-day event, was held in 1987 and in those days there were no bass tournaments taking place during the winter months. Just about all the tournaments were held during the spring and summer followed by the Tournaments of Champions in the fall. The goal of the original tournament was to lure fishermen to Clear Lake and Lake County during the winter months when tourism was at a low point.
Back then I was invited to be a guest speaker at the Lakeport Rotary Club and my topic was how beneficial bass tournaments are to the local economy. I suggested that Lake County host its own tournament during the winter. John Lowman, then publisher of the Record-Bee, and Bill Brunetti, former owner of Bruno’s Food Store, agreed to sponsor the tournament if I would be the director. It was called the Record-Bee/Bruno’s Team Bass Tournament from 1987-1993.
The first tournament took place on the first weekend in February. I served as the director for six years.
Originally the tournament allowed just about any type of boat to enter, the only requirement being that it have a functioning livewell, which could actually be nothing more than an ice chest with an aerator.
In fact, some of the early tournaments had some strange-looking boats. One year a pair of fishermen went out in a canoe and used fly rods — and this was when the temperatures dipped down to freezing. At blast-off they paddled away and actually weighed in a couple of bass. Another team showed up in a patio boat, which was equipped with a gas stove and barbecue. As the 225 boats were assembling for the blast-off, they cooked eggs and bacon and served it to the nearby boaters.
The record for total weight by a winning team was set in 2007 when Russell Stansbury and Andrew Parson of Santa Rosa weighed in 70.7 pounds. They also caught the big fish of the tournament, which weighed 14.58 pounds, still the largest bass to be caught in the history of the tournament.
The tournament annually draws fishermen from throughout the West. In its heyday there were teams from as far away as Chicago, Spokane, Seattle and Salt Lake City. The tournament also received national media coverage back then.
In the early days the weather was normally terrible. One year the fog was so thick that dozens of fishermen got lost and ended up scattered around the lake. Just about every tournament had a fisherman or two fall in the frigid lake, and most of the time it was off a dock at the Skylark Motel. One fisherman who fell into the icy water jumped back into his boat and fished the entire day in sopping wet clothes.
Another year a team from Modesto blew their engine at blast-off on the first day of the tournament. They used just their trolling motor for both days and fished from the Skylark Motel to Willow Point and ended up in third place, winning nearly $5,000. Originally the top three finishing teams were required to take and pass a polygraph (lie-detector) test. The polygraph examiner would ask a series of test questions along with real questions to see if the fisherman cheated. The test questions were used by the examiner to set up a profile on the individual. One of the test questions dealt with marital fidelity. The examiner told me that in every tournament at least a dozen fishermen refused to answer that test question.
The deadline to sign up for this weekend’s tournament is Friday at 4:30 p.m. at the Lake County Chamber of Commerce office, located at 875 Lakeport Blvd. in Lakeport (the office is located on Vista Point). The entry fee is $200 per team, which includes the daily big-fish option.
