Lee And Parr	1st And 2nd Place
Results

March 22 , at New Melones was the site of the third tournament for the Motherlode region. New Melones is not only great fishing, the scenery is beautiful and we had numerous sightings of deer, wild turkey, and bald eagles. It was by far the best tournament of this region so far with the weather cooperating and the fishing was on. The only downside was reports that the bigger fish haven't moved up shallow yet. This did not deter 35 boats checking in at 5:45 am at Glory Hole Sports. Blast-off took place out of the Glory Hole ramp shortly afterward. When the smoke finally cleared, the anglers solidified the reports by bringing to the scales 65 spots and 93 largemouth with an average weight of 1 3/4 lbs.

Leading the charge was the team of Dennis Lee & Donald Parr. They took first place with a limit weighing 12.93lbs anchored with a 4.16 kicker. Their first place victory with big fish netted them an awesome $2150 in CASH! Add the $1000 BassCat Bonus Bucks certificate, and this team walked away with $3150 in cash and prizes along with beautiful plaques for first victoryand big bass. This team was a little secretive on what they used to secure their victory, but drop shotting, split shot and jigs were mentioned.

Second place was $1005 CASH and beautiful plaques and was won by the team of Joe Bruce & John Chiarpotti with 12.52lbs. Joe and John fished up river with jigs, drop shots and texas rig worms from the bank out to about 25 feet of water. Specific colors weren't mentioned.

Hal Walther & Rich Ingram secured third place and a set of plaques with 10.43lbs good for $755 CASH. Hal and Rich reported that they caught a number of fish "here and there". Rounding out the field, 4th Randy & Glenn Pierson 10.12lbs for $455, 5th Greg Allec & Aaron Cole with 10.11lbs for $390, and 6th Kyle Rassmussen & Joe Menzes 9.94lbs for $295.

Most of the fish were caught from very shallow out to 25 feet deep. Plastics were the best bait rigged on either a 1/4 oz. dart head or drop shotting. One team reported catching all their fish on crank baits, however they were 1lb out of the money. A few other boats reported catching some fish on spooks and ripping but that bite was slow. The majority of the boats were fishing south of Tuttle Town ramp on both the east and west banks.

Our next tournament will be at New Melones on April 26. Check-In will be 4:30 to 5:30 at Glory Hole Sports. As always, I'd like to thank our national and regional sponsors including BassCat Boats, Mercury Outboards, Motorguide Trolling Motors, Lowrance Electronics, Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, Bass West Magazine, Competitive Edge fishing, ACProshop.com. Regional sponsors for the Motherlode trail include Pizza Plus (Waterford), Ferrarese's Deli, House of Beef, and Dante's in Stockton.