It was a battle of the boats… A battle of a shit ton of boats to be clear. CBC made a quick change of venue to El Capitan reservoir in Lakeside CA with the sudden closure of Lower Otay lake in Chula Vista. It was evident that so did everybody else… we were greeted by a line almost one mile long at the front gate. There was multiple derby’s and multiple teams at every single spot including a huge presence of kayaks and googans. No matter where you went there was a boat camped out on every spot, every point and every speck of structure off of the bank. I’ve never seen so many Kayaks in one place and so many other boats trying to squeeze in on whatever territory you could wrangle up? It was like a slalom course once you decide to move due to what seemed like hundreds of kayaks and boats simply camped out in the middle of the channel.
Combined with super low water levels it was complete chaos, but the California Bass Contenders held their ground and battled it out in Gorilla Warfare fashion. Landing the 5.32lb gorilla big fish of the tournament in the final moments of the day was Blackworm Riley who helped anchor the winning bag of 16.18lbs for Albert “OG” Medina and Thomas Riley. Second place went to the all-star duo of the fish doctor Doc Randy Estrada and David Mendez who weighed in a respectable 15.12lbs of El Capitan lobina’s. Rounding out the Top3 with a bag of 13.18lbs was Raider Franko Schwamborn and his team partner fishing in his first derby as a full-patch CBC member the ‘Modelo Monster’ John Diaz who is also known on ‘Myfans’ and social media for his Big Johnson.
With 28 anglers and fourteen teams the California Bass Contenders continue to out-do the other bass clubs in Southern California. We are definitely a force to be reckoned with and moving forward into the spring season the future looks bright. CBC is even trending viral on Instagram from local California Bass Pro Tom White Jr and his Pro partner Manas Malikian who captured exciting live action of the Shermanator running and controlling the boat from the back deck of the blue champion. Those some serious skills Sherman running the boat from the rear, is there a pedal back there? As a matter of fact if you look closely you will see Big Ed Cazares with a fishing rod tucked away in his armpit while he thinks and ponders his next tactical move on the water.
1st place: Jig/drop shot MMII
2nd place: drop shot/Ika/reaction
3rd place: C-rig grub/drop shot plum
Air temp 46-80 clear 5-10 mph
Water temp 57-60 degrees
Water clarity 2-3′ green/brown stained
1) Albert Medina/Thomas Riley 5/5 16.18lbs BF 5.32lbs
2) Randy Estrada/Dave Mendez 5/5 15.12lbs
3) Frank Schwamborn/John Diaz 5/5 13.18lbs
4) Gary Crouse/Chris Barbato 5/5 13.18lbs
5) Johnny Abyad/Tom Creasy 5/5 12.65lbs
6) Derrick Yoshinaga/Eddie Roblero 5/5 11.86
7) Big Ed Cazares/Sherman Wray 5/5 11.50lbs
8) Alfred Vazquez/Mark Chadeayne 5/5 9.73lbs
9) Dean Leslie/Dwight Minard 5/5 9.71lbs
10) Gil Bowman/Zach Coelho 5/5 9.69lbs
11) Compa Chris Graciano/Pops Colgan 5/5 9.40lbs
12) Jared Cabrera/Miguel Lizzaraga 3/3 4.57lbs
13) Kenny Isago/Chris Cruz 1/1 1.32lbs
14) Devin Cummins/Steve Vance 0/0 0.00lbs
See you on the water: Big Ed!
