Mark Cannon Scores His First Win at High Rock

Mark Cannon, Two-day total: 7 fish, 12.41 lbs; Big fish 3.06 lbs

      Leesville BASSMasters enjoyed a two-day out of town tournament at High Rock Lake near Lexington, NC.  Most members arrived Friday during the day, with many taking the opportunity to pre-fish.  The weather forecast was for sunny to partly cloudy skies for all three days.  That was a much welcomed change from earlier in the week when rain and thunderstorms were forecast to be highly probable.  While some fish were caught Friday pre-fishing, fishing overall was tough for most with High Rock's waters muddy to stained.  Depending where you were on the lake, visibility ranged from 3" to 12".
      We launched Saturday morning from a private ramp in Swearing Creek.  The day brought mostly sunny skies with temps in the low 80's, and water temps at blast off in the upper 60s.  After a long day on the water, Mark Cannon led the pack (3 fish, 5.78 lbs) followed by Wes House (3 fish, 3.83 lbs).  Mark indicated that he'd lost several good fish early in the day to line breaks, and eventually discovered one of the guides on his brand new rod was missing an insert.  After returning to the house, Tom Robertson prepared his signature spaghetti dinner, and several members were spotted having seconds (we're not absolutely sure, but we think someone may have even had thirds).
      Sunday was nearly a repeat of Saturday's conditions, although temps were slightly warmer and there was a good deal more cloud cover, especially in the morning.  At the Day 2 weigh-in, Mark shut the door on 1st place with four more fish weighing 6.63 lbs, for a two-day total of 12.41 lbs.  Mark also took big fish honors for the tournament with his  3.06 lbs big fish from Day 1.  Wes weighed in one more fish at 1.61 lbs to cement 2nd place with a two-day total of 5.44 lbs.  Duke Bevard also weighed in one fish to take 3rd place with 1.38 lbs.
      A couple of our anglers had trouble keeping fish buttoned up on Day 2.  Rookie non-boater Mike Langer lost a 5 to 6 lbs fish at the boat on a crankbait, and Wes passed along that he'd also lost a 4 pounder at the boat early on.  While he didn't bring any bass to the scales, Tom Robertson did catch a 1.87 lb slab crappie, which Mark took back home for a swim in the hot grease jacuzzi!  One last interesting fact about this  tournament...aggregate weights for all fish weighed in on Day 1  and Day 2 were exactly 1/100 lb difference (9.61 & 9.62 lbs, resp.)
      Our next tournament on June 16 takes us to Salmon Landing at Lake Gaston, which should be getting well along into the summer transition from post-spawn.