CAPT. CRAIG HENSEL

What is going on you guys, Captain Craig here with AWOL Fishing Charters. I hope all of you are out enjoying this beautiful Spring, Fall and Summer like weather we have been having. May and June have been amazing for fishing all around. The post spawn Largemouth Bass have been gorging on big baits for us this month as the big females have finally decided to come back out. The

Catfish are finally coming off the spawn as well and have been gulping those big live bream and eels up.

So guys if you remember from last month’s issue I spoke about the St. Jude Fishing to Fight Cancer Catfish Tournament. Well it has come and gone once again and this year AWOL Fishing Charter’s Team took 5th place out of approx. 76 teams that fished it. My tournament partner David Hull came all the way to Fayetteville NC from Missouri to fish this 24 hour tournament with me. I was fortunate enough to have his company for 2 weeks prior to the tournament to catch up on fishing and life. It’s always a blessing to have this fella onboard, so David when you read this THANK YOU for all your Military Service over the years and THANK YOU for being a participant in the St. Jude Fishing to Fight Cancer for the kids Tournament. We all look forward to seeing you next year.

So guys we didn’t put in a whole lot of work into finding fish for this tournament. This is one of those events where the $5,000 dollar prize money didn’t really mean a whole lot. We fished this tournament for the children. We went out and had a great time and didn’t stress over catching fish and it just so happened we caught plenty. Now it was rough for a 24 hour tournament. We boated approx. 27 fish in 24 hours. That’s about a fish per hour average. It was ok but not insanely good. The struggle was real for us for sure. Just before dark I told David we needed to do something crazy like fish near the boat ramp and catch 3 good fish

Continued, see LOCKS TO THE ROCKS Page 28