Tony Foster and Steve Sink are hoping their “strange” fishing year continues right on through the Carolinas Bass Challenge North Carolina Division Championship on Kerr Reservoir Saturday.

“All our practices have been terrible and then we lucked up and found our fish during the tournaments,” said Sink, who teamed with Foster to win the CBC-NC Division Points Championship for the second year in a row.

“It’s just been on of those years when things worked out for us. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t,” Sink said.

True to form, their first day of practice at Kerr Thursday was tough, to say the least, he said.

“We are not finding anything. We fished from daylight to now (lunchtime) and we have not caught a keeper. We’ve fished shallow, deep, topwater, every way possible, and we’ve just caught five or six little ones.”

Sink said Kerr was slick as glass Thursday morning.

“I don’t think they are pulling any water. Another thing, it did not get quite as cold as expected last night. The low was about 64 degrees and the water temperature is running 77-78 degrees.”

The one tournament when they did not catch quality fish was the first one of the year on Lake Norman in March when they finished 63^rd. But they rebounded strong with a first place on High Rock in April and then finished 7^th at Hickory in May and 5^th at Falls in early June. Foster, fishing with Robert Mixon, finished the year with a 13^th place finish on Lake Wylie June 14.

They finished the year with more than $19,000 in prize money, plus $1,000 for the points title. They won $12,000 for the first place on High Rock and their fifth place at Falls where they were the Top Finishing Skeeter/Yamaha Team netted a total of $6,000 more.

First prize in the N.C. Division Championship is a Skeeter TZX190 with Yamaha 150, with $5,000 for the highest finishing Skeeter/Yamaha Team and $1,000 for Big Fish.

The entire field of both the SC. and N.C. Championships will be eligible to enter the 2014 CBC Classic on Lake Norman Nov. 7-8. The South Carolina Championship will be held on Clarks Hill Lake Saturday, Sept. 17.

Sink said he and Foster will spend their second day of practice for the North Carolina Championship on Kerr fishing deep on Friday.

“We will probably fish deep all day. We can’t catch them on the bank right now. We can’t even find any bait,” he said.

But, history has an uncanny knack of repeating, so things could turn completely around by Saturday. Sink and Foster are counting on it.

 

Carolinas Bass Challenge – North Carolina Division Championship

Sat, Sep 20, 2014

Kerr / Buggs Island Lake

New Nutbush Ramp

www.carolinasbasschallenge.com