Bass Tourny ** Bethel Island

[Flutterby]

Quoted from the East Contra Costa Times:

"Bethel Island

Bass fishing tournament set

The Wal-Mart FLW Series will descend upon Bethel Island on March 14-17.

This is its second National Guard Western Division tournament of the bass fishing season.

The major tournament is being hosted by the neighboring city of Oakley and it is expected to draw up to 400 bass anglers from at least 15 states. The four-day tournament will be based out of Russo's Marina in Bethel Island.

Anglers will launch out of the marina each morning at 7:30 and the daily weigh-ins will also take place there at 3 p.m. The final weigh-in on March 17 will be held at Antioch's Wal-Mart at 4 p.m. and will include free fishing games, a trout pond and boat simulator. All of these activities are open to the public."

My friend lives near there and she says they are shooting off a cannon every morning at 7:30 to start the boats at Russo's. And there is a National Guard helicopter flying around and landing each day. This will be televised sometime in April. I'll post the info when I get it.

 

[lanbuilder]

The area around the marina would be a good place NOT to be at 7:30 AM and 3:00 PM. 400 go fast bass boats all going at top speed with little concern for rules of the road, heaven help anyone in a canoe jonboat inflatable or sailboat.
I wonder what the launch ramp will be like each morning.

Just for fun here is Microsoft live view of the area of the marina. There seem to be a lot of covered slips all along this area of waterway.
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?cp=38.034655|-121.620566&style=h&lvl=18&v=1

 

[Flutterby]

Yup, I'm glad I no longer berth my boat there. Russo's has five sheds plus over 200 covered dry storage slips. I'm still within walking distance of there, but most of the noise doesn't travel to me. A lot of the bass boats fish Franks Tract as well as the tules along most of the sloughs in the area. They have to idle to one of the openings in the berm/seawall to get to "fast water".