Delaney Buttes Contest that was Feb 12, 2005

[zman7]

4 of us went to the Delaney Buttes ice derby last weekend...a one day contest on the three lakes...it was stellar for us but I will tell you what I know...have been going to the Lake John/Delaney Buttes contests since their inception about 20 years ago...in the last two years it has kind of turned into a North Delaney showcase and not for the browns...rainbows and this weekend the top 4 fish were cutbows from North Delaney...the largest was right around 24 inches in length...caught not too far from the boat ramp by Dick Snavely of Walden...I think that is how you spell his name...it was a great thing that he won...he has a permanent shelter on the lake...it got broken into last weekend...they took like 14 rods, 20 pound propane tank and heater, an underwater camera and some other things with a total value of over a thousand dollars...I talked to him for about 15 minutes Saturday morning...a really nice guy and I am glad he won...as for us we have fared better...not one of my better weekends...we fished East Delaney a little bit on Friday afternoon and caught 4 that were around 14 inches...we started there because we had someone with that had never been ice fishing before and wanted him to start out with the best chance of catching a fish...we caught them on white and rainbow patterned tube jigs...Saturday the day of the contest we switched to North Delaney for the morning...John had a monster on a white tube jig and broke him off after a brief fight...probably one of the big cutbows but oh well...I lost a fish on the rainbow flavored tube jig and had some hits on a gold kastmaster...I didnt get my first fish until 4 pm and had a horrible day...we caught 8 fish saturday between us...about how most people did...at least the ones we talked to...it wasnt fast and furious...they seemed to be in 10 to 12 feet of water and we tried both shallow and deep...just not our day...John and Jack left early Sunday morning and Dennis and I went to Lake John...we had talked to Bill Wilcox the owner of Lake John Lodge the night before and he said they had been deep in 19 feet of water but had recently move shallow to 7 to 11 feet of water so that is where we started by the spillway...I caught a 16 and 18 incher jigging a kastmaster in 9 feet of water...we tried everything under the sun and various depths to no avail...those were the only two hits...there were 8 or so guys behind us in deeper water and they had no hits all day long...we tried hard but they didnt want to cooperate...but the weather was geat and plenty of comaraderie on the ice...seems like I am forgetting something...