Steve Merlo: Kennemer father-son team dominates Lopez bass tourney
| Thursday, May 14 2009 08:21 PM
Last Updated Thursday, May 14 2009 10:47 PM
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Ray Kennemer, left, and his son Brian hold up four of their five-bass, 29.60-pound five-fish winning limit caught during last weekend's Kern Bassmaster Tournament at Lopez Lake. The four bass they are holding averaged more than 6-pounds each.
Ray and Brian Kennemer pounded both the fish and the rest of the 17-boat field at the Kern County Bassmasters monthly event last weekend at Lake Lopez. Fishing cranks, jigs, swimbaits and jerkbaits, the father and son team beat out their nearest competitors by nearly 13.5 pounds on their way to a fantastic 29.60-pound total weight. The Kennemers fished a single 100-yard stretch of ledges and dropoffs to nail over 20 keepers in excess of 3 pounds each, with 12 more than 4 pounds. The first-place team also captured Big Fish of the Tourney with a beautiful 7.92-pound lunker to anchor their 5-fish limit, 4 of which were close to or more than 6 pounds each.
"We caught good fish right from the beginning," said the younger Brian. "We had over 20 pounds the first hour and then had to cull 4-pounders the rest of the day. It seemed that every hour or so a new batch of spawned-out females would move up and we'd catch them one after another."
Randy Berglof and Mike Brown finished second with a 16.08-pound limit; Mark Selback and Randy Gear were third with 14.40; Kevin McBean and Brady Blanquette managed a 12.16 fourth- place finish, holding off Jim McLaughlin and Brooke Land, finishing fifth with 11.68.
Kern Bassmaster Open
This year's Kern Bassmaster Open team bass tournament will be May 30 at Lake Isabella. The annual tourney, normally held at Porterville's Lake Success, was changed to the Kern River Valley reservoir to take advantage of the great largemouth bass fishing the lake is capable of producing. Successful anglers can expect to win thousands of dollars in the very popular event.
Sign-ups run from 4:45 a.m. until 5:30 a.m. The event will launch out of the main dam launch ramp and the entry fee is only $150 per team. For more information, contact Steve Dent (661) 301-3760 or Mike Brown (661) 342-6051. All club rules will be in effect.
Crappie bite wide open
The huge crappie bite at Lake Isabella has kicked back into high gear after last week's windy cold spell cooled off the papermouth's spawning urges. Once again moving shallow with the warming trend, the fish have been eating a wide variety of baits and lures in water 3- to 10-feet deep. While the fish are averaging just a little larger than hand-sized, anglers culling through a lot of fish can expect to take home a 25-fish limit of the great-tasting black crappie weighing up to a pound or even larger.
Most fishermen have been tossing small jigs under a bobber, but anglers willing to purchase or catch live minnows have really hammered the bantam-weight panfish. Piney Point, Lime Point, French Gulch and Paradise Cove have all been booting out large numbers, and a lot of the crappie have even ventured into the other coves and backbays, including Freeaire Point and the old North Fork Marina location.
I managed to get up to the lake last weekend and found the fish very eager to bite a chartruese mini-jig glued to a 1/16-ounce jighead. Fished under a small one-inch diameter bogger and tipped with a crappie nibblet, three friends and I scored more than 200 fish, culling through them to get our easy limits.
Crappie, striped bass recipes
My wife and I love to eat fish, but we rarely, if ever, freeze them. One of our biggest pet-peeves is anglers catching and freezing more than they can use, then tossing out the remainder of last year's freezer-burnt fillets to make room for this season's new ones. We usually keep only enough fresh fish for a few meals and release the rest. Here's a neat recipe that we really enjoy, and you will, too. We got tired of the old cornmeal and deep fried way of cooking crappie, so we experimented a bit and changed the time-honored recipe just a little. But we still fry them.
Soak the fish overnight in milk, then drain but do not wash off. Add two-beaten eggs and coat the fish. Mix Italian- or Garlic-flavored bread crumbs 50-50 with flour, then add a teaspoon of Lawry's Seasoned Salt and some powdered garlic. Dredge the fish in the crumb/flour mix, then fry the panfish in Crisco or peanut oil to a golden brown -- slow and steady at low heat for firmer, drier filets, or fast and hot for moister meat. Serve with tartar or hot sauce or any other preferred dip. I suggest doubling the amount of fish when they're prepared this way...
Ditto for the stripers, the hard-fighting bass we catch out of the California Aqueduct. First, trim the blood-red meat from the filets to eliminate any residual fishy taste. Soak overnight in milk, then drain but do not wash off. Add a couple of beaten eggs to coat the fish, then dredge in bread crumbs. Put a little olive oil in a baking dish and add enough filets to cover the bottom of the pan. Spread a layer of medium salsa over them, then add a small can of diced chiles and chopped olives. Sprinkle with grated cheese, salt and pepper. Bake at 350-degrees for about 30-minutes, then finish the fish under the broiler for another five minutes or so.
One of the nice things about striped bass is that almost any method can be used to cook them, including frying, baking, sauteeing and barbecuing. The trick is to remove all vestiges of the bloodline occurring between the skin and meat, which can impart a musty flavor to the delicate, white-flaked flesh. They've become our favorite food fish over the last few years and we keep several each time we get lucky. By the way, these recipes work on a wide variety of food fish, including perch, ocean rockfish, bass, and even catfish.
