WCC Houston Event #1: Buffalo Run Park 9-29-12

9-29-12 The last few weeks I have been busy organizing the Wild Carp Club of Houston.  This is a club dedicated to the promotion of common carp and smallmouth buffalo angling in the Houston metro area.  I am the Club Director of the inaugural season.  We decided to organize under the Wild Carp Companies and you can view our own page by clicking here.  We have a great group of core members and are actively recruiting for our club.  It's a great way to win prizes and introduce others to the sport.  To be affiliated with the Wild Carp Companies, I organized a six-session fishing tournament where the best five sessions count towards overall score.  This is for both availability of anglers and to make up for a tough day if you attend all of the sessions.

Rainy day at the lake

September 29th was our first session that we held.  It was at Buffalo Run Park in Missouri City, TX.  Click here for a map of the park.  Fishing rules are that you can have a baited line in the water from 8AM - 4PM and start baiting at 7AM.  As such, we all arrived at 7AM.  Before heading out, I was greeted by a 90% chance of rain!  I'm glad I checked ahead and took my full body rain suit.  Upon arrival, it truly was a wet and wild first day.  Luckily, we have a hardy group of guys so we had 5 attend the event.  However, the weather did force us to choose some swims we would not normally have chosen.  No matter, we were up for the challenge.  

6 lb 3 oz common carp

We had high hopes for this lake.  It is a bunch of old sand pits connected together.  The water clarity is generally good and it can get quite deep in spots.  We all spread out along the bank, and Jason B caught the first fish, a 6 lb 3 oz common.  He kept it in his keep sack, sand bagging so we wouldn't all get our hopes up about catching in such tough conditions.  This put Jason into the lead with roughly 30 minutes to go in the event.  Everyone was having a slow day, despite seeing fish crash.  We estimate the largest fish to be roughly 15-20 lbs at this lake.  We did see some good fish crashing.  

Nick J with his event winning 6lb 6 oz grasser

At 3:45, Nick J decided to hook up on a nice 6lb 6 oz grasser and stormed into the lead.  He would never look back, landing that one fish while the rest of us couldn't manage to scratch out a fish.  Nick won a couple issues of North American Carp Angler for his catch.  This event also helped put him in the running for some other great prizes!  

It was a very tough day of fishing, but was one of the best days.  The Club was up and running.  If we could fish through the rain, we can make it on any of the other days easily.  Unfortunately the fish weren't cooperating, but oh well, it happens!  We know there are some decent fish in this lake and we'll give it a shot again on another trip.  

Here's the final results:

The current standings: 

1st - Nick James - 102 oz
2nd - Jason Black - 99 oz 
3rd - Nick Davis, Justin Mary, Brian Sherwood

Biggest Common sponsored by Neil Stern and CAG - Jason Black 99 oz 

Biggest Buff - Open

Justin with a 6lb common caught after time was up

Big 4 - Nick James 102 oz