Fishing: Lintner bows out of California Tournament

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• Fishing Report: New pro series tournament at Nacimiento draws big turnout

  Fishing Report: New pro series tournament at Nacimiento draws big turnout

  An impressive beginning Saturday for the newest bass tournament series, Best Bass Tourney Coastal Division, bodes well for the future.

  Outstanding January weather at Nacimiento Lake, and a format that less than hardcore bass tournament participants deemed attractive, led to a 28-team turnout. Absent were the familiar names that consistently appear atop bass leaderboards.

  Mark Selbach and partner Ron Nagel probed Snake Creek most of the day where they reeled in a 13.19-pound limit that included the event’s biggest fish, a 5.15-pound spot. Selbach, a onetime Cuesta College football player decades ago, gushed when describing his prize catch on a Senko in 12 to 15 feet of water.

• Fishing Report: Father-son duos faring well in tourneys

  Fishing Report: Father-son duos faring well in tourneys

  When Jared Lintner and Dana Chatterly compete in bass tournaments these days there’s a whole lot of teaching going on. Each has a very special partner — their sons. Success also is part of the equation.

  Jared, a six-year pro on the Bassmaster Elite tour, and his son J.C., 10, won the final regular season Tri Valley tourney at Lopez Lake. The Arroyo Grande dad is on tour most of the year so he and his eldest son managed to compete in only three club tourneys. They placed second at Lopez in January and Santa Margarita in July.

  Lompoc’s Dana Chatterly and16-year-old son Clayton claimed Angler of the Year honors with a runner-up weight of 22.67 pounds. It was their fifth top-10 finish of the season and provided a 389 to 379 points advantage over Santa Maria’s Danny Knotts and Bill Lukeman.

• Fishing Report: Spotted bass record set at Nacimiento

  Fishing Report: Spotted bass record set at Nacimiento

  En route to a bass tournament win Saturday at Nacimiento Lake, Bryan Grier, who honed his fishing skills at Nacimiento Lake and Lake San Antonio as a youth, obliterated the lake’s existing spotted bass record.

  Grier, 29, was fishing with his dad, Steven Grier. The tandem, both pros, habitually fish their way to the top or near the top of tournament leaderboards.

  “We didn’t realize just how big the record spot was,” the Hollister resident said. “It was our fourth fish of the day, which I caught in 20 feet of water on a shad-colored DD22 crankbait. It wasn’t until later in the day when my dad caught a 4 1⁄2-pound spot that we realized just how big my catch was. Dad’s fish looked like a dink in the live well compared to the one I caught.”

• Fishing Report: Operating a crane is good practice for fishing

  Fishing Report: Operating a crane is good practice for fishing

  The residual effect of a fall 13 years ago has not only led Damon Meeks to becoming an accomplished bass fisherman but eventually led to his livelihood as well.

  Meeks, 35, fell from a telephone pole while installing fiber optic cable. He was out of work for more than a year as he was recuperating from a broken back.

  Between physical therapy sessions he drove the nine miles from his dad Ken’s home to Santa Margarita Lake, where he honed his fishing skills during mornings and afternoons on flat- lake waters.

• Fishing Report: Anglers win, move on to next events

  Fishing Report: Anglers win, move on to next events

  Tournament bass fishermen are a mobile lot. Take the winners of two competitions at Nacimiento Lake last weekend, for instance. When contacted Tuesday evening, both were on the road in their trucks pulling boats en route to their next challenge — a two-day pro-am tournament this weekend at Lake Shasta.

  Thinking that Darrin Bishop hadn’t won a tournament in a while, my opening question to him was a monumental gaffe on my part. “I won the pro division of the WON Bass Western Classic at Nacimiento last December,” he said.

  I confessed to a brain drain. The event had slipped through the cracks. I had forgotten about it. And the event was in Paso Robles. Said Bishop: “I thought about calling you but that would have been out of character for me.”