Fished Saturday and Sunday with the guys from bass n tubes on the middle river. The tides both days were incoming in the morning, peaking around 7 or 8am and then receding the rest of the day until weigh in. We launched by the rock barrier both days withs some guys fishing above and some below. Day one I opted to fish up river and walked about 1/4 mile before launching my tube. I threw buzzbaits for about an hour without getting bit before switching to flipping a full size black and red brush hog on 20lb. Caught a dink right away out of a big tree and then got a 13"er a ways down the bank. With one keeper in the bag I worked around the island but had no luck. Switching to a spinner bait I hooked a 2 to 3 pounder but lost it when it jumped. Rats! I had been fishing around this island so after a bit I came back to the tree where I caught the dink earlier. This time I tubed back to the base of the tree and spied a pocket of deep water hidden in some brushy limbs. Three flips in the there and my line shot towards the tree trunk. I slammed the fish and it was on. Branches were breaking and the fish thrashed around like crazy as I dragged her out. She looked like a 6 but at weigh in she went 5.36lb. More on that later. So I was stoked after that and figured I would flip the rest of the day in hopes of getting another lunker. I did get another flip fish around 13" and another dink but that was all for the flip bite and it got tougher as the tide dropped. I picked up my last keeper around 1:30 on a spinnerbait, had four blowups on the tourney frog but the fish missed it every time, and called it a day. I weighed in 9 pounds and some change for the day and took big fish by a mere .02 of an ounce over John Lake who caught his big 'un on a spinnerbait early in the morning. Eric Howard had something like 13 pounds on the day for the lead. He caught his fish on reapers below the barrier and reported catching 17-18 fish total. <BR>Day 2 was very similar weather and condition wize to day one, however the fishing definitely changed. Most of the guys opted to fish below the barrier because of how well Eric and Joe Castro had done down there the day before. I stuck with the upper areas because I felt like I wanted to fish some water that I already knew. So back I went, walking upriver at 5am to fish the island I had caught my fish from the day before. Again, the first hour was slow although this time I was flipping. I caught one in about 1 foot of water on a floro orange craw plastic but that was it for the island. I figured I needed to change tactics since the flip bite wasn't happening so I switched to a blade and fished the bank down from the island because I knew it hadn't gotten too much pressure the day before. I two and a half pounder confirmed my choice on the second tree I hit and in the next 2 hours I picked up 6 more fish on the spinner working the trees. Three were dinks and my three keepers were small so I knew I still had to get another fish and hopefully some larger units. I fished the island again, this time with the spinner bait but no luck there. The tide was dropping quickly too so I knew I needed to get something soon. I cut back to the shore towards some trees and kept at it with the spinnerbait. Coming up on a nice tree I tought to myself, you are going to catch one righ there. Flipped it up and boom a three pounder. Yes, yes I finally got my limit! With the weedbeds starting to emerge and the tide dropping I fished around the island again but threw the buzzbait on 25lb this time. Only had one bite and it appeared to be a small fish but another 2.5 pounder culled one of my small fish. After that it really died and all I managed was a 10 incher on the tourney frog by the weigh in site. At weigh in I managed another 9 pounds and some change for my 5 fish. Eric Howard was on them again for another solid limit, this time on spinnerbaits, for the win. Joe Castro did well also, getting second for his limit which he caught mainly on buzzbaits fished between the rock/riprap and the inside edge of the weedlines. I placed third for my efforts although it was basically luck because tournament organizer John Lake had another 11 pounds and would have easily knocked me out had he not been late for weigh in. He fished Holland Tract and reported getting 7 keepers all on the tourney frogs. Tim Crane Sr. had big fish for the second day with 4-3 which he caught on a reaper. Fun tourney!<BR>Here are some general tips if you fish the delta. At high tide the fish are going to be right up in the shallows and were generally in the trees. Try to represent a crawdad if you are flipping for them. Red, orange, and black with either of those colors are good. If they want spinnerbaits (as they did on the second day) I had luck on a big gold blade with a brown and yellow skirt. John's theory is that the spinnerbait represents a bluegill chasing some small bass fry (there was tons of small baitfish around as well) and that this triggers the bites. Either way give the spinny baits a shot if the flip bite doesn't happen. And when the tide drops get out the buzzbaits and tourney frogs. I fished the outside edges of the weeds with everything I could imagine and they just weren't there.<P>Rob