2nd at Graham

Well our 3rd tournament of the year is in the books. I will get to that in a minute. Unfortunatley the economy or something has hurt our turn out. Some folks that I have talked to that fish our deal pretty regularly have decided to start fishing a team tournament. I do understand why, our entry fees for an individual draw format both boaters and non-boaters is $70 per person. A lot of the team tournaments here are $70-100 per team. Each team member splits the cost and its cheaper. They also tend to have a larger turnout due to the split entry fees and the payout is larger. I understand that also. However you also must split any winnings with your partner. If those same individuals would fish with us, we too would have a larger turnout and the payout would be larger also, that you wouldn't have to split with a partner. Now ABA sets our entry fees, and there is no indication that they will be lowered. But.....and I do mean but, while fishing the ABA tournaments there is a very unique and a larger payout farther down the line. This year the top angler from each district via points has the chance to fish against the other top anglers in the national districts for a chance to win a brand new Triton boat valued at over $50,000. Plus you can fish in the national championship for a first prize of again a brand new Triton boat valued at over $55,000. There are no local team tournaments around here that allow you to get to that point here. But enough about that lets gget to the fishing at Lake Graham.

We had a big cold front move through on Saturday that brought colder temps and high winds. We were post frontal conditions come Sunday morning with a launch air temp of about 24 degrees. The water temps were in the upper forties in the morning and moved into the 52 degree range by noon. It was a beautiful day once the sun started to come out. It ended up around 66 degrees. The fishing was rough for almost everyone, there were no limits brought in and 6 pounds won. The fish were spread out and the keepers were hard to come by. I managed to catch my first keeper around 8AM. I thought that it was going to be a good day. My next bite came at noon. It was a nice 2 1/2 pounder that felt like a snag when he hit. I almost didn't know that there was a fish there, I thought I was hung up. I did manage to catch about 9 or 10 fish total on the day but managed only 3 keepers. In Texas that is a 14 inch minimum. The rest of the fish I caught were in the 13 1/2 inch range, but nothing very big. Big bass on the day was 3.60, the big bite just was not there. I did manage a 2nd place finish. Hopefully the next one on Lake Arrowhead on 7 March will get me that first ABA win.

It was a pretty good day none the less even with the small turnout. I think that our next tournament may have a larger turnout. We have a few folks come out for that one any time we are on Lake Arrowhead and they won't fish any of the other ones. This year we are fishing Lake Arrowhead 3 times and the 2 day championship is there as well. I like fishing Arrowhead mainly because it is only like 8 miles from my house so I get to sleep in for an extra hour. Well I hope that everyone is doing well and having some good fishing trips. It won't be long now and things will really pick up. Yall have a good one! Until next time!!

Boat is fixed

First I want to start out by thanking Progressive insurance. Even though the repair on my boat didn't cost what I thought it may cost, those guys made the whole process simple. Even when I cancelled the claim, they siad if it still aint right just let em know and they will open it back up. Thanks progressive.

Secondly I want to give a shout out to Larry's Marine (www.larrysmarine.com) particularly to Rodney the service manager. Not only were they quick in diagnosing the problem, but in getting it fixed and doing it for less than what was quoted. Including the day I dropped the boat off, it was fixed and back at my house within 5 working days. You guys over there rock!

So, since I had the boat fixed it only made sense to get it back out on the water. Plus I wanted to make sure it was all working before the Graham tournament next week. Well the weather here has been awesome the past few days. We have had highs in the mid to upper 70s. A guy I work with was out on the lake last weekend and said that in about 45 minutes he caught 20 fish that averaged about 4-5 pounds. Well the day I picked the boat up we had a huge rain storm come through. It was the same storm that spawned those tornadoes up in Oklahoma City. Well the next couple of days were pretty nice so on Thursday I went to the lake to run the boat. Well the boat shifts and runs like a champ. The surface temp on the water is sitting right around 54 degrees or so. The water was churned up a little bit from the heavy rain that we had. The wife had only given me like an hour or so to go run the boat so I didn't get to do much fishing (darn backlash) since I only had a rod or two in the boat. But I was really happy to see that the motor worked great.

Now I have the boat fully loaded and ready to go. So of course a cold front moves through last night. The temp is only about 33 degrees or so out right now. My wife and kids went to visit friends in Missouri this weekend and we have nasty cold weather come through. I am planning to head down to Lake Graham on Monday weather its cold or not to check it out. I haven't been there in about a year and the last time I was i goose egged. I am taking a buddy of mine down there for the first time. My usual fishing partner has moved on to do his year in Korea. When he rotates back stateside he will be in SOuth Carolina. In the mean time I need to find a new partner for the Wednesday night tournaments coming up in a couple of months.

Well yall take it easy and talk to you soon. I will let you know how the Graham tournament turns out. I hope to come out of there still hanging on to that slight lead in AOY points. It is currently at a 1 point lead, but Bob grew up on Graham so he may school me! Talk to you later.

Ren

I am sooo glad that I have full coverage insurance

Wow, what a weekend I had this past weekend. It was really nice weather, so I decided that I would take the boat out on Sunday for a little bit. I had fished for a couple of hours and was going to move from one spot over to another across the lake. I fired the big motor up and off I went. All of a sudden I felt a jolt and heard a big thum and the motor dies. I had hit something submurged in the water and killed the motor. I hit the key and the motor fired right back up but would not go into forward gear. Great!! I am about a 5 minute run at 50 MPH from the ramp. If I had to troll back I would still probably be making my way across the lake. I kept messing with it and finally got it to go into gear, so I ran back to the ramp and parked it and went to get the truck. When I got the trailer back down the ramp, the boat would not go into gear, so I had to ratchet it up onto the trailer. Got it up and looked at the prop and one of the blades on the stainless prop is bent.

I got back home and started researching lower units and realized that it was going to cost me between 700 and 2000 bucks for a rebuilt or a new lower unit. So now I am racking my brain trying to figure out how to cut some cost and do some of the work myself. I got to work and asked a guy that I consider my fishing mentor if he had ever removed a lower unit. He asked what happened and I told him and he said, "Reney, have you talked to your insurance about it yet?" Then it dawned on me, I have full coverage on the boat, they may cover that. So I called up Progressive and told them what happened and they told me it was covered and asked me when and where I was going to take it. I took the boat to Larry's Marine here in Wichita Falls and dropped it off.

I talked to the guys at Larry's today and they told me that they talked to the adjustor and he wants them to tear it down before they will work up the estimate. I have been told that I should have the boat back in time for the next tournament on February 22nd at Lake Graham. I really hope to have it back by the weekend before so I can get a little practice in first. I haven't been to Graham in about a year.

I am really glad that I had full coverage insurance on the boat. if there is anyone out there that is not sure on whether to have insurance or not, it is worth it when you need it. So just like your car, keep that boat insured!! Well until next time ya'll have a good one! GO DALE JR!!!