#4 is in the books

Well Tournament #4 is over and done with. We had a poor turn out again. 5 boats and 3 non-boaters. It is not the payout that bugs me about that, it is the fact that we can't get max points. Guys can fish in a district that has 20 people show up every time and it is a max point tournament. We have 8 show up and the winner gets 187 points instead of the 200 for max turn out. You could win every tournament in your district and not be anywhere close to the top 10 in the nation. They only take your best 4 one day tourneys and the 2 day. But enough about that.

Well I got to the ramp and there was a line of boats 8-10 deep to get on the ramp. Turns out that there was two tournaments going on that day. I was the 8th boat in line to put in the water. It took me a while to find an open spot to beach the boat. We had our briefing and I drew boat #1 and also drew one of the three non-boaters. We headed out and the weather was just terrible. At 6 am the winds were all ready pretty steady at 15-18 MPH and gusting to about 20MPH. We made a quick run across the lake to a spot that I knew would just have fish stacked up on it. Well it turns out that I was wrong. The water temp was a nice 58 degrees, but as the sun came up I realized that the water was all churned up and it looked like Cholate milk. Well about 1 hour into fishing we decided to move and I guess the wiring from the GPS had fallen down and I kicked it loose. No GPS and couldn't get it fixed on the spot so went without it. As we moved to another spot I noticed that the trolling motor just didn't look right. Turns out that it wasn't right at all.

My co-angler caught a nice 2.8 pounder about 1030 and things were starting to look up. I caught a 10 pound drum on a brush hog a little later on. Finally about 1130 I caught a 3 pounder on a Red Eye Shad and dropped it into the livewell. The wind at this point was blowing about 25MPH and gusting to about 30 at times so I went to move the boat and kicked the trolling motor hard right to keep us out of the rocks. Well the trolling motor at this poin thought that it would be a good idea to try to swan dive off of the bow. Luckily I can still move pretty quick when I need to and kept it from going into the water. About a month ago I replace the bolt, washer, lockwasher, and nut combo that I had been using on the trolling motor with actual trolling motor shock mounts. Those things suck and I will never buy them again. The nut was still on it but the rubber that bunches up had broken and there was basically nothing holding the motor in place. So we went back to the dock and I put my trolling motor in the back seat of the truck and we were trolling motorless for the next 4 hours. I would drop the anchor but the wind would still drag me across the lake at 8 MPH it seemed. I did manage to catch 1 more short fish and James caught a huge white bass and a nice Blue catfish, but that was it.

It was a rough day for everyone. Every spot that you pulled up on had 4 boats on it and the fish were tucked up tight to the cover. Unfortunatley I had no trolling motor and couldn't fish that way. First place was 3 fish at 8 pounds and big bass was 5 something. I finished 5th and Mr Dean shaved 3 points off the lead I had built for AOY. It is now back to 1 point with 3 one day tournaments and the 2 day to go. I felt really bad that James had drawn me for that day, I felt like I hampered him more than helped him. He was a good sport about it and didn't seem bitter at all. Hopefully I can draw him again sometime and make it up to him.

I managed to get the GPS and the trolling motor fixed in about an hour or so on Sunday. It won't come loose on me again I can guarantee that. And if it does I have about 250 different size washers to re-mount it! Our next tourney is at the end on March at Graham and then we have one 7 April back at Arrowhead. My mom and sister are coming down for my promotion ceremony just before the Graham tournament. My wife wants me to sit it out, but my mom told me to go and have fun. God I love mom! Yall have a good one and take it easy! Until next time!