August 2009
I was 102nd boat out on Day 1. Fishing top water in areas where I had located fish in practice, I had no bites, the fish weren't up. Fishing the rest of the day I used plastics to scratch out 5 keeper bites.
With the 5th keeper hooked - I made a stupid mistake. I got lazy and decided to lift it into the boat and he came off. I looked at the worm and only the point was sticking out of it. The fish wasn't even hooked. Consequently, it reminds me to never get lazy and lift the fish during a tourney.
The morning of day 2 was the same with nothing coming up on top. I decided to crank which produced two better than average keepers. After the sun got high, I went to plastics catching 3 more keepers.
Day 3 morning produced no fish on top water or cranking. When the sun got high, I went to plastics and could only get 3 bites.
Consequently the results were a very disappointing tournament.
During pre fish I had located good fish in several areas, which produced nothing in the tournament what so ever. I had to move around to fish new areas to catch what few fish I weighed in.
The best thing that happened was drawing my good friend Rich Halliwill who was in 1st place (AAA) going into the last day. Now I have to tell everyone that Rich talked all day long! You know though, Rich told me that the only person that talks more than him is Gary Dobyns, whom he fished with the day before, and was leading the tournament.
During our day he lost 2 fish and I lost 2 fish, which any of those 2 would have given him 1st place. At the end of the day as I prepared to leave our last spot, I had the trolling motor stowed and strapped down. Rich mentioned he that he has one on. As he's reeling it in the line knotted up around his pole. He had to hand line the keeper fish in, he gets it to the boat, and the fish turned and swam away and jumped right out of the net's reach and threw the bait! Talk about bad luck. I guess this isn't his time to win.
I felt bad that I could not make it happen for him; however he did wind up in 4th place with a nice check.
Congratulations to Gary Dobyns, he has been working hard to win this for several years, and is very deserving of this prestigious title.
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