So I get a call Friday afternoon from a member of my bass club. I fished a club event with him last year and he asked if I wanted to go fishing in like a hour. I told him sure and an hour latter I went and met up with him at the boat ramp. I jump out greeted him and asked where he wanted me to set my rods. He looks at me funny and says "Your not who I thought I called". I didn't understand because he called me by my first name. He told me he knew another person with the same first name. I told him ok but do you want to fish with me (It's past 5pm with only a couple hours of light). He actually has the gaul to wait a couple seconds and tell me ok as long as I didn't share his spots with anybody.
So we set out and ran all the way across the lake. We go bye another boat ramp and there is like 15 boats lined up. I turn to him and say "It looks they are having a tourney or something.". He responds "Ya that's what we're doing 6pm until midnight. Didn't I tell you?". I looked at him with my mouth wide open and told him "No!". He paid my way but I think he'd like me to pay him back and I offered to give him some cash at our next club event. He didn't say anything like "No problem, I invited you and I didn't even tell you it was a tourney. So I got this one." or any other response I would said in his situation. We wait around to 6pm and take off. I was actually eager to fish with him since I fished my first tourney with him and knew I had improved a great deal in the style if fishing he likes. I asked what it usually takes to win this tourney. He told my usually 10lbs or 11lbs wins it. I was shocked until I remembered the crazy slot on this lake. For this tourneys sake as a boat you can have 2 fish over 18inches and two fish between 12 and 14inches. Usually this lake lets you keep a crap load under 14 but for this tourney they also had to be over 12inches. Leaving a crazy slot for your 2 unders!
Well we got to his first spot and we tried to locate his first brush pile in 15-20ft of watter. He's got his big worm on and that's all this guy ever throws. The dude puts a hat over his worms to hide them as if everybody doesn't already know what he's throwing LOL. I started out with my new SK Thumper worm but switched to a finesse jig with a rage craw to catch a few fish a break the ice. It wasn't but a couple casts later and I hauled in my first small 11'1/2 inch fish. I catch another that size at that spot and release it too. He doesn't have any bites and we move to another location. Here we are fishing a deep break and after a few minutes I hook up with another small one. This time it barely hits 12 inches. He tells me if it's that close just release it. This was a mistake and I regretted it as soon as I let go. After neither of us have any more bites we move on.
The sun sets and the moon comes out in all it's glory. The bad news was so did the mosquitoes. We put on the bug spray and kept at it. The next spot was of course deep but I can't tell you to much because I couldn't see a thing despite the moon. I finally located a ditch that had some rocks while my partner focused on the point I could make out. By this time I had switched over to a Mop Jig with a Rage Lobster to offer a big presence. This combo paid off!! I get a good thumb in the rocks and hauled as much line as I could on the hookset. A few seconds later and we have our first over at 20inches! I felt allot better to have a keeper in the live well and to be showing this guy who didn't mean to invite me that he was lucky he did ;D!
Then disaster struck. I was fishing the same spot after a re dip of some JJ's Magic. My partner then casts at a backward angle and appears to have crossed my line. Well I'm the guest and non boater so I decide to quickly reel in and get out of his way. Well right away it felt heavy and I was saying to myself crap we're already tangled. I kept reeling and it gets heavier. I say I think are lines are crossed. He doesn't respond at all. It gets worse and I say "Ah man I think were tangled really bad!". He finally said to me "No I got my line right here we're not tangled. I thought to myself "OH SH**!" and said "Then I got a fish!". Right then the fish wakes up and finally knows he's hooked. She runs fast for deep watter and goes under the boat. I was unfamiliar with his boat and didn't know if I could around the motor or not and it all happened so fast. My partner was down by me with the net and my 7'8 heavy Carrot Stix was bent over like it was going to launch a arrow a 1000 yards. I was even cursing Boyd Ducket for making me worry my rod might break lol. Mentally I was freaking out because I knew I didn't have a good hook in her but it WAS HOLDING! I had reeled and reeled in line and still she wasn't up but I knew I only had a few feet more. Then POP I felt the jig come out and it shot out of the water with less the three feet of line left. I was serouisly bummed because I knew that fish was at least over 6lbs IMHO. I wished I had gone to the other side of the boat despite my worries of getting around the motor and a different angle possibly causing the hook to come out. What do you guys do in this situation do you try to set the hook again?
I was psyched and bummed at the same time after that fish. We left the area to let it cool down and he asked what jig I had. I told him and he asked if he could borrow one. I told him sure but I didn't have it in the same color (I didn't). He told ok then that's alright. I offered to let him use one of my other jig in the same color, he told me no thanks. Well we went fish less after that for some time. Then finally with about 45 min to weigh in he gets on the board. He set the hook on a good fish and I grabbed the net and shot up the boat. He kept saying keep the net in the boat until it's close. Mentally I was saying to myself "I know how to net a fish!". Right about then I go to net it and I'm freaking hung on one if his reels. He has his rod holder set up where his buts point to the co anger across the deck. This opposite of how I do it and I expect most others. At this point I cursed the darkness, the rods, and my partner for not mounting his rods like a normal person. Most of all I was cursing myself for being such a moron. All this happened in less then a second and then I yelled "**** IT! I'll LIP HER!". I stretch out over the boat and reach out and grabbed that girl like a teenager does his meat! She turned out to be another nice 20 inch fish. He told me he would have killed me if I had lost that fish. I told him I would have went swimming for that fish before I lost her. He goes on to tell me that happened to so and so as well. I hope he realizes now that might not be the best set up for his rods, but oh well we got the fish.
After that I switched back to my smaller jig in hopes of getting some other small fish. We only had a little time now before weigh in. We ran to a beaver pile and with 10 mins left I get a bite and set the hook. The fish felt decent but not huge. I was excited because that was the size we needed and then it jumped and threw the jig. At this point I was ticked LOL. Time runes out and we couldn't get any 12-14inch fish. Our bag ended up weighing a little over 9lbs and it took 11lbs to win. Like most anglers I can't help play the coulda, woulda, shoulda game. Heck I even had a half eaten thumper worm and two rage craw trailers eaten coming off hooksets. Who knows what those fish would have been.
All and all it was a good time and thanked my partner for the unintentional invite. I told him I loved to do it again but maybe next time let me know if it's a 6 hour midnight tourney ;D! I know it probably seemed like I was complaining about the guy but I do like him more then most do. He's got a bad rap in the club because he can be a ***. He often cuts people off, doesn't always slow down by a fellow angler when he's running ect. He even left a note on a fellow club members window because he had parked in a handicaed spot. Turned out the guy is legally allowed to and after things got blown out of proportion the other guy left the club. Despite all this he's a pretty good guy to fish with as long as you don't mind his quirks and I love being shown all the deep brush piles! ;D
Any way I didn't mean for this to go on so long. Here is a pick of our fish.
