I fished my first tournament the other day with a local guy I met. I'm 21 years old and have previously owned a boat and have fished all my life. I know how to fish pretty well. I backed the boat, offered snacks, money, help with clean up. It seemed whenever we were on the lake for practice he couldn't go ten minutes without yelling at me for something. If he had a problem with his boat, he yelled at me, if he got snagged, yelled at me, if I got snagged, yelled at me. The night before Tournament day, I told him I'd make jigs with his mold, he said he'd gladly split all I made for my efforts. Well I made 100 of them and come the end of tournament day I ended up only keeping 17 that I left at home because I didn't have time to finish. He said he knew he said that but he out way more into fishing then I did. Started listing things like gas, boat parts, insurance, etc. I finally said whatever. Come tournament day the yelling and complaining was even worse. He kept telling me how ticked he was that I didn't switch out my line for all flouro "like he told me to". Every time I got snagged I just broke off, so as not to make him go out of his way to get it un snagged(that made him angry). Well he didn't like that I broke off either. He'd start yelling at me for not having my line in the water and blame it on the fact that I was using braid with a leader and that in the only idiot on the lake using braid with a leader. I caught fish all day, and I believe I ended up with the 3 biggest fish in our bag. He stil wasn't happy with me. He would complain if I took a drink, had to retie my line, really anything that normally happens while fishing. I asked him to give me notice when we were changing spots to make sure I was ready as to not hold him up, he never gave me notice at all and would flip if i say down 5 seconds after him. I caught at least 2 smallies over 4 and got excited, he told me not to and I better hurry up and get my line in the water. It was just a horrible first experience. He told me he wanted to fish another tourny this weekend, but that I had to have all flouro on my reels or I couldn't go. I just said I'll pass because I'm not going to be told how to fish, what line to use, how to jig my Baits, how to scratch my a$$, etc. I felt like I was in some kind of fishing bootcamp. There was a few points throughout the day I was ready to swim back to shore. If this is how tournament fishing as a co angler is going to be I'm ready to cut my losses and be done with it. I was miserable and unhappy and I'm really not hard to get along with, I aim to please and be helpful. I have thousands invested in tournament fishing this year. I could've bought a used bass boat for what my gear and tackle costed me. Then after the tourny he asked if I had "fun"........I was polite and said sure. We came in 7th and I had second biggest fish so I guess I was pretty satisfied in that aspect. Is this common fishing as a co angler? Do boaters normally treat people this way? He could of at least not screwed me over by keeping all the jigs I spent 6 hours making for us...sorry for the rant but it's just a let down from how excited I was to fish.
