Tell Me About Your First Tournament!

[MSWV]

Me and my brother have been fishing since we were pre-teens, mostly wading, floating in rafts, or in our 9.9 horsepowered jon boat, but we havent fished out of a bass boat until recently..  We have signed up for our first tournament which is a buddy tournament that will have 50-75 boats..  Were a little nervous.. We are both very competitive and Im sure we will prob have fun but Im sure we will learn a lot..haha

 

Does anyone have any good first tournament stories?  How did your first tournament go??   

[HookdUP]

My first tournament I didn't have a fish Til an hour before it was over then ran down a bank and caught 20 lbs .... Won 2nd and big fish ... Felt like I was about to be the next kvd after that lol ....

[ColdSVT]

I caught two good ones in the first ten mins of my first tourny ( a 3 and 4.5)

Those were the only two i weighed that day lol

[Bluebasser86]

My first tournament I never had anything that I was sure was a bite and it never got above 40 degrees. 

[sprint61]

Cought the fattest 14 and 3/4" fish ive ever cought. Couldn't make it bump 15" for nothing lol.

[ol salty]

My first tournment was the most anti climactic scenerio ever. I joined a club over the winter. Had 2 months to prepare for my first tournment. Stayed up late playing with my fishing stuff. Then layed in the bed with my eyes pegged open with anticipation for a few hours. The short night and no sleep didnt phaze me. I was focused dude! Jumped in the truck and headed for lake sardis. After the 3 hour drive at 3 in the morning I arrived at the ramp. Only to see 10 guys standing around shaking thier heads. With 30 to 35mph winds smackin the bank they canceled the derby. I was sooo disappointed! Crushed! I was ready to risk it all!I thought these guys fished rain or shine! Since then ive bought a boat of my own and fished several tounments. It only took one day on the water in my own boat with about 20mph winds for me to finally understand and agree with their call that morning.

[EmersonFish]

My first tournament was 'The Grand Challenge' down in Oklahoma, probably about 15 years ago. Caught one fish. Don't remember the weight, although I still have the slip somewhere. Needless to say, it was humbling. Never have done worth a darn at Grand Lake for some reason.

[WIGuide]

My first tourney was an interesting experience. It was held the weekend before the normal inland season started on the Mississippi River. Prefishing was minimal due to that fact but my partner had fished the river "quite a bit". I was super excited the night before and could hardly sleep. After waking up before my alarm went off (not a morning person so that's pretty impressive for me) I chugged a few Monsters and decided to chatter like a little school girl the 40 minute or so drive to the ramp. The temp had dipped the night before farther than they had said, leaving us with temps in the high 30's at take off. I came prepared though, I had brought hand warmers that I bought the night before....only problem is none of them worked. For about the first hour I was sitting in the back of the boat thawing out. My partner caught a decent smallie off a wing dam and we were on the board. We continued to fish the entire stretch of wing dams to not have as much as another bite. We take off towards our primary area and he decides to stop at a point that he's done well on in the past and continue to not get bit. We finally make it to our primary area, a fairly small creek where we had found them the weekend before, only to discover it's a city of boats that day. We managed to scrounge out 1 small keeper largemouth before the end of the day. We ended up in 10th out of 14. I definitely learned a lot that day!

[Felix77]

I was very spoiled with my first tournament.  It was a pike team tournament my club uses as a warm up on Ticonderoga.  I was quite the novice but my partner and I worked out a plan.  Little did I know that what I was using was going to be the ticket.  My spinnerbait just seemed to be what they were biting on that day.  My partner, who was also new to me was fantastic.  He said if that is what they are biting on then you keep catching them and he will net and cull them.

 

We won!    Quite the intro to the club.  LOL

[gulfcaptain]

When I was a jr in HS, joined a Wednesday night bass club team tournaments on the lake I lived on in Okla.  First tournament, well I got grouded for something stupid which I don't remember at this point, my Dad fished with my partner, I got to go to the weigh in that evening.  They won, I watched.  Got to fish the next week, but of course we didn't catch any that night.  But that was my intro into any kind of bass tournament.  

[scaleface]

My first club tournament ,I got skunked . My first open tournament I caught a 6 lb drum right off the bat. LOL and got skunked on bass .

[corn-on-the-rob]

Last year in the spring, first college club tourney. Cold weather and water on a tough lake. Got stuck in the boat with 3 people and fished in the back. Everyone fished against each other, there was no angler/coangler division.

 

I started off the day so excited/nervous it was like I had never casted before in my life! Very inaccurate and set the hook at everything. I finally settled down, got 2 bites all day, boated them both. Got 3rd out of about 13. With 2 fish I wasn't expecting much but no one was catching much that day. I was happy with how it went.

[Trenton]

Opened the gates and caught 8 banging cranks off submerged trees. Weighed in our limit and took 5th out of 22 and had a nice 4lb get off at the boat that would have given us 2nd easy. All in all so stressful lol but super fun we made top 10 in points on the year and have our classic tomorrow. Can't wait for this years tournaments to start

[Catt]

Henderson Fishing Rodeo July 4th 1966

Henderson Swamp, Henderson Louisiana

Finished 9th out of 50 registered anglers

I was only 15

[slonezp]

First real club tournament with my son as my "buddy", I only remember 2 things. I remember some guy had a paint job on his truck that blended right into the gel coat on his boat. Right after that, I remember my son who was 14 or 15 says, "Dad, You've got the $#ittiest boat here"  

[StinkyBass]

My first tournament really put me and my buddy to the test. His boat motor was too big for the lake we were fishing so we had to borrow a friends ragged 9.9 hp 14 foot jon boat. and when i say ragged, i mean ragged. Blast off (not really blast off in a 9.9 LOL) was at 7am, we were in the first set to leave. we got the trolling motor going to get us into deeper water but my buddy couldnt get the 9.9 to fire up. everybody was given the signal to go and our motor still hadnt started! 20 minutes later with the trolling motor on 10, and after the last set of boats passed us, i noticed a small can of engine starter... 5 mintutes later we got it to fire up. needless to say rough start. the day was rough all the way around. it was late march and the day after a massive cold front. it was 38 degrees with a constant 10 mph NW wind with gusts up to 20 mph. I kid you not, it started snowing! i caught a fish around 9:30am only to be disappointed by a 2.5lb pickerel. with 40 minutes left in the tourney, by buddy hooks into a scruffy looking 2.4lb bass. with our tails between our legs we motored back to the dock. come to find out, our 2.4 pounder won the tourney AND big bass as it was the ONLY bass caught that day! i learned to stick with it and sometimes you just need to shut up and fish!

[Basseditor]

1983 my first tournament. It was cold in March and not knowing better my friend and I camped out. We froze. I drew an older gentleman who was blind in one eye. All the boats were bobbing around just outside the marina wake less area. Shotgun start.

The signal to go comes. He puts the throttle all the way down. Unfortunately he had the steering wheel turned all the way to the right. Front end of boat swings up and hard turn and we missed the boat to our right by a frog's hair.

I had never even been on the lake. He didn't practice either. We both blanked. Next day I drew a veteran who limited and I got two. But I didn't feel good. The flu was coming on. I barfed all the way home on the 5-hr. drive that took 8 hrs because we had to stop for me to jump out and spill my guts multiple times.

[IndyGlockMan]

Early April this year, Patoka Lake, Indiana.  Froze our butts off and caught 2 undersize fish in the last hour of the tournament as co-angler.

The boater got skunked, but we had a great time anyway.

[papajoe222]

My first tourney was a big bass rollover at my local club (the club owns a series of strip pits), biggest bass over 5lb. wins. No 5lb. fish and the purse rolls over until the next week.  Fish that size are rare in those waters, though there are some 7lb.+. Anyway, on the 5th week, I tied into a monster and was within earshot of two other boats. I started trash talking as I reeled her in. About a minute into the fight I realized it wasn't a bass by the way it was fighting. I did everything in an attempt to loose that 8lb. drum, but she wouldn't come unbuttoned. I was the brunt of a ton of ribbing at weigh in and for quite a while after.

[Big Kahuna Ranch]

My buddy and I fished a open tournament on our home town lake.

We went out Wednesday before the tournament and prefished.

Found some nice bass back up in a creek near an old bridge.

Then we went out to some deep water points and found some more nice ones.

 

Come tournament day we are set. We hit the creek to get our five limit, but it had rained the night before and the whole creek was muddy. Nothing there.

We hit the mouth of another creek and caught one two pounder.

By the time we got out to the deep water points the wind had picked up and we were fighting three to four foot white caps.

Needless to say we got soaking wet, no more fish and my first tournament was in the books.

[Dtrombly]

My first tournament I was bank fishing with an aerated cooler as a live well, lol. 90 degrees out and didn't get bit until an hour left in the day, working a frog on a weed edge and got back to back blow ups, landed one of the fish, a 1lb 13oz largemouth. That was the only fish I weighed in and still finished 3rd out of 10 anglers. Winning bag was 6lb 13oz. Was a tough day for everyone 

[JigMaster4]

My first tourney was last year, and I am in highschool so another person was my captain. Caught 2 fish in the first hour or so, and it was looking pretty good. We decide to move, and the key broke off with half of it in the ignition. We had to set the trolling motor on high and get to the nearest ramp and get picked up by a friend.

[CroakHunter]

On 5/3/2015 at 10:29 AM, IndyGlockMan said:

Early April this year, Patoka Lake, Indiana.  Froze our butts off and caught 2 undersize fish in the last hour of the tournament as co-angler.

The boater got skunked, but we had a great time anyway.

Gotta love patoka early in the year. 

[Skeeter Dan]

Got Skunked !!!!! on a cold and rainy day in Feb.

[IndianaFinesse]

It was an interesting experience...  Fishing out of a 14 foot aluminum rigged with a 9.9 HP motor we caught a small limit of bass that weighed about ten pounds.  We were close to getting dq'd for being late, the guy heading the tournament up walked over and told us that if we would have been ~35 seconds later he would have disqualified us.  Which wouldn't have bothered me much, but we were the second boat out of eight to arrive!  The other six were late (including the winners) but not a word was said about them.

 

Then when we went to get our fish bumped, the same guy that was in charge of the tourney dumped our fish in the sink with a golden rule in the bottom of it, and with out even individually measuring the fish he tossed three of them back.  They were all within an inch and a half of the minimum, but all were legitimately keepers and he didn't even really measure them.  Then a couple of his buddies brought in a couple obviously short fish (the minimum was 15" and they didn't look 12") but he let them slide and was even ribbing them about bringing in dinks!

 

 

 

Still got third place, but it ticked me off enough that I haven't competed in that club since.