The final installment of The Adventures of Blue goes to Lake Fork is tournament day. Launch was 7am, lines in at 7:30, lines out at 6:30pm. 11 long hours on the water. I wasn’t sure where to start but settled on a dock that I’d found with several crappie beds on it that I’d caught a couple out of in practice. I spent a lot of cast slowly picking the cover apart with a very light T rig, which the light weight seemed to be key for me to get bites. I finally got a fish to go, but it was only a small 14.50” fish. 15 minutes later I was working a weightless Yamatanuki through the brush when another fish picked it up. Keeper number 2 was another dink, only 13.75”. I picked the cover apart for a while and had one really thump the Tanuki once, but no more fish. I slid over to the next dock and pitched the T rig into a small hole and felt pressure. The fish sliced under the dock after the hookset and my line pinged under the edge of the dock. At the end of the dock there was an old piece of rope I didn’t see hanging in the water, the fish got wrapped and tangled in the rope and was threatening to rip free. I stabbed with the net and got her. Keeper number 3 was a 21.75” fish.
I had a long dry spell with just a couple dinks on a shakyhead out of some trees on a point. I worked into the point I caught my 8.23 and was pitching into a gap in the grass under the bushes when I had another pressure bite. I slammed the rod back and saw a big flash, and then she was gone. I hadn’t lost a big fish all week until then. I didn’t use braid because the light weight and wind wasn’t a good combination but it bit me on that fish. It was almost 1pm when I finally got another bite, keeper number 4 was another 13” fish on the T rig. Then at 2pm I caught 2 keepers on back to back cast on the shakyhead, a 12.25” fish, then I immediately culled it with a 13.50” fish. I had 4 hours left to fish and only about 76”. I fished a couple more areas before I decided to work back through where I had caught my big fish in practice. The first pocket produced nothing. The next one was the one with the bushes that I’d lost the big one earlier and caught my 8.23 in practice. I was picking apart some bushes with the T rig and pretty zoned out when I dropped my bait and when I lifted, I saw a big white flash and my line started moving for deeper water. The fish when nuts on the hookset, thrashing all over the surface and was quickly in the net. The fish was a better boat fish than a kayak fish, 20.75” and a hair over 7 pounds.
It was just after 5 and the wind laid down, I felt like maybe I could make a late move. I was fishing a senko through a tree where I missed one earlier in the day when I caught a small fish. When I hooked that fish, it was stuck for just a second, and I never checked my line. Right there was the trees I caught my 8.23 off of, and one of my first cast to them got picked up. The fish swam to open water so I let it swim away before I set the hook. The fish was heavy, and the. I saw that it was maybe my biggest of the day. I had it open water, it was mine, just wear her down. She fought and surged and dove under the kayak, and broke my line. I was completely defeated at that moment. That fish should have been mine and I made a careless mistake and it cost me. I never got another bite and ended with 84.25”, good enough for 60th out of 145 anglers.
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