The day before the tournament started, I found an insanely large school of bass at the mouth of a feeder creek in Tiger Lake (one of the connector lakes located near Kissimmee). Just before I found those fish, my plan was to hit the rocky canals, get a quick limit then try to get some bigger fish out of the matts in Toho. I wish I had stuck with my original plan. I spent an hour and fifteen minutes getting to those fish only to find a local on the spot (not that it mattered, the fish were gone). I spent another hour fishing for the fish that were no longer there only to get blanked on the spot that I had caught 14lbs on in 20 minutes the day before. I pretty much panicked after that. I went to a spot that I had minimal success on during practice and managed to get some fish going on a topwater bite (warrior buzz frog, that thing is sick over hydrilla) but I didnt really capitalize. I lost two really nice fish and only managed to get 3 keepers in the box. Ahh.... but the excuses continue, I got really deep into the vegetation and managed to clog my Yamaha hpdi with hydrilla which in turn over heated my motor. A call to the B.A.S.S. director gave me the permission to hit up Boat Boys in Newark Ohio for some TECH SUPPORT!!! (i love me some movie quotes, Vanilla Sky) They managed to walk me through the process of cleaning out my engine. It worked but only after I had lost about another hour and a half of fishing. My first major tournamet started off with a resounding thud, concluding with a first day weight of 3lbs and some change, which put me into 150th place out of 194. I guess it could have been alot worse, there was a handful of guys that zeroed the first day. Things would get better on day 2 but those fish I lost really ended up costing me.
I'll tell you all about it on the next one.
later, S.T.P.
No comments:
Post a Comment