As somebody called it on my forums this morning, I had a Timex Moment
yesterday.

My partner and I had gotten out on the river twice in afternoon last week to
prefish, and we had not really put anything together. I found a semi solid
pattern in one lake and I knew of another lake on the river with a lot
larger area just like it. He didn't want to go there during the Yuma
Bassmasters tournament yesterday. Instead he wanted to try and catch some
fish we had sighted closer to the marina. I caught 4 keepers and 6-8 dinks
in the first few hours throwing finesse plastic to them. We ground on that
for a while, but by late morning it was all we had.

I trailered the boat briefly to make it easier to clear the thermostats
because the engine was not coming up to full temperature. There was sand in
both stats holding them open slightly. Back in the water and the engine
came up to full temperature and we were off. We headed for a spot we had
stuck a couple keepers a few days earlier. My partner flipped a 2+ headed
into the area we wanted to hit. We fished the "spot." It was a small spot.
I kept my mouth shut, but didn't have much confidence in it. I suspect it
was a spot that would always hold a fish or two, but would only hold a
couple. We got nothing there. We carefully flipped the area were my
partner had flipped one on the way in for nothing, and then I worked over
the mouth of an old channel that was brushed in to pick off our last keeper
of the day. It was another two plus for our first cull of the day, and our
last fish in the boat.

If we had headed in right then we would have won, and even gotten big fish
of the day, but we decided to flip some cover hoping for a kicker fish. We
had almost 11 pounds and our big fish was pushing 3. We had an hour and a
half to weigh in so we flipped a short stretch of main river cover that has
produced in the past, and then hot a pocket at a major current break in a
back channel. I glanced at my watch and it was 2 minutes after weigh in.
Fudge!

We were DQed. Yuma Bassmasters adopted WON rules a couple years ago. They
say you must be in the host marina rods down motoring towards the weigh dock
at weigh in time or you are DQed. No per minute late penalty. Just flat
out DQ. I didn't want to weigh our fish but when I heard 1st place only had
10.15 pounds I let it slip that if we weren't idiots we would have won.
Then they pressured us to bring our fish up. 10.74 and 2.78 big fish. Not
a great bag for the river, but it would have been good enough yesterday.
Oh, well. Live and learn. LOL.

I started to post just now that I never won a tournament with that low of
weight, but then I recall I did win one a few years ago with only 7 pounds,
so I guess we have no excuse. We just screwed up. All I can do is laugh.

As one fellow commented I either need glasses or I need to get my mom to
stop by and teach me how to tell time all over again. LOL.

Bob La Londe
www.YumaBassMan.com