NWC day 2 (long)

Day 2 started with another surprise when I got to the boat landing.
The parking lot was completely full as another tournament that Steve
didn't know about had left at 7:00. Our tournament would be leaving
at 8:00. There were also multiple boats going out to prefish for a big
open tournament there in 2 weeks. Chris informed me that most of the
boats had gone under the railroad trestle and headed south, just where
I was going. I told Brandon to be mentally prepared as would likely be
fishing used water with boats around us. It had been fairly quite on
Friday.

I stuck to my plan and headed south to a weed bed below the highway 86
bridge. When we stopped Brandon had counted 12 to15 boats that he
could see in the general area although no one was exactly where I went.
After the tough fishing with crankbaits on Friday I had been thinking
of other ideas on how to get those fish to bite and was going to try
and finesse then with slider worms. Brandon had a crankbait on after I
had talked to him about the pattern and within 3 casts he had a
smallmouth hooked. It was short but it convinced me to go back to what
I had been doing the day before so I picked up my crankbait rod and
started casting. For the next 2 hours we had almost nonstop action.
We never went more than 10 to 15 minutes without one of us hooking a
bass. Most of the fish were short but I was getting a good keeper
about every half hour. Brandon was also getting some good hits but he
was having a hard time feeling the fish. Running crankbaits through
cabbage is hard work and you really have to concentrate and cast
accurately to try and hit little holes and openings or your biat will
be continually fouled. Every once in awhile I would hear him say
"shoot, that was a bass". He was still happy to have the activity
after the slow start on Friday. By 9:30 I had 3 solid keepers in the
boat and we were still catching short fish. I tried to teach Brandon
one of my tricks but he was having nothing to do with it. When I would
catch a short fish I would hold it up in front of my face and tell it,
" where is your mama". Brandon would give me that look like I have
seen from my wife many times before and then laugh. I'm guessing
that he was trying to figure out how to get out of the boat if I got
any crazier. By 10:00 we had a boat in front of us and a boat behind
us and no where to go unless we wanted to keep working the same water
so I made the decision to head up river to some other weed beds.

At this point the action slowed and we were going roughly 45 minutes
between catching short fish. Finally I got another keeper out of a
weed bed around noon. After pinching it's tail it just went over the
14 inch mark so in the livewell it went and that was number 4.
Sometime during the morning I caught my first pike and when I picked it
up to remove the crankbait with my hand Brandon said "are you going
to do that again, didn't you learn anything from yesterday." After
that I started to use a needle nose to remove the hooks. Besides the
weed beds I had also caught some fish in practice off of stumps but
most of the stump fields had boats in them so we stuck to the cabbage.
Around 1:00 we worked a small cabbage hump that had a single stump on
one end. We went around it several times working the cabbage and
banging our crankbaits off the stump. Right before we were going to
leave I told Brandon that I was going to pitch a tube jig to the stump
as it just looked to good sitting there by itself. I pitched to it 3
times with no takers but on the 4th pitch I felt a hit. I set the hook
and was snagged. As I moved over the top of it to retrieve my jig,
when I lowered my rod I felt my line move. I had a fish on pinned in
the roots. We moved around that stump for 5 minutes trying to get that
fish out but either it was wrapped around the roots or it just wasn't
moving. I called Brandon to the front deck and handed him my rod. I
then started to take off my shirt. He gave me that look again that I
had seen earlier in the morning and asked what I was doing. I told him
I was going in after it. He asked me if I really wanted to be reaching
around down there when we had no idea what was down there but nothing
was going to stop me at this point. I laid down on the front deck and
held the stump with my right hand, put the line in my left hand and
slid my hand down into the stump as far as I could reach. Apparently
the fish had enough at that point and came shooting out. I pulled
tight on the line and lifted up a nice 15 and one half inch smallmouth.
I was so happy that I didn't notice that the power pro had cut my
finger open at the joint but right now I wasn't feeling any pain. I
had my 5th keeper in the boat.

At this point I was done. Wisconsin has a no-cull rule and Steve said
has was enforcing it for the tournament so once you put a fish in the
livewell you couldn't remove it. I asked Brandon if he had any
places he wanted to go as we still needed to get him some fish. He had
a few spots that he and Steve had prefished so we went to those areas
and I ran the trolling motor for him. He had one fish that was just
short of 14 inches but couldn't get anything to measure. On our last
spot as I was getting ready to head for the landing the release rope on
the trolling motor broke and I couldn't unlock the motor. Since we
were just a short distance from the landing I slowly idled as Brandon
worked to retie the rope. He got it tied up and we got back in on
time.

At the landing my wife drove the boat on the trailer and then looked in
the livewell. When she saw all the fish on the one side she asked me
which one of us had the good day. I told here they were mine and she
was happy for me. Now it was just time to wait and see what everyone
else had done. I assumed if we were having a good day that someone
else had found some too. My only scare came when Doc came up to us and
said that Ronnie had 5 fish. When I told Doc that I did too he looked
at me and said he was just kidding. I'm guessing by my look he knew
that I wasn't. One by one people weighed in and it became clear that
my fish were enough for 1st place.

Everyone had a great time at the Huber's as always. Door prizes were
handed out and awards given. I once again won a wonderful Steve Huber
signature rod. The one I got last year was awesome and I'm sure this
years is too. I can't wait to get a reel on it and try it out. I
took a bunch of ribbing for winning again and Ronnie told me that I
can't come back after he made the 2 wins and you are out rule. I was
also told that I need to get to the Southern Classic so I won't be
fishing home water. I hope to make it down there one of these years. I
want to thank Steve and Janet for holding another great event. They
work very hard to make this enjoyable for everyone. If some who is as
introverted as me can have a good time then anyone can. I would like
to thank everyone who donated gifts. Everyone leaves with plently of
things. Ronnie, I gave that tackle box to my son in hopes that it will
help encourage him to fish more. I want to thank God for answering my
prayers and if Ronnie backs down on his rule, hopefully I will see all
of you again next year.

Gary