Fishing trip from hell, part 2

Saturday morning I was the first boat out since I would be tournament director
the
next morning and last boat out. I headed straight for the hump where I had
found
fish the day before and stopped just off it. I picked up my crankbait rod and
made
one cast across the hump. This hump is marked and is about 150 feet off the
point. The river here is about a half mile wide. Before I could make a second
cast, I noticed a boat coming right toward me.

I assumed it was going to fish the point or the cove behind it since they
turned that way, but no, the idiots ran right over the brush pile on the hump I
was fishing. If they had been 15 feet closer to me they would have lost their
lower unit on a huge rock, and if they had been much more toward the point they
would have hit the dock there. Why they ran within 50 feet of me, between me
and the bank, when there was a half mile of open water behind me, I never
figured out. I asked around at weigh-in but no one would admit going up river
that morning and it was too dark for me to recognize them.

I fished the hump for about 30 minutes without a bite - I figured the boat
running
across it had messed it up. When I moved over to the point I caught a good
keeper spot on a Shadrap off the rocks, right where I had lost a similar sized
fish the day before. Working up the point I put a 13 inch largemouth in the
livewell - it hit a spinnerbait right on a dock.

After a while fishing that point and no bites I headed to a point with lots of
brush on it from8 to 15 feet deep. There I landed a 13 inch spot on a Carolina
rigged Zoom Trick worm and then a spot that was just barely a keeper - so
close I put it in the other live well, hoping to cull it.

By now it was about 9 and I had four keepers. I decided to try the buzzbait and
headed to the cove where I had gotten bites on Thursday. I had several hits
but did not hook any of them. Finally, I caught an 11 inch spot and decided
that is what was hitting.

Since I was catching fish less than a pound each and I had caught several fish
bigger than that up the river, I headed there. I fished my favorite rocky bank
and landed a 13 inch spot, then caught a 2 pound largemouth on a Zoom Mag 2
worm out of a blowdown. Across from it I landed another good keeper largemouth
of almost 2 pounds on a spinnerbait - so at 2:00 with almost three hours left I
had my 7 fish limit and was confident I could cull that tiny spot. I figured
my limit would weigh about 7 pounds - three of the spots were cigars.

Wrong - with only 30 minutes left I ran back down to the brush pile where I had
caught the two keepers that morning. I fished it till time to go in and landed
three
more short spots.

At weigh-in the 32 fishermen brought in 14 seven fish limits. It took 12 pounds
for
first, 11 for second on down to 9.5 for sixth. We pay back both days in this
tournament. Big fish was a pretty 4.78 pound spotted bass. Most of the bigger
bass hit topwater early that morning or spinnerbaits on bluff rocky banks in
the wind during the day.

My 7 weighed 7.86, a little better than I expected but good for about 15th
place.

While grilling a T-bone that night one of the legs on my grill slipped off its
base. I
reached under the grill with some tongs to move it back about the time another
leg
fell, and the bottom of the grill landed on the back of my hand. I had a nice
burn
about an inch wide running from my wrist to my knuckles - blisters popped up
and the skin was definitely medium-well. I wondered if I would be able to fish.
I put some Neosporin ointment on it and went to bed. It never hurt at all, and
still does not hurt, but looks really bad.

I guess the burn was my third bad luck, nothing else really bad happened.

Sunday morning I let all the others go and headed back to the hump where I had
started the day before. Just like then, nothing hit. When I moved to the point
and
fished the dock a good 2 pound largemouth hit my spinnerbait and I landed it.
Then I had another keeper pull off right at the boat. A little further a
little spot hit my spinnerbait - another one that just barely touched on the
Golden Rule. I put it in the cull live well.

I turned and went back around the point and landed my biggest fish of the
tournament, a 2.78 pound spot that hit a spinnerbait. When it hit my bait just
stopped and I thought I had hooked a stump for a second, then the spot cleared
the water and I about wet my pants. It looked much bigger!

I fished the point a while then worked back into a pocked and landed a 13 inch
spot out of a brush pile by a dock on the Carolina rig. Four in the boat with
about 5 hours left to fish. I went back out to the point and worked on up to
another
backout and landed a 12 inch largemouth on a Texas rigged Tiny Brush Hog. That
made five.

I now had about three hours left to fish and decided to stay on the main lake
banks since that is where I had landed my biggest bass. I slung the spinnerbait
running the bank, watching the depthfinder. Each time I went over brush I would
throw a worm to it. I landed a pile of 11 inch spots but no keepers. Finally a
solid 14 inch spot hit my spinnerbait but that was my last keeper - I never
could get the seventh one to fill my limit.

This time my six weighed 8.65 pounds and gave me 5th place for the day. First
was only 9.62 pounds - I really needed that seventh fish weighing a pound.
There were 9 more seven fish limits brought in Sunday.

Overall it took 14 weighing 19.77 for first. Big fish the second day was a 3
pound even spot. We had six spots over 3 pounds each in the tournament. My 13
weighing 16.51 was good for 6th overall out of 32 people.

I got home with no more problems. At least my boat did not sink!

Ronnie

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