4K top prize yesterday (Bass Tournament) Kinda Long

Well, fished my first tournament of the year, on my home body of water,
Lake Winnebago. I will say nothing went right yesterday, nothing
really at all. If there is one wind I am not prepared for on Lake
Winnebago (prepared meaning , no ace in the hole spots) is a South wind
blowing hard. I woke up at 3am (register at 4:30) to winds out of the
South at 10-15 mph with gusts up to 20. I thought nothing of it because
storms were moving in , and that almost always switches the wind to the
SSW or even straight W which makes my side of the lake dead calm. We
arrived at our first spot fishing out of a friend of mines boat (we used
his, so it was my first time in the back of a boat in a LONG time). I
connected right away on a 14.25" smallie (won't cut it). My partner
broke one off, little did I know that set the tone for the rest of the
day for him. The storms rolled in, and we got rained on for the first 3
hours of the tournament, but the wind never came around, it actually
went counter to what it should have and start blowing out of the SSE,
which makes the west side of the lake miserable, we are talking 4'
waves. Pretty much eliminating all our smallmouth water.

Too make a longer story short, I ended up landing 4 legal largemouth
giving us 5 legals (6 allowed), and heading back to the weigh in. My
partner did not land a legal fish, but did break off another at the side
of the boat. I felt really bad for him, because he was trying so hard
to, in his words, pull his weight. He apologized to me non stop all
day, and kept telling me he had never struggled like that in his life.
I believed him and reassured him it didn't matter, we'll weigh in what
we have and just get our money back. Well we started to run across
another small body of water (Lake Butte Des Morts) heading back to the
weigh in. It was very very rough, wind was blowing constant at 20 mph,
and his rod straps opened up and we almost lost all of our rods (Would
have never happened with the rod buckles that are in my boat (thanks
Steve :-) )). So we had to stop and reset everything that we could
continue the pounding across the lake, and we literally got abused by
the waves.

We reached the no-wake zone with 2 minutes to spare. In all my
tournaments out of this area , there has been a check-in boat at the
no-wake zone (about 500 yards from the beginning of the no-wake to the
bridge in Winneconne) so that nobody tries to run through the no-wake in
order to make it back in time. As long as you were in the no wake by
the alloted time (2:45pm in this case) you were ok. Well I could see a
bass boat up at the bridge so I said they have us checked we are fine.
Neither of us thought much of it till we reached the bridge and the bass
boat was just a guy and his wife fishing. So as we crossed under the
bridge, we saw the check in boat way around the corner ,and as we came
up he asked if we had any fish, and if so, to dump them. We got
DQ'd......We had nobody to protest to. It just pretty much added a
little more salt to the wound. My partner left a message on my cell
phone this morning apologizing again, he really is taking it hard, no
matter how much I reassure him it was a team effort, and that we cannot
be on all the time. Turns out my partner in his last 3 tournaments this
year on Winnebago had finished 1st, 4th, and 6th (I knew this ahead of
time), and the thought of us not finishing in the top 5 never crossed
him mind, and that, I thanked him for!

Chris

Sorry things went so rough for ya Chris (no pun intended); You've got the
right attitude & I'm sure your next one will go better pal, good luck.

A few weeks ago I was in one & after sacking a limit I went to cull a fish
only to find that my livewell was malfunctioning - had to let all my fish go
& ended up with no weight.

Stuff happens...

WW

"Chris Rennert" wrote in message
.. .
Well, fished my first tournament of the year, on my home body of water,
Lake Winnebago. I will say nothing went right yesterday, nothing really
at all. If there is one wind I am not prepared for on Lake Winnebago
(prepared meaning , no ace in the hole spots) is a South wind blowing
hard. I woke up at 3am (register at 4:30) to winds out of the South at
10-15 mph with gusts up to 20. I thought nothing of it because storms
were moving in , and that almost always switches the wind to the SSW or
even straight W which makes my side of the lake dead calm. We arrived at
our first spot fishing out of a friend of mines boat (we used his, so it
was my first time in the back of a boat in a LONG time). I connected
right away on a 14.25" smallie (won't cut it). My partner broke one off,
little did I know that set the tone for the rest of the day for him. The
storms rolled in, and we got rained on for the first 3 hours of the
tournament, but the wind never came around, it actually went counter to
what it should have and start blowing out of the SSE, which makes the west
side of the lake miserable, we are talking 4' waves. Pretty much
eliminating all our smallmouth water.

Too make a longer story short, I ended up landing 4 legal largemouth
giving us 5 legals (6 allowed), and heading back to the weigh in. My
partner did not land a legal fish, but did break off another at the side
of the boat. I felt really bad for him, because he was trying so hard to,
in his words, pull his weight. He apologized to me non stop all day, and
kept telling me he had never struggled like that in his life. I believed
him and reassured him it didn't matter, we'll weigh in what we have and
just get our money back. Well we started to run across another small body
of water (Lake Butte Des Morts) heading back to the weigh in. It was very
very rough, wind was blowing constant at 20 mph, and his rod straps opened
up and we almost lost all of our rods (Would have never happened with the
rod buckles that are in my boat (thanks Steve :-) )). So we had to stop
and reset everything that we could continue the pounding across the lake,
and we literally got abused by the waves.

We reached the no-wake zone with 2 minutes to spare. In all my
tournaments out of this area , there has been a check-in boat at the
no-wake zone (about 500 yards from the beginning of the no-wake to the
bridge in Winneconne) so that nobody tries to run through the no-wake in
order to make it back in time. As long as you were in the no wake by the
alloted time (2:45pm in this case) you were ok. Well I could see a bass
boat up at the bridge so I said they have us checked we are fine. Neither
of us thought much of it till we reached the bridge and the bass boat was
just a guy and his wife fishing. So as we crossed under the bridge, we
saw the check in boat way around the corner ,and as we came up he asked if
we had any fish, and if so, to dump them. We got DQ'd......We had nobody
to protest to. It just pretty much added a little more salt to the wound.
My partner left a message on my cell phone this morning apologizing again,
he really is taking it hard, no matter how much I reassure him it was a
team effort, and that we cannot be on all the time. Turns out my partner
in his last 3 tournaments this year on Winnebago had finished 1st, 4th,
and 6th (I knew this ahead of time), and the thought of us not finishing
in the top 5 never crossed him mind, and that, I thanked him for!

Chris