Tournament Day
Have you ever had that dream where you're fishing a tournament and you arrive and forgot your gear? You know, rods and reels. Its kind of a nightmare. Well I laughed at something so stupid.
So up at 3 and on the road at 4. The wife is a trooper. Now Josh and I made an agreement that I would unhook the boat from the Roush and we would use his truck to launch, that way the wife could go back to the hotel for the day. It was perfect. Josh arrived and I began to unhook the Roush when I was distracted about something. Don't remember what it was, but finished it and as I pulled away I hear pop bang. WTH was that. Well apparently I had just pulled the emergency brake wire completely off the boat receiver. 
Uh oh, did the brakes lock on the boat? Josh hooked up the Ranger and backed up. The wheels were free. (Just a few days ago while preparing the boat at Rivers End, a guy in a ski boat popped his trailer right off the hitch and the cable locked his brakes. Helping him , it took over an hour to release his brakes and lift the trailer so he could put it back on the hitch.) (oh yeah, put a nice hole in his Mercedes SUV bumper) Ok kiss the wifey good by and on to the check in. Having pre registered we were boat 9. Josh was saying he hoped blast off went in order as he had found fish in Ramos Creek and wanted to get there before anyone else. (at this point the cloud should have been around my head). Boat check and launching was easy and I was able to ease the ranger to the left side of the dock and begin the process of preparing for the day. Forecast called for rain, but it hadn't started yet. OK now to get the rods. Luckily for me I put the spinning rods in the center compartment and pulled out the D/S and strolling baits. Now for the Spook and Chatterbait rods. As I go to unlatch the rod locker to my amazement its locked. I have 12 or more rods in there and its locked. Where are my keys.......... ? Why of course they're with the wife half way back to Angels Camp by now. What a dumb _$$ move on my part. But not to worry Greg at C&C Marine once told me that all the newer boat keys fit the rod lockers, so all I need to do is find a Ranger owner and use his key. (Now Josh takes everything in stride, and God Bless him he accepts it as Oh Well it is what it is. Its real close to blast off so there is no time to call the wifey and have her come back, but one of these Ranger guys must have a "locker key" with them. Well since they went to the push button start no one I mean NO ONE carries a locker key with them. Even the TD didn't have one. I trolling motored around to almost every Ranger I could find, which surprisingly was not a lot. Out of 48 boats there were maybe a handful of Rangers. Good thing the spinning rods were available. Then it started to rain. Great Rain. Then the announcement, Boat 12 will be the first flight, which means we were the forth from the last boat out. 
The hits just keep right on rolling. Off we go to Josh's spot and to our amazement there is no one there. The rain is slowing and you can see blue sky in the broken clouds. Josh begins with a rip bait and I my strolling bait. Within minutes we have our first keeper. A small Largie. After about an hour we have 3 in the well and FFS reveals they are chasing Josh's bait but won't commit. By 10 we have a 7lb limit and leave the area. As some of you may know, my eye sight is getting poorer with age so I wear a helmet when its cold and or raining. Its easier to see. Well, off we go towards Big Creek when Josh says to me We lost blah blah blah. Slowing so I can better hear him he's laughing saying we have to go back and get your helmet. That's right . The helmet flew right past Josh and out the back of the boat. I'm thinking to myself, can anything else happen, when it dawns on me not to ask because I might get an answer. Luckily the helmet floats and was bobbing like a floating log. Josh scoops it up and places it on the lower floor and off we go back to business at hand. Arriving there are several boats in the area, but we're going to the back. Sure enough the fish have repositioned around the corner and I finally catch a small fish on the stroll bait. Enough is enough, I tell Josh I'm eating lunch and dragging a minnow bait. As I prepare the chips and they won't fit near the windshield I already have opened my sandwich and gatorade when I see the chip bag start to fall over............as I reach for the chips, the sandwich falls off my lap onto the floor and the gatorade spills. What a poop show. Finishing lunch, Josh is going to eat his so I take the front and Josh drags a jig. Before he gets 2 bites into his lunch he sets the hook on a 2 1/2 largie. What a cull. Now we're wondering should we be dragging kigs? (of course my jig rod is ........yep in the loc 
ker. We are catching fish consistently, just not the ones we needed. Small culls are occurring and I've switched over to the D/S for awhile now. On a steep wall while dropshotting I get bit and set the hook. Josh askes net? I tell him no, its another small fish. Now there are several boats around us not catching anything and we are consistently catching fish to they're amazement. Anyway, while fighting this little guy I see Josh getting the net and wonder why. Now Josh is very tall a nd sees things differently then I do. As he moves towards me, the rod bends and the pull all of a sudden becomes harder.... the drag begins to sing and the fish is coming to the surface to jump. I shove my new Phoenix rod into the water ( I finally retired my G Loomis with the broken tip) when I see thew fish. It ain't no 1lbr. A few minutes go by and Josh nets a 3.25 or something like that spot. Its over 3 for sure. Time to move again, and while fishing our next area (we're just hunting for bigger fish) we watch Albert and Angelo racing by. Josh thinks they must have a 3 pm weigh in we have a 3:20. Josh hangs up his rip bait on a piece of wood and we spend a few minutes trying to retrieve it. Getting it back, Josh says we gotta go. We only have 10 minutes to go.(The last tournament we fished we were late and I never want to do that again) This is where team work helps as Josh preps the front of the boat I prep the back , Josh throws on his life vest and the big motor starts right up. Josh makes it to his seat and off we. The concerning part is as we were zooming down the lake, there were no other boats zooming. At least until we got nearer Fleming. We crossed the 5 mph buoys with 30 seconds to spare. I drop Josh off at the dock and start preparing for travel. Josh pulls us out of the water and I have the live wells on recirculate. As we proceed up the ramp and in line Josh gets out of the truck and says we're loosing a lot of water. I tell him were on recirculate and he has me switch to auto. The flow slows, but doesn't stop. As the line creeps along, I keep checking the live wells. With about 10 more boats to weigh before us the live wells are almost empty. We make the decision to go back down the ramp and refill the live wells. We figure that by the time we get back in line, we should be able to make it. And we do. Total weight 11.23 good for 33rd place, and a fun tournament, not to mention all the adventure. A big Thank You goes to Nick Sanches and all the volunteers . This was so much fun, I'll be back next year. (Not so sure about the wife though) It was such a shame to loose Ryan at such a young age a blessed individual if there was one. Check out the FB page Ed Lacy/Ryan Cook Memorial Tournament video with the 7 year old and you'll see what I mean.
Next up, The Christian Bass League Championship on May 3rd, the Windy Wednesday Nights pre season starting on May 7th I believe.
TL y'all
FE
PS Congratulations to Bryant and Brian Barber on the win and all the participants. a 6+ was BF I think.
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