04/29/2025
Finished my first tournament with only my rod in my hand. I don't know if I'm going to change the back to how I used to fish. I do know I need a mount for my display, my neck is sore. Thank God it was a good day for a boat ride in the Nitro Boats. The 350 Mercury Marine got us from no fish to no fish in a hurry all day checking spots.
I spent all week thinking I was going to be fishing
in the weather on Saturday. I believe we should have fished. A lot of fish were caught out east with guys practicing out that direction. I thought we would have fished in the weather, and that wouldn't have been an option. The weather came as predicted at 330am and it got canceled, blaming the fishsble water as trashed. Never heard such a thing for a tournament, but oh well.
With nice weather to fish on Sunday I went as far east as I was comfortable and thought I could find fish. I ended up finding a nice length of fish, but they were and that's not what you're looking for in a fishing tournament. They had all recently dropped their eggs.
I'm glad I found them when I did. It was 2:00 and I only had one fish in the box. The theme of the day was stopping looking at the electronics. Michael Tonti would beat the bottom with a jig for a while, then I'd say let's give it 5 minutes and leave in two.
I don't have a lot of experience catching fish with the scope and a rod in my hand but I have been watching them on the trolling trips and seeing what active fish are doing when I'm catching them. That is what I was looking for all day. When I found them I was able to put four fish in the boat ,didn't get the lengths but three of them were pushing fish Ohio, I lost another four right before they surfaced. All with in the last hour to to fish, with the last coming with 5 minutes to get to the dock. Thank goodness we were close. A super slow day turned to some of the hottest fishing I've ever been on. If I had more time to fish and sort them things could have finished different. I'm happy getting my 5 fish in.
I struggled all day using live bait then I finally switched to a hair jig and Berkley Fishing firetiger 4-in gulp because I was in the deepest closest to shore water I could find, and it was pretty stained. Them fish were going crazy for that jig. It was a lot of fun watching them on the scope.