Regional Tournament Experience Sam Rayburn

 

My buddy Mizike and his wife came up on Friday night to visit and throw back some beverages.  Dad was coming in Saturday afternoon to spend the evening and night so we could hit the road on our way to Sam Rayburn lake in Texas to pre-fish for the regional tournament.

 

We had a few drinks at home before heading to the local watering hole on Friday night.  Once there, the three of us ran up a pretty good tab before heading home for the night.  There was a little shot bottle of dill pickle flavored Vodka on the fridge.  Before we left Mizike said that if somebody got sick they would have to immediately drink the bottle afterwards.  This was not good for me.  Of all the times I have partied with Mizike, I rarely remember him getting sick and if he did it was always after me.

 

We got back from the bar and walked into the house.  For some reason Mizike walked over to the sink and got sick a little.  Next thing I knew, he was grabbing the pickle vodka and downing it.  He raced to the bathroom and proceeded to unleash.  It was quite funny.  A few days later I was flipping through pictures on my phone to show somebody a picture of my daughter and realized I had video'd some of the late evening activities.  It was quite comical to watch how annoyingly obnoxious we all were.  I'm glad we were at home.

 

The next day was rough.  I had to change the brakes on my pick-up and get the boat and my gear ready to go.  I mustered through the hangover and got things done. 

 

Dad showed up and we went out to eat pizza.  I drank a few beers that evening while we sat outside and shot the bull.

 

Sunday morning we got up and were on the road by 8:00 AM.  It was a long drive through Oklahoma and Texas.  We made it to Jasper about 12 hours later.  We ate at Jack in the box after we got into our hotel room and I was ready to fall asleep in the chair.

 

The next day we got up and looked at the weather.  A big storm was coming in with a chance of tornadoes, hail, lots of rain, high winds and lightning.  We decided to just drive out to the lake to check it out instead of trying to get a couple of hours of fishing in, and chance getting stuck in the storm.  It took the storm longer than expected to reach us.  When it did I was glad we were not in a boat.  We would not have been able to get back to the boat ramp.  Several anglers had to pull up to shore and wait it out.

 

There were several people struck by lightning in the local area we were at.

 

That afternoon the storm blew over and we headed out to try the fishing.  We found a grass bed pretty quick and caught quite a few fish before moving on up the lake.  The wind was picking up and we tucked in behind a point to fish.  As the sun was lowering in the sky we started to make our way back to the ramp.  The waves had grown to 3 or 4 footers in the short time we had been out.  It was a rough ride back to the ramp, and a little scary. 

 

As I started to pull the boat on the trailer I gave it some throttle, nothing.  My throttle cable had broken.  We were very fortunate this had not happened out on the main lake. 

 

Tuesday we got the boat into the shop to have the throttle cable replaced.  We fished off the bank a little more.  That afternoon they got our cable fixed so we headed up to fish on one of the lakes bayou's.  It was awesome scenery and fishing.  We caught quite a few fish once again. 

 

Wednesday we had all morning and early afternoon to fish.  We started out at the Northern end of the lake and worked it pretty hard.  We found quite a few fish once again.  It was looking like I was going to have a good tournament.  A lot of other anglers were saying they were struggling.

 

Thursday was the first day of the tournament.  I liked my boater draw.  It sounded like he was fishing the same way I was having luck all week.  In the first couple hours of the tournament I had a lot of bites.  They were biting light, so I was missing a lot of fish and a couple came unhooked before I was able to get them in.  I still landed 3 pretty decent keepers and one that was so fat I could not get it to measure.  It was a shame having to throw it back.  The rest of the day I pulled in short fish after short fish.

 

The day finally winded down and I only had 3 decent fish to take into weigh in.  I was a little disappointed.  When I got to weigh in, I heard dock talk that a lot of co-anglers and boaters had not had much luck.  At the stage my three fish weighed almost 8 pounds and had me sitting in 6th place at the time.  At the end of the weigh in I was in 10th out of 134.  I was in good shape to make a run at winning a new bass boat. 

 

Then I got a call from my day 2 partner.  He said he did not catch a bass on the first day.  He figured he didn't have a chance to win so he wasn't going to burn much gas.  We were going to fish grass in a cove close to the ramp the next day.  No big deal I thought, I had found fish in grass and figured out how to catch them. 

 

The next day we went to our spot.  It was tea leaf grass, different from the grass that I had found all over the lake and found all the fish in up to this point.  He kept telling me this is where the fish were.  I caught 1 fish that came really close to being a keeper all day, and had another really big fish pull free.  The rest were all short.  With about 5 minutes left neither of us had a fish in the boat to take to weigh in.  Then I saw one surface.  I cast out and he hit.  I got him in and it was 14 1/4 inches.  Barely a keeper.  I had another hit right after that that got off.

 

At weigh in I fell to 33rd place, missing the money by 9 places.  After seeing me catch fish all week Dad was disappointed when I came in with only one bass.  He told me that if I had been the boater I would have came in with 5 fish each day and done really good on the boater side, after what we found pre-fishing.  I had a few keeper fish come off on day 1 that really could have turned my tournament around.  That could have still happened if I was a boater.  I more than likely would have had a lot better 2nd day. 

 

After 3 years of fishing these tournaments as a co-angler, I feel like I'm ready to get a bass boat and fish on the boater side.  Then I can fish my strengths, be the first one to cast to a good spot, and not have a boater get mad at me when I out fish them.  That happened a couple times in the few years I have been fishing, and they have went to great lengths to keep me from catching another fish.  One took out to the middle of the lake and sat down and ate a sandwich for a really long time, then re-tied all of his rods, and eventually went to the crappiest looking bank we could find and sat in one spot the rest of the day.  Another took me in to weigh in 45 minutes early after he broke off the only fish he got to bite all day. 

 

Most of the time boaters are happy for you when you catch fish.  Sure they don't like to be out fished, but most of them want you to do well fishing out of their boat.  Neither of my partners in this tournament were like that.  They both wanted me to catch fish, and went out of their way to make sure I had a chance to do that.

 

Today I filled out paperwork to acquire a loan to purchase a bass boat.  Hopefully by next spring I will find a deal that is too good to pass up and I can fish as a boater next year.