Twelve boats with 20 anglers showed up this morning to fish our next to last qualifier tournament of the 2018 season. All but one of the boats weighed limits. The 20 anglers weighed 55 bass with a combined total weight of 123.52 lbs. and an average weight of 2.24 lbs. per fish.
Participants who finished in the money today included all of the following:
1st Place (from left), the team of Chris Fretard and Mike Miller. Their limit weighed 16.96 lbs. They didn't have a big fish.
2nd Place (from left), the team of Ken Testorff and Dave Anderson. Our limit weighed 15.74 lbs., buoyed by a big fish that Dave caught. It tipped the scales at 5.42 lbs. and was big enough to claim the day's Lunker Award.
3rd Place (from left), the team of Don Carter and Rob Peppers. Their limit weighed 14.83 lbs., anchored by a big fish weighing 5.05 lbs.
The Mystery Weight Award went to Gary Coderre, whose limit came in at 7.06 lbs., which was closest to the drawn weight of 4.70 lbs. He didn't have a big fish.
Here is how everyone finished today's competition:
* The team of David Dozier and Nelson Anderson, limit, 13.16 lbs. total weight, no big fish.
* The team of Bobby Moore and Steve Bailey, limit, 12.12 lbs. total weight, after a 0.25 deduction for one dead fish. Their big fish weighed 4.36 lbs.
* Wayne Hayes, limit, 9.86 lbs. total weight, no big fish.
* Jim Wilder, limit, 9.17 lbs. total weight, 2.90-lb. big fish.
* The husband-wife team of Andy and Diana Morath, limit, 8.89 lbs. total weight, no big fish.
* The team of Jr. Lindsey and Skip Schaible, limit, 8.02 lbs. total weight, no big fish.
* The team of Stan Krason and Caitlyn Blasi, limit, 7.71 lbs. total weight, 3.07-lb. big fish.
* Bob Glass didn't weigh any fish.
Anglers Andy Morath and Chris Fretard joined 15 others who now have qualified to fish our season-ending two-day Class tournament on Oct. 13-14.
Congratulations to all of the winners and sincere thanks to all who came out and participated today. For planning purposes, our next scheduled event is next Saturday, Oct. 6, from safe light (about 6:45 a.m.) to weigh-in at 3 o'clock.
With the water level today being very similar to what we had last Saturday, Dave and I decided to try the same approach as we used last week.
We found fish, but not at the speed with which they came last Saturday. Instead of taking one hour to boat a limit, we spent about 5 hours finding five fish. And then the upgrades came equally slowly.
There were a couple of anxious moments today, too. The first one happened as I was trying to net Dave's lunker of the day. I failed to get the net completely under the fish and gambled on slightly flipping him into the air to make the necessary adjustment. In the process, however, I ended up catching a rod tip in the net, and the fish was hung up under the net. Both Dave and I thought the fish was going to get away, but I salvaged the day by just rolling the net over under the fish (with the rod tip still hung up). We both breathed a sigh of relief as I handed Dave his fish.
My next less-than-stellar move came just moments before we called it a day. My hands were soaking wet as I set the hook on a fish, and the rod suddenly popped up in the air out of my hands. I made about three subsequent lunges before I was able to wrap my hands around the rod handle...and learned that the fish still was attached. There was just one problem: He wouldn't cull a fish for us.
The lesson to be learned here is that, when a person is tired, he doesn't always make wise decisions, and, too, he leaves the door wide open for Mr. Murphy to show his ugly face. I was just lucky this time.
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