But given my lack of the former, I'll gladly settle for a helping of the latter any time I can get it...and, evidently, so will most other folks. Of course, I'm talkin' about bass fishin' here. Rest assured, however, I won't bore you with any personal tales. Instead, I'll share some accounts I found online during my research earlier today.
In those days, it was a shotgun start...extremely dangerous with that many boats.
As the tournament start approached, one team's outboard died and refused to fire. When the start occurred, they still were dead in the water, so the one fella suggested they troll out of the no-fishing area and cast for a while. They each made a pitch, and one of them immediately hooked up with a small keeper...barely legal length.
They subsequently looked toward the horizon, where the squall line stretched from far left to right. It was clear that things were going to start happening in about 30 minutes.
The duo watched the Water Patrol zoom by in their boat, headed for the dock, where they started pulling their boat out of the water. That was enough impetus for these two guys to do likewise.
"No need to die in a tourney we couldn't win," they thought. Anyway, however, they weighed their lone dink bass for points before putting the boat on the trailer, then went into the coffee shop for a cup of Joe and to talk to the Patrol.
As it turned out, the weather was worse than advertised, which made this duo glad they were indoors. As they watched outdoors, more and more boats started coming in, loading up, and leaving, with no one taking time to weigh in. By now, the storm really was bad.
As soon as the squall line passed, the temperature started dropping like a rock. Within 3 hours of the tourney's start, all boats were back, as freezing rain started falling.
As luck would have it, they were the only boat to have weighed a fish in the 300-boat tournament. It also was the only time that year that they didn't list a win on their resume.
The second setting involved a date in February 2018, when a fella had helped his dad launch a boat on Toledo Bend for a day of bass fishing. The plan was that dad would catch enough fish for dinner that evening. When son returned to pick up Dad and the boat, though, the elder gent only had one keeper, so son hopped in the boat, and the two of them set out to try catching another fish or two.
They returned with only one more fish but went ahead and were loading the boat when the fella's dad noticed some activity around the dock. He brought this matter to the attention of his son, who quickly grabbed a rod with a Texas-rigged Zoom Baby Brush Hog. In no time, he set the hook on what he knew was no run-of-the-mill fish.
Once the big bass was netted, they took it to a local tackle store, which weighed the fish at 11.67 lbs. and entered it in Toledo Bend's Lunker Bass Program. It was so late when they completed the paperwork for this program, they released their two meal-sized bass, as well as the big one, and went with Plan B for dinner: McDonald's fillet of fish sandwiches.
Last but not least, I happened upon an FLW Touring Pro who proved to be both "good" and "lucky." With a fresh $8,349 check in his pocket from winning a September 2015 tournament on Lake of the Ozarks, he returned home to learn that he also just had won a $6,000 4-wheeler in a raffle he had entered just before the tournament.
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