Whats the tourney life like???

Tuna cancelled his tourney tommorrow so if any of you want to go out to eat tommorrow night at Red Wing drop me a PM or e-mail.

I will get an unexpected extra day to pre-fish for Website tommorrow so maybe I can convert the fish in the water to fish in the boat. In two days of pre-fishing(Sat.-Thurs) it has become quite evident that most of the fish and size of fish are coming from community or well know locations. The difficult part is that only a few boats seem to be putting any numbers in the boat over 15″s.

Foolishly or ignorantly, you choose. I assumed before this tourney that because of the bigger Power plant… your water would be much warmer than my home pool nine. Surprise, surprise, surprise only 1 or 2 degrees difference and I have no real confidence in Leadcore or three-way cranks till it has been 41-42-43 for a few days. For whatever reason after that it can go Down a little. Unfortunately after quite a few hours of both I have only put one large fish in the boat and not many others.

I have now boated several large fish mostly in the evening Thursday. So now my mind after all the watching and

info gathering on the water tells me one large fish and a couple of other nice keepers, or five good keepers could put a team in the money. From what I have seen with a few exceptions the Larger and smaller fish are being caught by different people and with different techniques. Because of the funny bite on Pool 4 a very large percentage of luck is going to play into this one, Huge. At least for us… So tommorrow we will decide which we are going to start with size or numbers. I’m sure someone has it all zeroed in but we don’t yet.

If any of you wonder what to heck is he making posts like this??? Over the last few years many folks on the sight have said they want to get an idea of what tourney fishing is like and what goes on,mentioning their desire to possibly start fishing tourneys, etc. So if nobody objects I will kind of post this type entries. I sure would like to hear others experiences to.

Excellent post Lawrence. It gave some insight to the thought process a Pro uses. We have found a couple of patterns to put fish in the boat but not the big ones. We will be out tomorrow but unless we find something more substantial I think we will be spectators Sunday. Maybe we’ll see you tomorrow, we will be in a green Lund Explorer with a 90 merc on it. Thanks again for the post.

Sounds like you are ahead of us.

Well now you get to hear how fun this is???? Yesterday was brutal. The only thing we accomplished was continuing ruling out more territory and techniques. It’s no real secret right now that almost everything is being caught from Steve’s north. We decided after getting all beat up and scaring my wife half to death in the waves and wind that since the report we had was that it was going to to be 7-10 degrees this morning and with last report last night 15-20 MPH winds that we would skip it… Protect my back and the equipment, for three guide trips next week and the RCL in Spring Valley. I called Mr. Jordan and told him we wouldn’t be fishing. I didn’t ask for my money back and won’t. The reason we were fishing this one was for the site and ofcource a possible paycheck.

So unbelievably I wake up at 3:00 AM and check things and it is 22 degrees outside and although the reports are mixed regarding wind we decide to get up and get going.(we are about 2.5 hours away. We get going and I notice I don’t see any brake lights “AGAIN”. For whatever reason they worked with lights off , but as soon as the lights are on when you step on the brakes the boat lights go out instead of getting brighter. We had this problem before and then we thought it went away. So we decided since it was so early…not much traffic we would head up anyway since you can’t miss the truck brake lights even with the trailer and boat on. Now on a grade the transmission slips so bad the engine runs away!!!!! We though that problem had been solved by a new filter, and fluid , but apparently not. That was the last straw almost like somebody was trying to tell us something…. So here I sit at 3:30 in the morning pouting and wondering why we didn’t just stay over last night , since the weather reports have been very unreliable.

Just so everybody knows we still were only on the fish that almost everybody else was, and luck and blessing still would have played a big roll. Anyway I just want to hope everybody the best of fishing and safety. it seems like we are never gonna get together to meet a lot of you, although we did meet some of you again as we hung around Steve’s for about an hour late yesterday.

Now I probably won’t sleep , because I have to be concerned with how much money it is gonna cost to get things fixed and safe. Something a guy doesn’t want to think about when fishing is basically,(after paying all the entry fees for the year),a week ahead of the bills this time of year.

God never ceases to amaze me though. Although things didn’t seem to be right somehow with missing which to me personally,(not business wise), shaped up to be the funnest tourney of the year. Because I wanted to meet all of you that are fishing.

But back to the blessings thing… As I returned home last night I realized that 6 clients,(easily the most ever in a day), had contacted us about purchasing trips of which 3 three have turned out positive already, and it looks very positive for 2 more. So just when I felt air going completely out of my sales,(intentional misspelling), and God comes back and says…”Just in case the current situation makes you feel like I have let you and your family down, heres $1500.. worth of guide trips to prove it isn’t so”.

The mind and faith in your God is a huge factor in tourney fishing. If anyone wants to understand either feel free to ask me privately and if I can’t answer your questions , I know those who can. So as an end result I get to spend Sunday with my whole family, watch the Badgers play and if I can figure out what we did to make the transmission work the last time, …maybe Nancy and I will limp the 18 miles to the River and fish for a couple of hours this afternoon. It is a pleasure when you see your wife getting more and more excited about fishing with, you.

Again Hope all of you a great and safe day of tourney fishing today, I’m going to go lie down and try to get a few hours of sleep.

Sounds like you have had quite a morning. Since it is 9 o’clock and I am writing this you can see we decided to skip the tourney too. We were on the water from 6:15 AM to 7 PM yesterday and all we learned was a lesson in boat control. We caught a few keepers but couldn’t dial in a good bite. It didn’t help that the bow mount died first thing but that is fishing. I have been fighting a cold and I feel crappy this morning but I still wish I was out there. I hate to admit it but the reason we didn’t go for it this morning was money. I know a hundred buck is chum change but my daughter got married last month and we still have a few bills coming in from that. My partner is my 13 Year old so the old man would have to pony up and I just didn’t feel right doing it when I felt lost on the water yesterday. I kind of know what you mean about God’s blessing. My son really wanted to fish today but as I explained to him the circumstances it gave me a chance to explain values and what is important in life. There will be other tourneys and we will be there but for today we are going to take Mom out to lunch and try and go catch the weigh-in at 3. I am a blessed man, wonderful kids and a great wife. Gosh, I’m rambling. Must be the cold medicine.

Lawrence, Thank You for starting a wonderful thread, I have been fishing pro/am’s for 3 years now and I found a tourney partner who disects water like you, and me , and other intense anglers, I truly enjoy the thinking that goes with fishing tournaments. And I truly appreciate you adding God and your wife into the picture. I had the pleasure of fishing with Jim Randash in S.D. Lake Francis Case and he really brought out the best fishing in me and he did it with Gods help and we talked about family and friends.I look forward to following you on this post and see how you are doing in the fishing season I will be fishing the Lake Pepin Open for the first time if you will be there PM me and maybe we could meet.

Until then good luck and keep a tightn line.
God Blees you and your family

I’d rather here Jarad’s whole story, but the Rcl Spring Valley is one I definitely want to forget. I had business to finish so I got a late start Thursday Night for Spring valley. I arrived in the far north end of Quad citys grabed fast food and asked some local construction guys in the parking lot,”How they would get through town.” to Peru. They must have thought I said Peoria, because one hour later down I-74 I realized this couldn’t be the way. I usually print out Map quest map and directions but this time
I didn’t because I’ve been there many times before??? Right then and there I should have gone Home!!!

So I get to Peru and go to check in to my room and it is right on the interstate,(loud), and so I changed to an interior room and things were pretty quite. I have three guests coming this week so I call all three and verify that
they got the Map Quest maps I sent them and other details.All are fine. That night or the next we get 2 inches of rain and so does Chicago or suburbs, (in case you are not aware of it Chicago Is to watershed for the Illinois River). Anyway Rock and I go out for the day, (Thursday), in his boat and find a few fish in some of the past places.

Saturday morning my first guest arrives, we fish up and down the first 6 miles below the dam and arrive almost in unison at locations to watch Danny Plautz catch many of the fish that put him in 1st place??? in the MWC day one. That night with even more rain and reports of the river coming up high and dangerous, I recommend that my last two guests don’t come and they agree.

I go out Sunday Myself and zero in on locations we would fish ont Wi and MISS rivers with water coming up heavy. Like first 10-12 miles below the dam , rock shorelines, hard bottoms, out of the current, and I have my best day yet with a solid weight. While loading the boat pull the boat on the trailer, don’t like quite how it is loaded and in the process stepped on one of the bunks and it cracked!!!! Now that trailer has seen some miles in the last four years, but Crack?????? Well amazingly It still cradled the boat so I left the landing took the boat back to the motel and rushed over to watch last flight of MWC come in. The rain was very heavy. I left the weigh-in realizing I had just had a great day for the bite and headed to the library to catch up on internet work. On the way there I made a critical mistake. I got gas!!!! The Clark Station I stopped at wasn’t very busy , but some other anglers were there and the clerk was very pleasant.
I pulled out of the lot after gasing up and started to the library to find that as I accelerated from stoplights and stop signs my engine mis-fired, and barely ran. I knew the library was basically towards the motel anyway so I went and got my work done and then limped back to the motel.

There is a automobile service station about 100 yards from the motel, front desk clerk dialed and I told the proprietor that I would be right over. At this point I was questioning if I had mistakenly pumped diesel full which later was proven incorrect. The mechanic said he would slip it in as soon as possible, but it might be a couple days.

I call Rock and go fishing with him. We were still basically ruling out areas, but the two biggest fish together weighed around 7 lbs. I’m not sure I have ever seen more trees floating in the water. Came home and as mentioned the mechanic hadn’t had time to look at the truck.
Tuesday Mr. Krych took me out until noon and showed me how to handline. No fish in the boat. Tuesday Night at the meeting I drew my first Pro and our motels were in complete opposite directions so I begged Rock to take me down to the landing so Pro could still launch at 5:15 like he chose to and I met him later. Pro informed me that he had only caught two fish that week. Fished day with no bites. But here is where that Blessing thing comes back in.
After the first day, Pro had had some radio trouble so he asked one of the Yamaha guys,(Maytag Repairmen), to look at it. I was teasing him how he never seem busy even with
lot’s of Yamahas on the water, kind of like a Maytag repairman. He mentioned how fun the morning was pumping water/gas and in some cases water out of a number of boats gas tanks. Well the bells go off and now I find out the Clark station has all it’s pumps closed due to lot’s of water in them. Well relieved at least that I knew what the problem was, as soon as I got back,(repair shop was closed and car not touched yet), I put a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper with magic marker message. “Figured out problem,pumped gas at Clark Station, their pumps are closed due to large amounts of water in my gas”. Went to room, contacted next days Pro and fell asleep.

Day two pro and I handlined all day. No fish in the boat. I ran into the Spring Valley boat club , used the payphone and called the mechanic. Bill was $282. bill, they had completely ignored the sign which they acknowledged was
read, did a partial tune-up and some EGR valve checks, and left the gas alone, thinking I was nuts. I proceeded as kindly as I could to explain all that had needed to be done is drain the gas do the achohol thing and check the fuel filter. So here I am with a truck that still doesn’t run,( I thought). Thinking I would have another couple of days work draining it and taking care of it myself. When I got to the shop they had listened and drained the gas, blown out the filter, and added new gas. I slept over night in Spring Valley.

I start out in the morning and fill up tank with Gas a
bottle of “Heet”, and a bottle of injection cleaner. I pull out of the station to leave and a very loud sound starts in my rear end. 9 hours later,( and numerous stops including one at a repair shop in Rockford), I limp into my driveway defeated, having spent $1100 that week with no angler of the year points, and just Glad to be home. Obviously the transmission/rear end problem of the previous week had gotten worse.

SO YOU WANT TO FISH TOURNEYS!!!!!????? I PROMISE THEY ALL WON’T GO LIKE THIS. I HAVE ALREADY USED UP MY BAD LUCK FOR THE YEAR!!!!!

Hi Lawrence,

Jarrad and I were lucky not to get the bad gas…. At least not the bad gasoline – lol. I heard a bunch of guys had boat problems from that watered down gas. Bummer.

It took just about a week for me to get every compartment in my boat dry along with all my tackle trays/boxes. Seems like water got into everything down there.

Thanks for the good story. Hope your season turns around now that you got all the funk out of the way.

Good Luck.

I got bad gas in Spring Valley. I have had to treat it all week to keep the yamaha running. I think I have it all out now. Pain in the butt

lawarence you must have went right by galesburg you should have stopped and picked me up lol thats a long haul to peoria and back north

Just as I said above about hr down the road. I’m pretty sure I went beyond Galesburg.