It has been almost a week since the Recycled Fish Big Creek Hardwater Open was held out at Big Creek Lake in Iowa. As the tournament director, the fun never stops even after the last fish is weighed and the standings are announced. So I’m finally getting a chance to sit down and provide you all with a post tournament report.
We held pre-fishing on Saturday and enjoyed some nice weather. The day started out cool and cloudy, but the sun finally paid us a visit and we had some decent weather for the balance of the day. During the pre-fishing day we held an on ice lunch for all the anglers to participate in. It was great to check on the teams as they came in and standard answer to the “how’s the fishing” question was, “not so good”..LOL..
Day 2, official tournament day, the morning greeted the volunteer staff and anglers with cold temps and a cool breeze coming out of the north. Team check in began promptly at 6AM as night was giving way to daytime. We had team tags for each of the teams and also had gear inspections which began at 6:30AM. We had a great group of volunteers that helped with inspections and check ins. As each team was inspected, tags were signed and the teams were staged in three different lines to be released to the ice at 7:30AM
At 7:30, with some final rules reminders, we let the teams hit the ice and get to their chosen starting spots on the lake. At 8AM we sounded the horn signaling the start of fishing. Each team had drilled their holes and had dropped the electronics in to check on active fish and once the green light was given anglers started pulling a few fish up through the ice. One of our anglers was Scott Reed from Berkley Baits, our Big Fish award sponsor. During one of my trips out on the ice to check with the teams early on in the day, we ran across Scott and talked with him for a few. In the process Scott pulled up a nice gill which he obviously kept for the weigh in.
Other anglers we checked on were also catching fish. We checked in with Mike Riley, who’s team eventually became the tournament winner, and he was into a very nice school of crappie. We were able to watch the graph as the fish would come up and take his bait. We also got a great lesson on how important it is to watch your spring bobber or line as you’re bringing crappie up to your lure. As we watched him fish, his spring bobber lifted up as he was jigging…this was a clear indicator of a fish coming up and taking the jig. Mike quickly set the hook and fish was on. At the end of the day, we had 26 teams that had hit the ice for the tournament. Team Riley took top honors in this inagural event. The top three teams were awarded trophy’s and the payout went all the way to 6th place. All in all it was a great day to be on the ice. Look for the 2nd Annual Big Creek Hardwater Open next year on join us! Tight Lines All!