A Friendly Competition
October 16, 2017
Day two and off to another body of water in search of giant bronzebacks! Darren, Mark and Dave were hoping for some great action and it began quickly. Within the first 5 minutes, Dave connected with his biggest bass of the day. Drawing first blood in a group of three always gives the others an incentive to fish harder. They had a little 3 fish competition going on and I was the ref. I don’t usually keep fish in the livewell when it’s not necessary so we would be doing a pencil tourney today. Everyone would have to keep track of their own totals. With all three of them working the area, it wasn’t long before Darren too was into a huge smallie. His turned out to be another big fish and now two of them were on the board! I made several passes in various depth and they managed to get several more good fish. The only one that wasn’t on the board yet was Mark and it wasn’t for lack of trying. He had been crushed two or three times but never got the hooks to his fish.
We had started out in flat calm conditions, but were expecting giant winds to arrive soon. Forecasts were for Gale Force over 40 knots and I knew we would be limited to the places we were able to fish. I was taking advantage of our window early and hitting all the areas that were going to be pounded, as I knew they would be out of commission later!
When the winds finally arrived, we relocated and were still fairly sheltered, catching bass. I had moved to where we wouldn’t get crushed and they were able to fish effectively. All three of them were catching smallies but it was Darren that had the lead with his three biggest bass, so far. Mark had officially made it on the board with a couple of nice fish along with several smaller ones as well. I decided to cover all the areas and the numbers continued to climb. It seemed that the majority of fish being landed were really good ones with the techniques being used and I wasn’t about to switch up quite yet. Darren increased his lead with another giant right after he had dropped a couple of others around the same size. Dave & Mark were also getting fish but not the size they wanted and needed. Time to switch up baits and locations!
I made another move and put everyone on a slower presentation to see what would happen. It didn’t take long before they were into more fish and they were big! Darren managed to cull another one and seemed untouchable now. The others would have to really get lucky in order to have any chance of catching up. Although Mark & Dave bumped up their total, it was still far from the lead. To make matters worse, Darren landed another one that gave him an even bigger lead. It was all over but the crying! We fished until about 4:00 and finally pulled the plug on the day.
Today was a great end to their annual two day trip and despite the hurricane winds, we were able to make it work. A careful plan throughout the day had them constantly on good fish. I moved around according to the intensity of the big blow and was able to keep them fishing comfortably, the whole time out. Needless to say, Darren’s 3 fish total won their bet by over 3 pounds! He had reclaimed the name, “Lucky D” that I had given him many years back and gladly taken their money! Who knows, maybe next year they’ll have a trophy made up making it more official. Sort of like “Angler of The Year” in the tournament world!
