When we woke up on the morning of day 2 there was heavy fog. I knew right away there would be some kind of fog delay but little did I know how long it was really going to be. Since I was in the 4th flight on day 1 I was in the 1st flight on day 2. This meant I would blast off sooner but I would also have to be back to the weigh in at 3:00 pm. We got the boat launched a little after 6:00 am and waited for the fog to lift. We kept waiting and waiting and waiting some more. This was getting a little bit nerve wracking for me. I had almost 9 hours to fish the previous day and it took me all day just to get 5 keepers. Now with this delay I didn't know what I was going to do. I was already going to have a shorter day and it kept getting shorter and shorter with the fog. The fog delay actually ended up being 3 1/2 hours before they started blasting boats off. With the running time I figured there was pretty much no way I could go back to my fish in pool 5, and even if I did get back to pool 5 would I even have enough time to catch them down there. When we got down to the lock there was a barge sitting there again so now I knew I was stuck in pool 4 the rest of the day. I was just going to have to make due with the little bit I had and just forget about my fish in pool 5. Fortunately for me I again drew a partner who had not practiced at all so he gave control of the boat to me for the whole day, or what little of the day was left anyway.
I decided to start near the marina where I had caught my 5th keeper the previous day. It is a pretty large area and I thought if I stuck around in there for the 5 hours I had to fish there was a chance I could scrape out my 4 keepers. I went right to where I caught my keeper the previous day but didn't get anything to come up on the frog. Then I noticed a log out in the middle that I somehow didn't see before. I trolled over to it and pitched a Strike King Rage Tail Craw to the wood and caught my first keeper. It was barely over 14 inches, which was the minimum size, but what a relief that fish was. Then I moved to another corner of the area and picked up a good solid keeper in the duckweed on a frog. Now I was feeling really good. I was halfway there and we had only been fishing 45 minutes. Then for the next 2 hours there was nothing. We each caught a couple short fish but the action really died. Again I knew I had to do something but I really didn't have anything else to go to in pool 4.
I did decide to make a move to a spot I didn't really think looked very good but where we had caught a few small fish in practice. That didn't produce a thing so I just started fishing new water. I eventually came across just what I was looking for. There was a point of an island with duckweed and those big giant pads. The water depth seemed about right and there were minnows swimming around. Everything looked just right and sure enough I caught my biggest fish of the day on the frog way up in those giant pads. It was probably close to 3 lbs but it was just awesome catching that fish from a spot I had never even seen before. After fishing around there a little more with no more action there was about 45 minutes of fishing time left to get my last keeper.
I went back to my starting area and worked all the way around it again. This time there were tons of baitfish in there and fish blowing up on the surface and chasing those minnows. The problem was they wouldn't bite our lures. I did have a couple blowups on the frog but they were like a foot away from the bait. The fish weren't even close to it. Now the pressure was really ratcheting up. I knew I was so close if I could just get 1 more fished to actually connect with my frog. I started telling my partner about how my dad had caught 3 fish this year on the very last casts of tournaments and how I needed his luck to rub off on me a little bit. I told him if I did catch one in the last 20 minutes it would be my last cast and we would play it safe and get back to the weigh in early. With about 10 minutes left to fish I saw one bust on some bait near a small duckweed patch out away from the bigger mats. It was too far to cast to so I trolled over to it and fired my frog next to the mat. I twitched it along there and nothing happened until right when I got almost past the mat. That fish just hammered my frog and I yelled "I GOT HIM!!!" My partner netted him for me and it was probably the most pumped up I've ever been in a tournament. I didn't go all Ike but there were plenty of high fives and my heart was racing like crazy. I thought about fishing for a few more minutes, and I could have, but I played it safe like I said and made that fish my last cast of the day.
We got back to the check in boat with about 15 minutes to spare but I knew I had a solid 4 fish limit. Now it was just time to find out if it would be enough. I was actually the 2nd angler to weigh in for the day and my 4 fish limit weighed in at 9.38 lbs to give me a 2 day total of 20.53 lbs. I knew going into the tournament 20 lbs over 2 days would be a good weight but now I just had to wait and see if it would be good enough. As it turns out the fishing was much tougher on day 2. It almost always is but with the fog delay almost cutting the day in half it really made it tough for most of the field. There were very few limits coming in and I noticed most of the guys ahead of me had much worse days and ended up falling behind me. About 3/4 of the way through the weigh in it wasn't just if I would be in the top 12 but whether or not I would actually win the tournament. Finally with about 10 anglers left to weigh in the winner was able to overtake me for the top spot. I really wasn't disappointed at all though because my only real goal was just to be in the top 12. Actually I did better than that even because the top 6 will be boaters at the B.A.S.S. Northern Divisional tournament next summer at the Detroit River in Michigan. That should be my kind of fishing so being able to use my boat out there will really be a big plus. Our West Central Bassmasters team also had another good day to end up with about 67 lbs total for the 2 days. We ended up in 1st place for the team competition by about 9 lbs. John Zvorak from our club finished in 6th place so he will also be a boater at the divisional. Paul Shimek just missed the top 12 by finishing in 15th place.
Well there it is. What an exciting week of fishing down on the river. I've been down there before a few times and really haven't done well at all. Actually I think my fishing was probably slower than most but I got fortunate with that one big bite and I was able to stay in it mentally when I knew I wasn't going to catch a lot of fish. I think what really helped me and our club was the lack of current on the river. Basically there was almost no current at all so it fished much more like a lake which I am much more familiar with. The other big key was staying in the game mentally when I knew I couldn't get back to my water from day 1 and just being able to fish water I had never seen before to catch my biggest fish of day 2.
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