Bobby and I rose early on March 20th , with high expectations for our first American Bass Association event of the season.This event would be our first together as team members and hopefully the start of a successful season and partnership. We had pre-fished for this tournament together and Bobby’s vast knowledge of the lake had us pretty confident that we had a chance to do well. But, we also knew that many good anglers call Green Peter their home lake.

Our plan was to stick to our strengths at Green Peter; me pitching to stumps and Bobby working crank baits over, around and through the hundreds of stumps in the middle fork of Green Peter. After a blistering cold launch we flew down the lake in my Skeeter and the chase to our best spot. The day was underway. With only ten boats in the tournament that meant plenty of room to fish the middle fork and no excuses of fishing pressure.

The bass mostly had lock-jaw for the entire day. I pitched my bait over and over again and Bobby swung his long cast, but we only had three fish for most of the day. I lost a fish that would have won us the tournament in a stump that was just off the main channel of middle fork. I thought my line was hung up in the stump and when I gave slack to my line to pop it off the stump I realized that a big bass was attached to my line underneath the stump. The monster about ripped the rod out of my hand. I then made a dumb move and reset the hook (already done it once) and broke my line. Talk about sick to your stomach! One of the hardest things to do in tournament fishing is get over “It”. “It” can be; losing a fish, losing a fishing spot to a competitor, or any other myriad of things that can cause you to blow up and become frustrated. I asked the Lord to help me concentrate for the next good fish that bites and then Bobby gave me a “that’s okay” and we moved on.

We were hopeful that when the sun got higher in the sky that the wind would start blowing. Each day at Green Peter you can count on the early afternoon wind. We kept our noses to the grindstone and kept working our baits knowing that we would eventually find some aggressive fish, but our nerves were getting on edge as the three o’clock weigh-in was getting closer and closer. At about 1:00 pm the wind came and it came hard; we both drank some AMP Energy drinks for that extra boost of energy and we re-focused for the important two hours remaining. We ran back to our favorite area with hopes that the wind would get a few biters going. Fighting the wind with the trolling motor on high we both caught the fish necessary to get a limit. The only problem remaining was we had no BIGUNS!

As weigh-in time came and the trolling motor completely out of power from fighting the wind, we headed for the weigh-in scales. One thing we were confident in was that if we were struggling for bites then so were the rest of the field. We knew that we had been fishing some of the best areas and our techniques were sound and we fished HARD! Therefore, we kept optimistic about our chances at a top 5 finish.

When it came time for the awards Bobby and I could not believe our ears. We knew that people struggled and we knew we had a chance for a top 5 finish but we had no idea how bad everybody struggled. The top team finished having only 8 pounds of fish with only 4 keepers. We ended up 5th and about a single pound from victory. Even though it made it harder to except missing the big fish, which would have won the tournament for us, Bobby and I were very happy that our first tournament was a top 5 finish. We had a great time together and stuck to our plan and executed all but one of our bites. We knew that we were a good match for team tournaments. Look out Tahkenitch here we come!