Tale Of Two Tournaments – Good Decisions And Bad

After getting home from the Bassmaster Classic, I quickly got back into fishing tournaments myself. The following is a rundown of two events: my first ever FLW College fishing tournament on Lake Okeechobee, representing the University of Central Florida, and the Gator Division BFL on the Harris Chain.

FLW College Fishing Southeast Divisional
Lake Okeechobee, Feb. 27

Len Gordon (my partner for the event) and I made the 2-hour drive from Orlando to Clewiston, Fla. the night before. I had been pretty out of it, fighting a nasty cold, and we got a late start. The whole way there we listened to Alice in Chains and molded our strategy for the coming day.

Len had never been on the "Big O” and I hadn’t been out there since the beginning of January. I hadn't even thought about fishing the lake since then, so we kept our gameplan simple: Pick an area that we know has some fish and work it to the best of our abilities. I knew that the Monkey Box was going to have fish in it, though we weren’t sure about the size. Also, the area was strategically important because of the wind that week.

We made it to Clewiston to meet up with the second UCF Reel Knights team of Scott Stone and Curtis Schneider. We went to bed around 10 p.m. Well, that’s when our heads hit the pillows, at least. The twin beds were proportioned to the size of the miniscule hotel room, and Len and I had to share one that was barely wider than an ironing board.

Long story short – I got approximately 15 minutes of sleep all night because of a mixture of the tiny bed, my cold and a midnight run-in with a Sebile Flat Shad that I had propped up next to the bed. Shaking a rattlebait out of your hand is a great way to wake everyone up.

After Len woke up and I sat up, we headed out to Roland and Mary Ann Martin’s Marina, registered, and sat through the pre-tournament meeting. We got paired with our boater for the day, Bill Rucker, and headed down to his boat.

After the long and drawn-out launching procedure we finally made it to our spot in the Monkey Box. We traveled all the way into the huge grassy bay until I instructed Mr. Rucker to stop before the mouth of Moore Haven Canal. I basically was just looking for stuff that fit the conditions since I had never really fished back there before.

The place I chose to fish was a large, shallow flat that had clear water, a hard, sandy bottom and various grasses, and on the far side was a line of arrowhead grass and pencil reeds that marked shallow water – a prime area to quickly pick off a bunch of keeper bucks cruising around or locked on the beds. If we found that the females weren’t cruising the same area, we would pull off later and fish the thicker patches of grass that they were more than likely using as "bus stops" on their way into or out of the spawning areas.

The wind was howling out of the northwest and the sky was blanketed with thick clouds, which suited me just fine since I hate sight-fishing, and I knew that most of the other guys would have a hard time looking at them in this tournament.

Len ended up catching the first fish of the day on our trek across the flat. It was a decent 1 1/2-pounder and got him pretty confident.

After we got to the line of arrowheads we immediately started catching fish. Just little bucks, but hey, we were catching!

The fish all pretty much hit the same way. They would wake the Skinny Dipper until it was out of their bedding area, which was perfect since I would just throw the Fluke right on top of them and they would gobble it right up – every time!

We had four of our six fish in the boat at around 10:30 a.m., though they were all small. I felt it was time to pull back and go to some of the heavier cover that I had mentally marked on the way through the flat. We then moved out to look for upgrades.

We started fishing a line of cattails that had an excellent mixture of hydrilla and baby hyacinths that formed some moderately thick mats. I picked up my flipping stick and went to work.

It didn’t take long, either. On about my third pitch into a mixture of cattails and hydrilla I slammed one that was a solid 3 pounds. We flipped the reed line a little bit longer and I missed a very solid fish that I wont venture to guess the size of, but I was disappointed to see the mixture of grasses that I felt I needed was limited to one little stretch about 20 yards long.

After we fished that stretch thoroughly I felt it was time to start covering water again with the Skinny Dipper until we came across some isolated cover that would likely hold some bigger fish. I ended up picking up another decent 2-pounder on the Dipper around a rather thick patch of isolated bulrushes, which culled out one of my small bucks from earlier. Then I caught another fish about 1 3/4 pounds following the same pattern, which replaced another small buck.

It was now about 1:00 and our check-in was at 2:05, and the heavy wind would cost us some extra travel time. Len was having a difficult time catching a final keeper. I decided the best option was to try to flip up a larger fish to push my three up to a respectable weight and hope that Len picked one up with his Skinny Dipper while I probed the heavy vegetation.

I didn’t get another flipping bite, but Len pulled a rabbit out of his visor and picked up a 2-pound fish on the Dipper on what must have been close to the final cast. We packed up everything and left the Monkey box at 1:15. On the way back we made a short stop at Uncle Joe's cut. I caught two fish that almost helped, but didn’t.

We were the last team to the scales and we were happy to see that our 9-14 sack landed us 3rd in the 40-boat field, only 1-09 out of 1st. We were disappointed that we couldn’t have culled up a couple more pounds, but Len and I were also elated that we were able to get our Regional Championship qualification out of the way at the first event of the season.

FLW Gator Division BFL
Harris Chain, March 13

Going into this event I was really putting a lot of pressure on myself for two reasons: One, I missed the first BFL because I was at the Classic and I was struggling in the points race for qualification into the regionals; and two, historically this tournament has been my lowest finish each year because it always falls during bedding season and I am not a sight-fisherman. I have always made bad decisions for one reason or another in this tournament.

I made a few trips to the Chain during the week before the event and mostly stayed in Lake Griffin. I found some decent fish in several areas, including residential canals and wildlife management marshes, so I felt confident that I could at least finish with a check.

It wasn’t until the Thursday before the event that I came across a gem of an opportunity. I noticed the area while I was motoring along – all of a sudden there was an opening in the shoreline where there wasn’t one before, so naturally I went in to take a look.

Inside there was a small bridge that was about 2 1/2 feet above the water, but there were baitfish pouring out of what looked to be a beautiful spawning flat that bent around out of sight. I checked Google Earth on my IPhone and found that the area actually stretched for more than 2 miles. I was stoked!

But what could I do? My boat was sitting 6 or 8 inches too high to make it under the bridge.

“Sink it," the little fishing devil on my left shoulder exclaimed. The rational angel on my right shoulder didn’t even show up, so sink it I did.

I rigged a spare bilge pump with gator clips and directly hooked them to a trolling motor battery, and just pumped the lake into my Triton. After I got under, I not only was proud that I accomplished such a feat, but was surprised to find that it was even more beautiful than I thought. It had everything: great water clarity, baitfish galore and a variety of grasses. All I needed were bass.

Yep, it had those, too, and they were big! I caught a 4 1/2-pounder really quick, and then had another that was even bigger follow my bait about 10 feet before I pulled it away. I pretty much just put down my rods and looked for fish the whole time, and they were there.

I felt pretty good because I run an 18 1/2-foot Triton, which is a smaller boat than most in the field, and I could barely make it under the bridge. I knew that I was the only one who could get under that thing. That is, until Friday brought a torrential downpour.

Long story short, I was worried about the rain raising the lake too much to clear the bridge. When it stopped at about 5 p.m. I checked to see if I could still do it, and I barely could. I could rest somewhat easy.

On tournament day day I passed my “honey hole” guarded by the mini-bridge and made my way up to my morning limit spot in the Yale Canal. Fishing was good and I caught one about 3 pounds, and then caught two others fairly quickly before missing several others. For some reason, at about 10:30, I had a notion to check a canal that I hadn’t visited in practice, but thought I could do well in. So I went.

Stupid! Decision-making is one of my strengths under pressure and I guess I was a little cocky and felt that whatever I did would work out for the best. But I showed me!

Then I decided to go to my honey hole. Ha ha, I have them now, I thought.

Not Really.

That rain that I was worried about came out victorious against me and my magical, submersible Triton. The water had risen about 6 inches higher than the level had been after the rain stopped, and I couldn’t sink the boat enough to get in. I wasted over 35 minutes trying.

After that I started running nearby historical hot spots and – surprise – came up empty-handed. I ended up going back to the Yale Canal where I started and was getting great bites, but couldn’t get another fish in the boat in the 15 minutes that I had.

The ride back was a long one because I had done what I do every year in this tournament – made bad decisions. I had put myself around good fish in Yale, but thought the grass was greener elsewhere.

Obviously giving my ace-up-the-sleeve spot a try wasn’t a bad decision, but going to places I thought might have fish, as opposed to a place where I knew I could catch a check-worthy sack if I ground it out, was insane. Once again, I had defeated myself in the March BFL on the Harris Chain.

My three fish weighed in at a paltry 5-04 and I finished 79th out of 112 anglers. It was the first tournament in a year in which I finished below the top half of the field.

I guess I'll have to wait until next year to claim my redemption.

Miles "Sonar" Burghoff is a student at the University of Central Florida and an aspiring professional angler. He writes a regular column for BassFan. To keep up with his exploits on a day-to-day basis, follow him on Twitter and Facebook.