JJTAlwaysWishing
New member
I'm very late on my posting the tournament was actually the 9th of April, but I havn't had much people interested in hearing about it so I'll share it on here.
I'm from Harrison and the tournament was in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Which is about 3 hours from me but I can make it in 2 1/2 hours. My brother and I were going to be fishing it together it would be my first tournament and my brothers second. I left out the day before after my wife and I celebrated my birthday (April 8th) and got to my grandparents around 7:00pm.
My grandfather who's a long time tournament bass fisherman (amateur tournaments mainly) decided he wanted to pass down a lot of his high scale shimano reels and daiwa rods to us so that was a plus. Me, him, and my brother talked till about 10 pm then we all went to bed. Atleast they did. I was so excited for the tournament that I didn't go to sleep at all. Me and my brother decided the day before we would go get something to eat before we left at around 3:30 am. Well at 3 am I woke my brother up and said I'll be back in time to leave, I went down to the local Walmart, about a 5 minute drive and walked in and bought a 4 pack of red bull. Finished 2 before I got back. I wake my brother up and say let's leave a little early, as I was so amped and energized that I couldn't sit still.
So we left, soon to find out all the 24 hour fast food joints in Pine Bluff decided they didn't want to take people's orders today... my luck. So I go into a gas station and buy Overpriced but huge honey buns snd banana nut muffins... we get to the dock and put in at around 4:15 am and we arnt allowed to leave and start fishing until our number is called and they start calling after safe light, which is around 6:15-6:30 am this time of the year. So there we sat. It was a lot colder then expected so we both froze until our number was called and we took off (we were 74) and we were etill numb for 2 hours afterwards.
We fished topwater early and then quickly started changing tactics after no luck with that. Wind came up at around 10 am so that made it more difficult than most can imagine. I'd rather coyote hunt in 40 mph winds than try to fish with an open face baitcasting reel. We were so exhausted by 11 that we were just really trying to just finish it out. On top of that our trolling motor battery was almost dead because of fighting the wind so much. At 12:30 we catch our break. I get one, but he is good sized. We decided not to weigh him, maybe for luck I don't know, but we guessed 4 1/2 pounds. Not my biggest but we thought we could get in the money on the big bass prize just because it was a bad day for everyone, my uncle who is a top notch fisherman ended up with nothing but a mud covered boat from getting stuck in a sand bar.
We ended up heading in at around 2:00 and weigh in was at 3:30 so we had to keep that fish alive for an hour and a half in the same water because of the penalty for dead fish. It was difficult but we did it. This was a 5 fish weigh in or big bass obviously I only had my one which was ok, as I was very happy with my fish and thought I had a good chance for atleast big bass.
We did the weight in I was 6th to weight in. My fished weighed 4 3/4 lbs. Not great, not bad either. I held big bass until the 9th weigh in...
Out of 89 boats only 31 weighed in. Me and my brother being the youngest team we were one of the boats that weighed in. Very proud of myself and him.
I should add the biggest bag was 5 fish weighing 17 lbs and big bass was 5 1/2 lbs.
I'm from Harrison and the tournament was in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Which is about 3 hours from me but I can make it in 2 1/2 hours. My brother and I were going to be fishing it together it would be my first tournament and my brothers second. I left out the day before after my wife and I celebrated my birthday (April 8th) and got to my grandparents around 7:00pm.
My grandfather who's a long time tournament bass fisherman (amateur tournaments mainly) decided he wanted to pass down a lot of his high scale shimano reels and daiwa rods to us so that was a plus. Me, him, and my brother talked till about 10 pm then we all went to bed. Atleast they did. I was so excited for the tournament that I didn't go to sleep at all. Me and my brother decided the day before we would go get something to eat before we left at around 3:30 am. Well at 3 am I woke my brother up and said I'll be back in time to leave, I went down to the local Walmart, about a 5 minute drive and walked in and bought a 4 pack of red bull. Finished 2 before I got back. I wake my brother up and say let's leave a little early, as I was so amped and energized that I couldn't sit still.
So we left, soon to find out all the 24 hour fast food joints in Pine Bluff decided they didn't want to take people's orders today... my luck. So I go into a gas station and buy Overpriced but huge honey buns snd banana nut muffins... we get to the dock and put in at around 4:15 am and we arnt allowed to leave and start fishing until our number is called and they start calling after safe light, which is around 6:15-6:30 am this time of the year. So there we sat. It was a lot colder then expected so we both froze until our number was called and we took off (we were 74) and we were etill numb for 2 hours afterwards.
We fished topwater early and then quickly started changing tactics after no luck with that. Wind came up at around 10 am so that made it more difficult than most can imagine. I'd rather coyote hunt in 40 mph winds than try to fish with an open face baitcasting reel. We were so exhausted by 11 that we were just really trying to just finish it out. On top of that our trolling motor battery was almost dead because of fighting the wind so much. At 12:30 we catch our break. I get one, but he is good sized. We decided not to weigh him, maybe for luck I don't know, but we guessed 4 1/2 pounds. Not my biggest but we thought we could get in the money on the big bass prize just because it was a bad day for everyone, my uncle who is a top notch fisherman ended up with nothing but a mud covered boat from getting stuck in a sand bar.
We ended up heading in at around 2:00 and weigh in was at 3:30 so we had to keep that fish alive for an hour and a half in the same water because of the penalty for dead fish. It was difficult but we did it. This was a 5 fish weigh in or big bass obviously I only had my one which was ok, as I was very happy with my fish and thought I had a good chance for atleast big bass.
We did the weight in I was 6th to weight in. My fished weighed 4 3/4 lbs. Not great, not bad either. I held big bass until the 9th weigh in...
Out of 89 boats only 31 weighed in. Me and my brother being the youngest team we were one of the boats that weighed in. Very proud of myself and him.
I should add the biggest bag was 5 fish weighing 17 lbs and big bass was 5 1/2 lbs.
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