06-14-2010, 05:15 PM
Decided to initiate my fly fishing partner into the exciting world of tournament fishing. Wiper Fest 2010 looked like to perfect opportunity, cheap entry fee, one day event, close to home, etc.....
I arrived at his house to pick him up at the appointed time and when I got out to help him load his gear noticed a burning smell. Found my trailer brakes steaming/smoking after only a 1.5 miles drive. Well we tried everything on them over the next couple hours and just couldn't get them to stay released. Finally decided we couldn't drive up like that and we'd need to wait for a Schwab to open up. After 2 different attmepts we got the adjusters totally backed off and all the fluid removed from the system to get them released.
Finally got the boat on the water a little after 10am, blast off was at 7! Weather, mechanical problems, there was just going to be no denying us of a fishing day!
I hadn't been on Willard at all this year so on a wing and a prayer we headed to the south dike. I decided since it had been so cold not to pull cranks and we wen't to my bread and butter, bouncers and blades... We had a hot bite going until the wind stopped blasting about 11:30. My partner put 3 walleye in the livewell between 19 and 22 inches and I put 24 wipers in, 3 of which were good ones and one was a dink. We were getting pretty excited that with all our issues for the morning we might actually have a fuul bag to weigh. We weren't counting the dink (13") as a 4th fish yet. Try as we might though, we couldn't buy a bite after 11:30. Wen't to the boards and snap weights and still no luck. Finally ran out of time. We ended up in 16th place with my good friend Mike Shaffer taling home the big prize.
All in all it was a great day. My buddy really enjoyed the event even though he didn't catch a wiper. We still need to go back and get that done for him. Hard to complain about the quality walleyes he caught though!
Purely coincidentally we got all our fish on hammered gold and silver willow leaf blades around 1.3mph. Very similar to the patter Mike was on.
Great tournament and mucho kudos to the Crazy4 guys. They did a great job and it was very well organized with an excellent payout!
[signature]
I arrived at his house to pick him up at the appointed time and when I got out to help him load his gear noticed a burning smell. Found my trailer brakes steaming/smoking after only a 1.5 miles drive. Well we tried everything on them over the next couple hours and just couldn't get them to stay released. Finally decided we couldn't drive up like that and we'd need to wait for a Schwab to open up. After 2 different attmepts we got the adjusters totally backed off and all the fluid removed from the system to get them released.
Finally got the boat on the water a little after 10am, blast off was at 7! Weather, mechanical problems, there was just going to be no denying us of a fishing day!
I hadn't been on Willard at all this year so on a wing and a prayer we headed to the south dike. I decided since it had been so cold not to pull cranks and we wen't to my bread and butter, bouncers and blades... We had a hot bite going until the wind stopped blasting about 11:30. My partner put 3 walleye in the livewell between 19 and 22 inches and I put 24 wipers in, 3 of which were good ones and one was a dink. We were getting pretty excited that with all our issues for the morning we might actually have a fuul bag to weigh. We weren't counting the dink (13") as a 4th fish yet. Try as we might though, we couldn't buy a bite after 11:30. Wen't to the boards and snap weights and still no luck. Finally ran out of time. We ended up in 16th place with my good friend Mike Shaffer taling home the big prize.
All in all it was a great day. My buddy really enjoyed the event even though he didn't catch a wiper. We still need to go back and get that done for him. Hard to complain about the quality walleyes he caught though!
Purely coincidentally we got all our fish on hammered gold and silver willow leaf blades around 1.3mph. Very similar to the patter Mike was on.
Great tournament and mucho kudos to the Crazy4 guys. They did a great job and it was very well organized with an excellent payout!
[signature]
Sunrise on the water
