Wednesday, FLW Tournament Red River – Day One
Dan writes:
Without understanding why, both Annie and I went to bed last night with a strange premonition that I would do very well in this tournament. For the first time in a long time I had the butterflies in my stomach, and was both anxious and nervous while sitting in the boat waiting for take-off this morning. I can’t explain it, but I was believing that maybe this was it, this was my time.
We took off at 6:30 and though I was boat seventeen, my first spot was already taken when I arrived. I ran on by to my second spot, empty, and jumped up on the trolling motor. We fished it for five minutes without a bite, then ran on to my third hole. No takers, and we took off for my fourth spot. Here I had a good fish roll on my crankbait right up at the boat, but he missed it. We fished this spot a little longer and a little harder, but at 7:00 we finally strapped the rods down to make the run up to North Lake.
It took most of an hour to get there. Up to Shreveport, past the casino gambling boats, and on up the river another twenty miles. We flew through the chute going in to the lake, and out into the open water of this beautiful old oxbow. I kept telling myself to expect there to be other boats sitting on my good areas, and I shouldn’t let that bother me. These fish don’t bite all the time, and if those other boats aren’t there at the right time they won’t catch `em. If I just stick to my plan, back and forth between point A and point B, then I will.
That was my game plan. As I’ve learned in the past though, a pro must know when to stick to his plan and when to abandon it. As I fished today I realized that conditions here had changed. Number one – a good breeze was stirring up the flat, calm water that had existed on practice days. Number two – there was virtually no baitfish activity, and no schooling white bass. These things I believed were key in turning on the largemouth on practice days. As I passed back and forth over my previously productive waters, I became more and more anxious with each pass. I fished it fast at first, and then slow, flipping into every bush, and then fast again trying to elicit a reaction bite, and then back to slow. I moved out and fished it deeper, and I moved in and fished shallower. Through all this had we not a single bite and finally, after four hours, I made the decision to abandon North Lake at noontime. I figured I would run the hour back to the take-off, and then scramble the remaining two hours to try to put a few fish in the livewell.
By one o’clock we were running a copy of this morning’s route, in reverse order. We fished fast and hard at five different community holes, and my partner caught a two-pound fish in one of them. When we had exhausted all of these, it was time to go flipping. This is how Dick and I had started catching fish in the early days of practice, and perhaps this is what I should have done all day today, for in the last hour today I put two two-pound fish in the livewell, and missed a third that we think was much bigger. I weighed-in exactly four pounds.
The cut for the Top Ten after day one is around fourteen pounds; the cut for a check is eight pounds. While disappointed that my fish in North Lake didn’t bite today, at least I have a secondary pattern that seems to be working, and since the last flight isn’t due in until 4:20 tomorrow, instead of the one hour I spent flipping today, tomorrow I’ll do it for nine-and-a-half hours.
Annie writes:
It was a strange day, as it almost felt like Dan was fishing Day 3 instead of Day 1 of this tournament. I have a knot in my stomach and I know Dan is capable of making it to the final day here. I tried to keep busy by going out to do laundry, then over to the local mall, but it didn’t help much.
Dan was in the first flight, due in at 3pm, Thank God. This is no different than any other tournament, but I just think this will be a good one for us, and I want to get on with it and find out for sure! When Dan did come in, I watched forever as he idled through the long no-wake zone, stopped to put on his tournament shirt, and tied up at the dock. When he finally motioned to me that he had only two fish, my heart sank. It is that initial blow that gets you.
Dan weighed-in a total of 4lbs. Afterwards he took the boat over to the camper and tied it up to the dock out back, then worked on setting up his tackle for tomorrow. I sat in the boat with him while he did his work, and at one point he looked up at me and said he was sorry. Something came over me and I started crying. He thought I was upset at him for not catching fish. That’s not it at all. We talked, and I explained my sudden flow of emotion. You see, Dan is out in the boat all day, and as the day progresses he knows exactly how his day is going, and what the outcome is likely to be, hours before I do. I on the other hand, am sitting at home just thinking about it all day. This could be the one… He had such a good practice… It is finally our time… Then when he comes in and instead of the 12 to 15 pounds we had been expecting, he has only 2 fish, and all of my emotions come out. I want to be supportive of Dan, but it is not what we expected to happen in this tournament. IN NO WAY am I disappointed in Dan. I know how hard he works, and that it is nothing that he did wrong. I do not understand why these things happen, but never would I be mad at Dan for not catching fish.
After the weigh-in we attended the Christian Anglers Meeting, then got a printout of the standings. Dan is #125 out of 175. We shut ourselves in the camper at 7pm and never came out. We hid in there, just the two of us, so as not to hear the fishing stories of the day. We ate dinner, hung out and watched some TV together. He is still optimistic and excited to go fishing tomorrow, as he is changing his pattern and thinking it’s going to work. I am not sure how I am feeling.