[January] February 1999 [March]

Tuesday 2/2
We were fishing when the moon was still in the sky. We spent a 1/2 day on the water and then went home and prepared for the Everstart tournament which starts tomorrow. We had register for the tournament between 3-6 PM and then we had a meeting where Dan meets his partner. We got out of there around 7:30 and went out to eat. We got home around 9:00 and went straight to bed.

Wednesday 2/3
Alarm went off at 5:00 and we were both up and about. Annie launched Dan in the water and she was out of the house by 7:00 on her way to West Palm Beach. She went to visit her fiend Joyce that she used to work with and she went to the Palm Beach Gardens Mall to try and surprise her cousin Bill who she hasn't seen in 15 years. Unfortunately he was not working. Dan was due in at 3:20 and he brought in 3 fish. Unfortunately one fish, which barely made the minimum length limit out on the water, did not make it by the end of the day and he had to throw it back. But tomorrow is another day. We dropped the boat off at the service trailer to have the engine adjustment made. Dan cooked hamburgers for dinner and Annie went to get the boat and fill it with gas. Dan was in bed by 7:45 and Annie gets a late night to watch her TV shows. Dan's brother Ted who works at Merrill Lynch sent us an email to congratulate us on our latest accomplishments. Dan's son Jeff also emailed us to tell us that he had the best basketball game ever and congratulate Dan on the tournament last week. It is nice when you are away from home to hear from family .

Thursday 2/4
Dan was up at 4:45am. I was awake at 7:00, and without even getting out of bed, I was able to watch the morning take off just by lifting the shade. I have a busy day planned. I went to do Groceries, Laundry, washed and vacuumed the truck and filled it with gas. Then came home and cleaned up the campsite, cleaned & put away the grill, filled the water tank, showered and got ready for the weigh in. Dan came in today with only three fish - his two day total was 10.0 lbs even. The good news is that someone approached him today and wants to buy the boat. He will be making a phone call in the morning, and we expect to sell it and drop it off this weekend in Georgia. Lobster tattoo’s are healing beautifully - no pain, no swelling, they’re looking real good. I am not only healing my tattoo but I also got my belly button pierced two weeks ago. I told Bob & Flo (my mom and dad) the other day and they were not half as excited as I am. Actually they were not happy at all. But we should live life to please ourselves and Dan and I have been discussing these thing for a while. It just happened that we did both of these things in the same week. We are both very tired tonight and I cooked Chicken stuffed with Broccoli and angel hair pasta for dinner. We went to bed by 9:00 and read for a little while.

Friday 2/5
We drove out of Okee Tantie Campground at 8am on the dot. We are heading to Vero Beach. Dan’s parents live there and our mail is being forwarded to their house until Feb. 1. I had a 10:00 hair appointment at a hairdresser I found the last time we were here. My hair is blond right now but I am letting it grow out to my natural color. I change my hair style often. It is very short right now and is also very simple. When you are in a boat all day traveling at 60 mph, and then have to go to a registration or partner pairings meeting that night, it is much more convenient to have easy hair. People are always available to express the opinion that they liked my hair long and curly, but hair is hair. It can always grow back. For now we are short and blond. So after my haircut I went to Dan’s parents house and they have gone to Disney ( they have a condo and entertain there often). They are due home today. I picked up our mail and packages, left a note and was out of there. Well there were 2 certified letters that needed to be picked up from the post office. It took me a half hour to find the post office, then I proceeded to go find the KOA campground that I was suppose to meet Dan at, well I am finally here after 1 ½ hours. Aaauuuyyggh . Once I found Dan he told me that Danny Kirk ( the guy interested in the boat) called and he wants to buy it. Yippee. We have to drive it to GA tomorrow. Dan has been trying to clean it out and fit everything that was in the boat into storage under the camper. I am going through our mail and trying to sign the kids (Dan’s kids, who live in New Hampshire) up for summer camp. So I had to email them and make sure of the dates and activities they want to do. That’s all for now. I have to go and try to reconcile our credit card statement. Hey it reconciled with very little problems. Dan’s mom called and invited us over for some of her "famous chicken casserole." That’s what Dan called it anyway. I have been writing on email to Jeff & Kate to try and figure out Summer camp. Jeff is all set and Kate needs to talk to her fiend Carly first to confirm when she is going. Chris doesn’t think he wants to go to the same camp as last year because he really didn’t like swim lessons. He’s already a good swimmer but just doesn’t like to be told when he has to go. Dan is gone to clean the boat at the car wash. He was faxing back and forth to Ranger today and we now have a new boat ordered. It is going to be a sweet boat Ranger 519SVS Black with Gold Stripes. We are now listing this boat on the internet, trying to arrange ahead of time a buyer for it this summer. Now I must find something conservative to wear to Dan’s parents house for dinner. (Something that will keep the tattoo and belly button ring hidden!) I called my Dad to tell him that we sold the boat and he got very excited for us. We had a very nice dinner with mom & dad. They had friends over from Texas, Joe & Ann Bussy. We didn’t leave their house until 11:30. We were having such great conversations about all of our lives that the time just flew by. Must go to bed now!!

Saturday 2/6
We drove out of the campground at 7:30 AM and were on the road. We are on our way to deliver the boat to Georgia. It seemed like an awfully long drive. We usually drive 100 miles and then switch drivers, but this year we drove our Bronco truck to Florida along with the camper and boat because we were going to be here all winter. It has come in very handy, but the downside is that when we travel from one tournament to another we both have to drive by ourselves. We have CB radios and we chit chat all the way down the road. We had to make about 4 stops. We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast, and had ice cream for lunch. MMM MMM. We finally got to our meeting place in a little town called Oak Park, Georgia. It was nothing more than a BP gas station and a honky-tonk saloon. The boat sale took place - papers signed, money exchanged, and it seemed quite strange afterwards driving away without the boat. We drove as far as Macon, Georgia and pulled into an Outlet Store parking lot and slept there for the night. We had driven 500 miles. I cooked Spaghetti & Meatballs for dinner. By the time we got there I was hungry, and when I am hungry I am also grouchy. Dan was just washing his hands and I felt like he was IN MY WAY so I snapped at him. Hunger was taking control of my body. He disappeared into the bedroom and wouldn’t come out when dinner was ready. Well, when we eat supper, we always eat together and sit on the same side of the table. We also always kiss before we start eating. Since we couldn’t both be mad and kiss, that put an end to our spat. Total time: 12 minutes. We were exhausted and went to bed by 9:00

Sunday 2/7
It was a great morning. We both stayed in bed until 8:15. We finally got up, made coffee, let the dog out and started driving by 9:30. We drove into Alabama and stopped at Waffle House for breakfast. If you have never been to a Waffle House Restaurant, It is something you must experience at least once in your life. We crossed the time zone and arrived at Wind Creek State Park in Alexander City, Alabama. We got a very nice campsite in a very empty section of the campground. Sometimes we like to have our little hideaway, away from everyone else. Even so, we like to play a little game when we arrive in a new town. We like to see how long it takes, though we’re in a town we’ve never seen before, perhaps 1000 miles from home, before someone we know stops by to visit. Well, it took just about 1 hour today before David Williams came by, and 15 minutes after that another friend, Craig Sahms, came and set up camp right next to us. By the end of the day there is one other camper where we are, and they are friends of ours from New Hampshire, Ron & Phyllis Poirier. They travel with two dogs in their camper, so Cooper loves it when we park near them. We don’t really get much time to ourselves anymore. Actually though we like seeing all our friends in all the different states we travel to. It is kind of like our family away from home. It makes us feel good - we compare this to what it is like to arrive back home in New Hampshire - it seems we now know far more people out on the road than we do back home. Dan has been dropping hints, telling everyone we see that we just sold our boat. He is hoping that someone will offer their boat for us to use while our new one is being built. So far, in the first day, we have had three offers. That is a good feeling. We called the kids and Annie’s mom. The cell phone reception is very poor here, and we are disappointed about that. Since Dan doesn’t have a boat this week, he was planning on making a lot of calls and taking care of business beginning Monday morning. We also connect the computer to the internet via the cell phone. Obviously, all of this is difficult, if not impossible, when phone reception is poor. I cooked steak, corn & rice for dinner. We went to visit Ron & Phyllis for a half hour, and ate their ice cream. It is 9:45 and I need to go to bed.

Monday 2/8:
Haleluia! We have been waiting for this day to arrive! The 8th of the month is the day that our cell phone minutes reset. We get 1600 free minutes per month, which seems like a lot, but we’ve managed to exceed our limit the last couple of months. We’ve begun connecting the computer to the Internet via the cell phone, and this probably is using up half our minutes. Part of the problem also is that we had been in Florida for the past three months, where there was great cell phone reception everywhere we went. Now that we’re back to wandering, we’ll likely encounter many more situations like the one we’re in now - where phone reception SUCKS! At least it will help us save money. Dan did not go practice today because he had way to much to do during business hours. For one thing, he had to finalize the deal on the new boat. We have decided to take up Ron on his offer and borrow his boat while our new one is being built. Annie spent the whole day cleaning. You wouldn’t think that a small house could get that dirty, but it gets use from one end to the other every day & gets twice as dirty. Craig came over tonight and said the fishing wasn’t very good. Dan is going fishing with Ron early in the morning. The weather was nice today 70’s but it is going to go downhill from here. Wouldn’t you know it - by the time the tournament comes we will once again be in a cold front. My Sister, Debbie, called (actually she’s my sister in law, but we are very close) She called to tell me my niece, Kaitlyn (7) is having a little school play when I am in NH next week. She knows no matter what I have planned I will cancel it & be in the front row hooting and cheering for her. I cooked us pork tenderloin, peas & stuffing for dinner. We went to visit Ron & Phyllis and we came home by 7:00. We are in a different time zone, so to us it is really 8:00. By 9:00 Dan has gone to bed. I have to work on my list of things to do tomorrow. I was on the computer sending email, and found Kate & Jeff on AOL Instant Message so we talked for little bit. I am using too many phone minutes and I told them I will send them each an email tomorrow.

Tuesday 2/9
Today is our 1 ½ year anniversary. To celebrate, Dan is gone fishing and I am doing laundry, and packing to go home Sunday. What fun. Dan went fishing with Ron, it was real foggy this morning and they relied heavily on their GPS and mapping software to figure out where they were going. Dan Caught about 8 fish, and he brought one back in the live well to show me. It was the cutest bass I had ever seen. It was about 4 inches long, and he caught it on a crankbait. They came in around 4:30 and we had to go in town to register for the tournament from 6:30-8:30. We took Ron & Phyllis with us and we went out to eat at the Western Sizzler, I’ve never been and the food was good but it wasn’t service with a smile. Dan is talking to our neighbor Craig now and I think they are going fishing together tomorrow.

Wednesday 2/10
Dan practiced with Craig today. He had found one little crankbait that outperformed everything else the day before, so he threw that a lot today. It worked pretty well, but Craig, who didn’t have the same one but had instead the next size up, was catching even more with his. So of course Dan and Ron have to run out to the tackle shop tonight to find some of those. We had Craig eat supper with us after fishing. Cooked a big meal of lemon-pepper chicken, Rica-a-roni, corn, and squash. We look at the clock when we’re eating and it is only 3:30! Got the boats and tackle ready for tomorrow (the first day of the tournament,) then went in town to the tackle shop and to the partner pairings meeting at 6:30. Dan’s partner is Chuck Ayer from Georgia; they will work together tomorrow to figure out which patterns are working the best, rather than split the day in half, giving Dan 4 hours to do his thing and Chuck 4 hours to do his.

Thursday 2/11
Dan is fishing today - first day of the tournament. Fog delays the take off by about 2 hours. Annie went into town to go grocery shopping, Vacuum the truck, get gas, etc.. I also called Mom (Dan’s) and had a very good conversation. We are thinking of getting a house in New Hampshire this summer and wanted her input. She thought it would be a good idea. We also spoke a lot of Dan’s fishing and she agreed with me that this is what he should be doing for a career. He enjoys it and is happy doing it. They are very supportive, it was difficult at first but as they understand it more they see that it is a career and not just a day of fishing. Dan came in with three fish - his crankbait pattern did not hold up today even though the conditions have not changed at all. This is not good, since conditions are going to change dramatically, for the worse, starting tonight. They’re calling for rain, thunderstorms, and high winds by morning, with temperatures dropping all day. After weighing in Dan met his partner for tomorrow; he is from Florida. They are going to go in Dan’s boat (actually Ron’s boat, since Dan doesn’t have one and Ron is fishing with George Cochran). While Dan was talking with his partner a woman came up to me and asked me my name. She said some of the wives were talking about me the other day - they have seen me back up the motorhome with the boat attached, and they voted me the best backer-upper of all the wives on the tournament trail. It made me feel good. Craig came over for dinner, I made a salad, steak & broccoli. It is 8:00 and Dan is heading for bed.

Friday 2/12
IT IS FREEZING!!! Last night at dinner time we were in shorts, but today it is low 40’s and high winds. It feels like it is going to snow. The problem is that we haven’t been in weather this cold since October. When Dan got up at 4:30 it was around 60, but the weather forecast is calling for temps to fall throughout the day. He is out today with three layers on his legs and a total of eight shirts, sweaters, and jackets up top. At least it ’s not raining yet, but he must be freezing out on the water because it is very windy, and no matter what you do with the rest of your body there is little you can do to keep your hands warm while fishing. The weather man said the wind chill will be around 19, and on top of that it is going to rain. Poor Daniel. I have the heat running and I don’t plan on going out until it is absolutely necessary. What really stinks is that I am flying to New Hampshire on Sunday and I am sure it is not going to be any warmer than this. OK it is now starting to rain. L Dan came in today with only one fish. Since he did not catch a lot yesterday, he figured he needed at least 12 lbs today to catch up, so he went fishing for largemouth instead of spotted bass. The "spots" this week are easier to catch, but much smaller. Well it didn’t work. He did come back with some interesting stories, though. It seems his partner, fishing this week in his first major tournament, had never fished outside of Florida. Here we are on a highland reservoir, with water levels perhaps 10 feet below normal pool, and wind chill temperatures around 20 degrees. Florida boy was baffled and beaten early on. Dan says he never even picked up a fishing rod after 10:30am; just hunkered down in the passenger seat trying to keep warm, mumbling about hot coffee and a bowl of chili. He hadn’t lost his sense of humor though. Since he had no fish to go to, he went along with Dan’s plan to catch ‘em big or not at all. When by early afternoon it was apparent that the plan wasn’t working, he came out with the comment "All right, I’ve decided I want my half day after all, and I want to spend it BACK ON THE DOCK!" It was funny, but Dan got the hint and they came in about an hour early. I went out to do some more laundry tonight just so it is all caught up before we get on the road tomorrow. We cooked a ham steak, and italian green beans. We went to bed by 8:30 and had a very relaxing night.

Saturday 2/13:
Slept a little later today - 7am. Hooked up to Ron’s boat and were on the road by noon. 7 Hours of driving, including rest stops, gas stops, and McDonald’s lunch, gets us to the South Carolina welcome center where we spend the night. Dan has a bad stomach ache and just wants to go to bed and sleep through it.

Sunday 2/14:
Dan is up at 7am and sneaking around outside in the Bronco. He has to retrieve a Valentine’s day gift he has hidden, and write something sweet in the card. It’s about 25 degrees out there, and he wishes he had done all of this before-hand and hidden it inside. When I get up we exchange gifts and both pretend to be mad at the other because we agreed that we were not giving gifts this year. I got a nice big candle and Dan got a box of chocolate covered cherries. We pull into the campground at Dreher Island State Park on Lake Murray at about noon. It’s a beautiful area, and the lake looks real nice. Dan is very excited about next week. We are here for the FLW tournament, which starts next Wednesday (10 days from now). We know nothing about this lake, but there is plenty of practice time, even allowing for bad weather, and Dan has a few people to talk to who can hopefully get him started in the right direction here. It’s not all smiles today, though, because today is the day that I fly home without Dan to spend a week in New Hampshire. We haven’t been home now since early November, and this is the first time that we’ve spent the holidays away from family. I’m anxious and very much looking forward to it, but it’s sad to be leaving my husband all alone.

Monday 2/15:
All right, Annie’s gone. I took her to the airport last night and we said good-bye for a week. Dan’ll be writing this journal for a while. We mentioned last week that we play a little game when we arrive in a new town - we see how long it takes before we have visitors. Well I wasn’t home from the airport for a half hour last night before Dwayne Horton was knocking on the door. He’s pulled in and camped right near us. Today I had Craig Sahms, who camped next to us last week in Alabama and lives not far from here, show me around this lake some. The only way we could get a bite was by Carolina rigging, which is not my favorite way to fish, but all of the fish we caught were 3-4 lb fish, so I guess I’ll be doing more of this in the coming days. I talked to the folks at Ranger today. They don’t want me using Ron’s boat, so they have found me a loaner boat and are shipping it out here to Lake Murray before the tournament begins. Later, I had a bite to eat, talked to Dwayne some, then went out in the Bronco. This is a nice campground but it’s far away from the tournament site, so I drove down there to see exactly how far (16 miles) and how long it takes (25 minutes). What I really wanted to see was whether there was going to be an out-of-the-way place to park the camper at the launch ramp. Oftentimes what works best for us is to stay at a campground during practice days, then move right to the tournament site the night before competition begins. We are self-contained and can live comfortably for 3-4 days without facilities.

Tuesday 2/16:
Up early, but not fishing until about 9am. Still cold in the morning. Moved around a lot, mid-lake, fishing outside points. Nothing. Moved halfway in a creek - nothing. Moved all the way to the back, and found schooling fish chasing baitfish. Was excited until I realized that they were mostly Stripers and White bass, but I did manage to catch 4 or 5 small keeper largemouth by moving around in this area. Even with all of the activity here though it’s not a spot I have confidence in - these fish will likely move out if the weather changes significantly so I have to find something that will hold out. Back at the campground I called a guy I met last month on Lake Okeechobee. He’s local here and offered to help with information on Lake Murray when the time came. He had lots of good information, and I’m going to go out and try his stuff tomorrow. Talked to Annie tonight from New Hampshire. She’s having a great visit. She had just got back from taking my kids out for ice cream. Here’s the scoop: Kate wants Annie to meet Alfred, her new boyfriend, this week while she’s home. Jeff is about ready to start shaving, and Chris just about talked her ear off. She really loves it when the kids open up to her like this.

Wednesday 2/17:
Fished with John Hobbie today, a friend who travels the FLW circuit as a non-boater or "co-angler" as they like to be called now. We fished up the river, and had a very slow day. In fact we had only one bite all day, but it was a 5 lb’er. Later tonight, I called Keith West, another friend who had volunteered to help me out here, and he’s going to come down from North Carolina tomorrow to show me some stuff. Got a call from my insurance broker today, and they want to fight the insurance company who denied payment on my recent claim. A month ago I lost my trolling motor when it broke off and flew overboard in rough water. The insurance company points to an exclusion in the policy; the broker doesn’t agree and is going to argue my case.

Thursday 2/18:
Fished with Keith West today, who showed me some of his spots upriver, which just happened to be right near the places I fished with John yesterday. And just like yesterday, the fish are still not biting upriver. We went back down the lake later in the day, and fished a few points and rock piles. Found one little point where I had three bites - this is promising. I’ve fished four days here now and on only one of those days I may have caught a small limit. I’m starting to get concerned over this. When you first get here and the calendar says you have nine days to practice, that seems like plenty. You kind of assume that sometime during those nine days you’ll either figure something out, or at least get lucky and just blunder into some fish. Well practice time is now half over and neither of these scenarios has taken place. So now is when I start to get nervous, especially since the weather is supposed to get steadily worse for the next 3 days or so. It’s not that there isn’t time enough remaining to put something together, instead it’s that your starting to hear that little voice in the back of your head saying "If you can’t figure it out in the first four days, with people helping you, what makes you think you can figure it out in the last four days, with the pressure mounting?" I need to ignore that little voice, focus on fishing and stay confident. There’s still plenty of time.

Friday 2/19:
In the water at first light, trying to get in as much time as possible before the bad weather hits. Ran down to near the dam, about 15 miles. Fishing secondary points, 10-15’ deep, and sticking with the Carolina rigged finesse worm. The rain is on and off, and it’s cold. I keep having to stop fishing to warm up my hands. I can’t afford to be doing this on tournament days. Will have to go out and look for some neoprene (wet suit) gloves later today, to replace the ones that blew out of the boat last year. By 11:30 I have had only one bite. This is when the thunder begins. I ignore it for a while, since I see no lightning. This soon changes though so I pack it up and start heading back. What a ride! Halfway back I’m confronted with a wall of water just pouring from the sky. Visibility is cut to 100 yards, the wind picks up to 30 mph, the seas are running about 3 feet and the lightning is exploding right over my head! I have all I can do just to keep the boat from swamping, and I realize at a time like this how important it is to have a GPS mapping system, like this LMS160 from Lowrance, on the boat. Without it, there is no way I would have even known where I was, never mind been able to continue in the proper direction, since there was no land visible in any direction. We made it through the squall (Cooper and I), and by the time we took the boat out the worst was over and it was just raining hard. I spent the rest of the day running errands and driving around looking at alternate launch sites to use on tournament days.

Saturday, 2/20:
Out at 6am - to do laundry and buy some groceries. Back by 9. Fished that Carolina rig for four hours, nothing. Moved back into some creeks, looking for baitfish, looking for deep brushpiles. Finally quit at 5pm. Eight hours of fishing produced not one bite. Very discouraging. I don’t know what to do tomorrow. The good news though, is that Annie’s coming home tomorrow night. While I was out I bought her cards (one from me, one from the dog), flowers (roses), and the new Alan Jackson CD with the song "I’ll Go On Loving You." She’ll be like butter when she gets back. Oh yeah!

Sunday, 2/21:
Fished with Ron today, the owner of the boat I’m borrowing. We had 2 or 3 bites and caught a Carolina rig fish early. Ron then caught 2 fish from the back of the boat out of brush piles I had just finished fishing with a jig & pig. He was throwing a spider jig (skirt grub), so I switched over to that and eventually caught one myself. Afterwards, I showered, dressed, then cleaned and vacuumed the house for Annie’s return. I arranged her flowers and cards on the kitchen table, set out candles, and drove to the Columbia airport to pick her up. As soon as I walked in the airport entrance, my cell phone rang. I answered, and it was her. She says "Where are you?" "At the airport" I reply. "So am I!" she exclaims. Thoughts run through my head as fast as lightning. This is not good - after a week of telling her I miss her every day, I’m late to pick her up at the airport. I look at the clock - I’m not late, she must be early, but hadn’t she already called to say that her flight was delayed? Now I think, she’s playing a game with me, and that call was a setup. The timing of this is too perfect, my phone ringing the second I walk through the door. I immediately spin around looking for the pay phones, expecting to find her watching me and laughing from the nearest booth. No sign of her. I continue my airport scan with the phone to my ear as I wander into the lobby and stop. "I’m sorry I’m late, honey. What happened?" "You’re not late, silly!" she said "We haven’t even taken off yet! I’m still at the CHARLOTTE airport!"

Monday 2/22
I AM BACK!! It is wonderful to be back home to my husband. I flew in last night at 10:37 PM. I had a great time in New Hampshire, I got to see all my friends and family, although I did not stop the whole week. I was exhausted by the time I got on the plane. I got to sleep in until 9:00 this morning, Dan’s loaner boat is coming in today so we had to drive 30 miles to Walmart to pick it up at the Ranger Boats service trailer. We picked up the boat, drove to Lexington to find another campground because we are so far away. We found a nice campground then drove to our other campground to get our camper and move to our new site. Dan had to transfer all his tackle from Ron’s boat to his new loaner boat. He was going fishing after, but after ended up being 5:00 and it is so cold out that I did not let him go out. It wasn’t hard to talk him out of it. This is our job but it is not worth getting frostbite on your fingers. He worked on all his tackle instead. He changed the line on his rods and sorted his lures. It is freezing tonight and they are talking about SNOW for tomorrow. Hello. We are in South Carolina!! We got invited out to eat with John & Laraine Hobbie but we haven’t seen each other much and we really enjoy our dinners together so we cooked pork tenderloin and italian green beans, then had ice cream for desert. I had to unpack and sort all our mail, we were up until 11:30 .

Tuesday 2/23
We got up at 8:00 and it was very cold. Dan packed up his boat and found all his warm clothes and headed out fishing. I stayed home and went through our mail, paid some bills and cleaned a little. Dan came in around 4:30, changed and we were on our way to register for the tournament. He did not have a good day of fishing. The loaner boat Dan got only had 10 minutes of use so he had to go put some hours on the motor. We registered and then Operation Bass fed us dinner and it was pretty good, so we didn’t have to cook. Dan has a meeting tomorrow with his Evinrude sponsor so he had to do some work on the computer tonight regarding new ideas and suggestions for his motor & trolling motor. Mom (Dan’s) called tonight and wanted to know how things were & how my visit to NH went, so we talked for about a ½ hour. I also called Kate today and spoke briefly however we have been e-mailing each other all day. Big news, she is in love!! Don’t tell Dan though. It’s he first love. We had a very busy day and it is already 11:30 so I better get to bed. Good Night.

Wednesday 2/24
It is 8:30 am and there is at least an inch of snow on the ground. It is very cold. I feel so bad for all the fishermen. The schools are closed and the people here in South Carolina just don’t know what to do when it snows like this. I went out to lunch with 3 other wives. Dan came in with no fish L It was a long, cold day. He was fishing the same way many others were, a Carolina rig, he just wasn’t doing it in the right places at the right times. Also, people said the fish were taking the bait very softly, and with your fingers numb from cold it was difficult to feel. He was discouraged, but there were a lot of other fisherman who didn’t catch any fish. His partner for tomorrow is Eddie Evans, and he did not catch any fish today either, so we’ll just start all over tomorrow. The good news is that to make it into the money today only took 4lb 9oz, so it wouldn’t be too hard to catch up if you just get on some fish. We got home at 5:30, showered, got dressed and had to go to a pro staff meeting for OMC. They served dinner and spoke of upcoming things, and they asked the pro staff for suggestions and comments on the products. There was another meeting regarding trolling motors for just six pro staff members after that that Dan had to stay for. We got home at 9:30 and Dan went right to bed. I wrote some email to Jeff, Kate & Chris.

Thursday 2/25
Well, it wasn’t snowing this morning, but it is still very cold. I got up and cleaned some of the house and am going out to lunch with the ladies again. I had to due some business at home before lunch, such as call Ranger boats to get some things added to Dan’s boat order. Dan is due in at 3:20. It has not been a good tournament for us. Dan came in with no fish today also, his partner Eddie caught 1 fish. It was just a tough tournament. We stuck around until the end of weigh in because Dan has a meeting to go to right afterward for the top 10 fisherman. We always stay the last 2 days of the tournament because Dan drives an ESPN camera boat. We got home around 7:00 and were very tired. We were supposed to go visit Bobby & Elaine Smith because we are going to their home lake next, West Point Lake on the Georgia/Alabama border, but were so exhausted we just had dinner and went to bed by 8:45.

Friday 2/26
Up at 5:30 and unhooked the motorhome, drove to WalMart and Dan went to work for the day. I stayed up, and got real busy. I did laundry, groceries, worked on our calendar and did some business. Today we got an email letter from a 15 year old boy asking questions about a reel he has problems with. He got Dan’s name and address off of the Spiderwire web site. Dan came back with the fishermen at 4:00. And after the weigh in the camera boat drivers had to stay for the top 5 meeting. It was 7:00 by the time we got back in our motorhome. We are staying right here in the WalMart parking lot tonight. It works great because we have to be here at 5:15 am, and this is where the weigh in is. I cooked dinner and Dan is so behind on everyday items and business that he didn’t even eat with me. I kept him a plate and when he was done he finally ate at 9:00. He has not even had time to look at the mail I brought back with me on Sunday. He answered a few emails and wrote to the kids, then got ready for tomorrow. He is absolutely exhausted, and really needs some time off.

Saturday 2/27
The alarm went off at 4:00 and Dan started another busy day. I didn’t even hear it go off. He was out the door by 5:00. I got up at 8:45, went and had photos developed at WalMart, and got the house organized for travel. I emailed the kids and talked to Kate on the computer for a few minutes. The weigh in was very exciting as always. Mike Wurm won first place. Second was Mark Davis. We didn’t get to leave until 6:30 because the parking lot was full and we couldn’t get the motorhome out. It was not a very pleasant evening. We are both on edge. We are on our way to West Point Lake, for an Everstart tournament that starts Wednesday. We were supposed to drive for 1 hour and stay at the Georgia Welcome Center, however when we got there it was closed due to construction and we had to drive another hour to reach the next rest area. We didn’t eat until 9:00. Dan called the kids and talked for a long time while driving. I was supposed to call Kate tonight. I didn’t get to call until 9:30 and she was sick in bed. I talked to her for a bit and then emailed her instead.

Sunday 2/28
Awoke this morning at the highway rest area. In no hurry today, so we lounged in bed awhile, had a leisurely breakfast, and got on the road around 10:30. We have about 200 miles to do today. We stopped about halfway through, just east of Atlanta, and did a little WalMart shopping, for jeans and groceries. On the road again, and arrived at West Point Lake, Highland Marina, about 6pm. There’s nobody in the office, so we camped in the parking lot.

Link to: March 1999