[May] June 2001 [July]

We got on the water at about 9am, and headed out to fish some humps in the middle of Anchor Bay. Despite having had on two rainsuits over a sweater, a turtleneck shirt, a neckwarmer and wool hat, there was water running down my chest by the time we arrived at our first spot. And if I wasn’t wet already, circling around looking for a hump in three-foot seas with a twenty mile-per-hour wind certainly finished the job for both of us. Fortunately, that was the worst we had all day, for the rain soon ended. The wind blew strong all day though, making it difficult both to stand up on deck as well as to read and interperet the depthfinders. It’s hard to look for humps and rock piles and weedbeds when the boat is bouncing around atop two and three foot waves. A flat, featureless bottom that is ten feet deep under these conditions will read 9, 11, 8, 11, 9, 11... on the depthfinder. Though we did manage to dry out during the day, we never really warmed up, and we never found the good fish either. Between us we caught ten bass, but only two were even 14" keeper size. And get this - even though I caught both of the keepers today, Annie caught more fish overall (six to my four,) so I had to cook dinner tonight. Now does that sound fair to you?

Annie writes:
That’s right, loser cooks the dinner!! I have had to cook many dinners these past few years because of that rule. I figured seeing Dan only has 3 days to practice here it would help if I went out with him a couple of days. The weather was awful, and it was a "white knuckle ride". I bundled up, tightened my life jacket, and held on. I was so glad to see the rain finally end, but the wind kept up most of the day and the sun never did come out.

We got home, finally, around 6:30pm. Dan cooked dinner and we were so exhausted from the elements of the day that we were in bed by 8:50. There were no problems falling asleep tonight.

We worked our way across the lake, stopping to fish a couple of humps in the middle, and eventually got back towards the western shore. Yesterday we had fished it from inside out, out to about eight feet, so today I worked it outside in. Starting in 13-14 feet, we did the "Erie drag". This is where you just drag a tube along the bottom behind the boat - you don’t hop it, you don’t play with it, you just leave it alone back there until a fish bites it. This is a slow way to fish, but it works if there are fish around. Trouble is there’s a lot of water to cover - the depth we started in today is about two miles offshore, and in that two miles we caught fish at every depth. Any time you dragged through some grass or weeds, which we’re finding in clumps now as opposed to everywhere you go like the last time we were here, you would catch a couple. We caught twenty fish this afternoon (Dan eleven; Annie nine this time,) but not a single one of them measured the 14" keeper size. Finally we quit around 7:30 pm. It was a long day on the water but Annie never complained once. She’s a keeper, at least.

Annie writes:
I woke up around 6:00 and was trying to figure out if Dan was still here. I had no idea what the weather was like, so I thought, maybe I’ll just stay in bed until he leaves, then I won’t have to go fishing again. Maybe he’ll just come in and kiss me goodbye... Maybe not!. He did come in, but not to say goodbye, to wake me up to go fishing.

When I got up I realized my back is very sore, but the weather was sunny and the winds seemed calm, so I went fishing. The nice weather did not last long, the sun went away, and it was very chilly, yes that is a picture of me with gloves on. I must comment on the life jacket!! I do not usually fish with my life jacket on, but Dan is on this 15 minute rule, where we stay in one place no longer than 15 minutes if it is not producing, so it speeds me up to keep the jacket on, and also adds another layer of warmth. I caught my 3lb’er within the first 1/2 hour, but that was my only keeper for the whole day. We fished long and hard today, we had over 10 hours on the water by the time we came in tonight. I would love to write more, but as the score today was Dan 11, Annie 9, I must go cook dinner!!

After that I ran the length of the lake down to the mouth of the Detroit River. It wasn’t bad today - with calm water it took only about twenty minutes. Water temp down here is low 60’s, and there is more grass than I’ve seen anywhere else in three days. There’s also a good, steady current washing over the grass and rock humps. Just as I arrived a light rain had started to fall, and the wind had picked up a bit. Good spinnerbait weather, I thought, so I began slinging the blade, the same one I’ve been throwing for the last two days without a single bite, out over the grass clumps. They say that when fishing for smallmouth in open water like this, if you don’t get bit within fifteen minutes, leave. Keep moving until you find the aggressive fish. Well I found ‘em here. In two hours I caught my second four-pounder of the day, and a number of other good, solid keepers. The aggressive bite slowed a bit after the rain ended and the sky brightened up, but there are obviously quality fish here and this area also will get another close look when I return next.

Annie writes:
6 something this morning my husband decided we needed to discuss our day, he must be crazy!!!!! He left soon after our BRIEF discussion and I managed to stay in bed until almost 8am. I spent the morning preparing for our trip to Wisconsin, I had to get the camper ready and pay for our campsite, then I drove the camper to the launch ramp to meet Dan so we could save some time tonight when he came in.

When I go fishing I am usually exhausted by the end of the day and have no energy to do any of the every day items that need to be done, so I spent most of the afternoon working on our non fishing life items. Dan came in around 3:30, we got on the road immediately, and drove about 50 miles to a huge mall which had a Bass Pro Shops in it. We spent the evening there, Dan closed Bass Pro Shops at 10:00 p.m.. I asked security if we could sleep there, but they said no, and there is no Walmart in town, so we had to drive. Before we knew it, it was 12am, and we were trying desperately to find someplace to sleep where we would not be scared the whole night. We got off at an exit and pulled into an abandoned restaurant parking lot, with a gas station next door. I was going to ask the clerk at the gas station where there was a Walmart, there were two police officers in the store who informed me there was one about 90 miles away. They noticed my face drop and asked what I specifically I was looking for. I told them a parking space so we could camp for the night. They told us we could sleep in the empty parking lot, their shift was just starting and they would patrol the area all night. Thank goodness, we were in bed by 1:00am.

I finally got on the water at around 11am, and decided I’d start by throwing a crankbait along the riprap and the wing dams, a pattern that was working well at the last river tournament we fished, in Louisiana last month. Well, it’s working here too. I started catching fish on the first rocks I threw at, and I caught ‘em all day like that. A keeper here is 14", and I only caught two of those, but I caught a grand total of 38 fish cranking the rocks! Wow! Tomorrow I’m going to do more of the same, and just try to find the rocks that are holding bigger fish.

Annie writes:
Rough night’s sleep at Walmart last night, when I got up during the night and looked outside I noticed three other boats had come here to sleep during the night. Dan was planning to go out early, but needs to find a map first. We agreed for Dan to take the truck and boat, and I will take the motorhome to the campground and meet him there tonight.

So, here I am trying to run errands in a 40foot motorhome, in a strange town, with construction everywhere. I had to do groceries, so I found a big parking lot and went into this store. The grocery store was the nicest grocery store I had ever been in. It was huge, clean, and had everything you could be looking for, even a sushi bar. When you check out, you bag your own groceries, which is fine with me. After groceries, I had to find a laundromat, this is was not as easy as I had hoped. Finally, I found a great laundromat and got our laundry done.

Eventually, I arrived at Goose Island campground and was so glad to finally be here, parked and all set up. I do not plan on going out much while we are here. Kate called me to tell me she had tickets to the U2 concert and was so excited, she just wanted me to get excited with her, and she knew I would. Dan came in around 7, ate dinner, worked on the boat, and went to bed by 9:30.

Next I went across the river and into to massive stump fields. For about three hours I threw at stumps and shallow wood, and never got so much as a sniff. At 11am I was in the lock, heading south down the river into the next pool. About a mile below the lock I veered off into one of the chutes heading into the backwater. It’s a whole new world back there. About three miles wide, this section of the river, and at normal water levels it would be mainly dry land intersected by dozens of sloughs and small lakes. The current water level, about four or five feet high, makes it nothing but a huge swamp of standing timber and flooded grasses now.

I wandered around back in there until I found myself in an old lake. I picked out a point of trees, started about a hundred yards out and worked my way to the end with a spinnerbait. Bang - first fish, a 2 1/2 pounder. Huh. Fishing my way along through the grass I headed towards the next point, two-hundred yards away. As soon as I got there, bang, another 2 1/2 pounder on the spinnerbait. Oh yeah, I’m liking this. I moved quicker this time over to the next point, nothing, and the next point, nothing, but on the next, bang, this time a three pounder. Okay, I’m excited now.

This end of the lake obviously has some fish in it, so I left it alone moved over to a different area. I motored around until I found something that looked similar, and within 50 yards of where I dropped the trolling motor I had another solid keeper inhale the spinnerbait. That’s it for this lake, let’s get out of here and leave it alone.

I spent the next five hours fishing other areas of the backwater, and, quite to my surprise, caught only one more fish. What was it that was unique about that first place? I decided that there were two things: first, even though the entire area is flooded now, underneath that it was a lake, as opposed to a slough. Second, the entire river system is recovering from a major flood this spring, and is draining back towards normal pool levels, but for whatever reason the water in this lake was not flowing, it was still. Tomorrow I’m going to concentrate of fishing only the still water of flooded lakes further south in this huge backwater.

Annie writes:
It was nice to be sleeping in the campground last night so we didn’t have the worry of someone knocking on our door during the night to kick us out. I spent the morning trying to get our internet up and running. It seems as though our internet provider had their telephone wires cut by accident, and they are trying to repair them. This is not good for our business, we have 38 emails waiting to go out and we need to have this problem resolved soon. After calling our provider five times, we were back in business.

Dan’s Mom called to chat and we stayed on the phone for a while. She is very excited about our house and will come to help us on moving day. Chris also called, he is scheduled to fly out to be with us next Saturday, but baseball might be running later than expected. We will talk more on Tuesday and try to figure that out.

Dan came in around 6:30 and one of our friends from home, Scott Parker, who is also fishing this tournament, came over for dinner. Scott & Dan know each other from being in the Manchester Bass Club together. .

The last thing we did before quitting for the day was to search for a place to fish while waiting for the lock. It’s entirely possible come tournament day to leave the backwater and race back up to the lock, only to be faced with an hour’s wait for the gates to open. Fortunately, it took us no time at all to find a section of riprap where I caught two keeper smallmouth in about five casts. That’s a nice little backup area to keep in the back of my head.

Annie writes:
I spent my hole day on the computer trying to work on sponsorship letters again. It is so easy to get discouraged and just stop doing them because all we are getting is letters saying "sorry, at this time we are not in a position to sponsor you". But, if we give up sending them we definitely will not find a sponsor. So, I am back at it and working very hard on cover letters, which is the most difficult part of the resume.

Dan called me during the day again today to tell me that he is catching them. For him to be on the water, calling me by noon time to tell me he has already caught a good limit, that is very exciting. I pray that it will hold out for the week.

We fished shallow for the first hour or so, with spinnerbaits and Rattletraps, and caught nothing. Scott worked his way out to the drop, pitching a tube, and as soon as he got there started catching fish. I did the same, and when we began moving around the lake looking for and fishing the steep drops adjacent to major grass flats. Man, are there some fish in here. By 10am we had caught a number of three-pounders, and were shaking fish off anyplace where we got multiple bites. Then I stuck one that I shouldn’t have. She was over five pounds. I had to show it to Scott, and since she was already in the boat I put her in the livewell and left to find him. We both agreed that we had found our fishing spot for Wednesday, but it was still early so we left and spent the next few hours looking at other stuff. We were back by early afternoon, for we knew there was nothing we were likely to find that would be better than this. The next two hours we spent refining the area. Our hook points by this time were covered up so as not to stick any more fish, and we proceeded to eliminate areas with no fish and mark on the GPS those stretches with multiple bites. I returned to the place where I had caught the five-pounder for she was still in the livewell and I wanted to release her in the same place where I had caught her. While there I pitched my bait around some more, shook of one fish and then got another who wouldn’t let go. I coaxed it to the surface and couldn’t believe what I was seeing - this was either the same fish I had just released two minutes before, or another one just like it. I didn’t bring it in the boat, but I guarantee it was at least four pounds.

I had shaken off a number of bites today, but all in all with the fish I had actually seen, either because I had stuck them or had just coaxed them up top (for they wouldn’t let go easily,) I could have had a five-fish limit of seventeen pounds.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting, and where strategy, and unfortunately gambling and just plain luck, can win or lose the tournament for you. Wisconsin has a no-cull rule. That means that as soon as you catch a fish you must make a decision. If you put him in the livewell, he cannot be taken out until you take him up to be weighed. If you’re having trouble catching a limit in practice, then every keeper you catch on tournament day you keep. If you’re catching two limits per day, then you draw the line at 15", or two pounds maybe. But if you’re catching threes’ four’s, and even five-pounder’s, then what do you do? A lot of thought has gone into this in the past few days, and up until today we would probably have kept every 14" fish, unless it was really skinny. Now though we’re really faced with a dilemma, and we argue the case both ways. All we can come up with is that hopefully the first two, three, or four fish we catch will all be big ones and we won’t have to make the decision until after we have a feel for how the bite is going on the actual tournament day.

Annie writes:
Spent a good part of my day on the phone. I got all our services set up for our new home, would hate to see us without electricity on day one. Then I spent some time trying to find a dealership to purchase, or consign our motorhome.

Dan came in around 5:00 and we washed the boat together. He is so excited for this tournament, so far is fish are still biting. I, on the other hand, am not as excited as I should be, it is very difficult, I get excited when we have these great practice days, but something always seems to change things on tournament days, then it hurts, and those hurts can take a toll on you after a while.

Around 7:00 the sky got dark and we were in for a good storm. The news said we had a tornado watch, and severe thunderstorms heading our way. When the camper started rocking, we got very concerned, it takes quite a bit to make our camper rock. There was no rain, so we went outside to check things out. There was a lightening storm like you have never seen before, every five to ten seconds there was a lightening bolt striking someplace, and the thunder that followed was loud. We decided to evacuate the motorhome, we went home, backed up a few things and headed to the cement laundry building for a storm shelter. We stayed there until 10:00pm, when we came out, it was much better, that was the first time we have really evacuated our home. In town reported golf ball sized hail, lots of trees down, wind damage. We were thankful and very lucky.

From there we headed over to the registration meeting around 5:00. We haven’t fished an EverStart tournament in a while, and a Red Man tournament in even longer, so this wasn’t the usual crowd of people we see at these events. Just the same it was amazing how many people in this new Northern EverStart division came up to us tonight and introduced themselves as people who used to know us from such-and-such a place or from such-and-such a time in our past. Other people we’ve never met just recognized us and told us that they read our journal. It was very flattering to both of us to be acknowledged by so many people. We had a real good time seeing everyone and renewing old acquaintances.

Annie writes:
Dan put in late today so we planned on going straight to registration from the water. I put him in the water and stayed in the truck studying for my English course I am taking soon. After registration we went out to eat with Scotty and had LOTS of strategy talking for tomorrow. Dan has this feeling again that he could win this tournament. I am torn, do I get excited, or do I stay calm and just wait for the results tomorrow? I can’t help but get excited, Dan is catching fish, has the confidence, and I feel he can do this. All I can do until tomorrow is wait, and try to stay busy. How can I? I am so excited, no wait, calm down, OK, we will remain calm, be supportive, and just pray that it is our turn.

I had been hoping for sunshine and calm winds, for those were the conditions here on Monday, but my luck didn’t hold out that far. Though the sky did brighten, we had a pretty good breeze blowing in on us and we fished that grassline for an hour and a half without a bite. This was disappointing, but I am attributing the slow bite to the wind. I tried switching up baits, but the Gambler 4" tube sprayed with Bang Fish Attractant is what caught all of my fish in practice, so I just kept coming back to that. That was my confidence bait.

We moved off to my second spot, where the fish were not biting either, but a half-hour later the wind laid down for us and I figured this may be a good time to return to our original grassline. Almost as soon as we arrived I got bit on my Gambler tube, and boated a 3+ lb. fish. About three casts later I boated a 2 1/2. That’s great - two fish that weigh almost six pounds, but that was it for two more hours.

We eventually moved off and tried a couple of other places, but got nothing, and returned to our number one spot. Once again, when I got positioned just right, and I mean I’m casting to within thirty feet of where every one of these big fish has come from both Monday and today, I got bit and it was another three-pounder. Ten minutes later I caught a two-pounder, and my partner caught the biggest one of the day, almost four pounds.

We stayed on it another hour before deciding to give this spot another rest. Besides, the wind had started up again and it was really cranking now, with white caps all around, and it was difficult to even keep the boat positioned. We left and tried another area, and this time we found a couple of fish - my partner got a fifteen-inch’er and I pulled out a fourteen. With this pound-and-a-quarter fish I now had to make a decision - do I keep this fish and quit for the day, or throw him back and hope I can catch a bigger one? I had about ten pounds in the livewell with four fish, so I decided to gamble on catching another, and tossed this one back.

We returned to our number one grassline, where the wind was howling now, and parked. We beat that place to death this time, but there was nothing left. Actually, I think there’s plenty left, but because of the wind they’re just not biting. We weren’t due in until 4:00, and at 1:30 I made the decision to abandon these fish and start working Plan B: cranking the riprap for smallmouth. My confidence area for this is about thirty miles south, through the lock, but we’d have to lock through anyway to get back to the weigh-in. I decided that the extra hour’s boat ride was worth it - all I needed was one more fish, and I’d have about a little more than an hour on my riprap to catch him.

It didn’t work out that way - when we arrived at the lock we were held up there waiting, and it took almost an hour before we got through to the other side. On top of that the south wind was blowing straight up the river, which would make for a slow and uncomfortable boat ride. I started scrambling instead for one last fish, looking at every piece of riprap I could find, ignoring it if it didn’t have the right current flow or the necessary depth, fishing it with my little crankbait if it did. At 3:15 I caught him, a sixteen-inch smallmouth. I splashed him into the livewell, threw my rod down on the deck and my hands in the air, and proclaimed "I’m done!"

After that I cut my crankbait off and gave it to my partner, and told him I’d take him anyplace he wanted to go. He opted to stay on that same piece of riprap, and that’s where we finished out the day, him cranking for a last minute fish, me just sitting down up front, thankful that that decision to throw away the fourteen-inch fish this morning didn’t come back to haunt me.

Annie writes:
Awoke at 3:58am with Daniel. I rode to the launch ramp with him so I could take the truck, which would allow me to go to the weigh in this afternoon. When we got close to the ramp Dan informed me that he had butterflies in his stomach, after 6 years of being a professional, that is very unusual. I watched him until he was out of site, then unhooked the boat trailer and headed back home.

I was wide awake, so I did some laundry and washed the truck. I was a bit nervous, thinking I was turning into a morning person, which I have never been. However, by 8:30am, I was exhausted and had to take a nap.

I was so excited, nervous, and hopeful throughout the day, that I was at the ramp this afternoon a bit earlier than usual, and watched the first three flights come in and around 12 pounds was leading. This was great since Dan was catching 12 pounds easy throughout the week. The guys around me started talking about how tough it was, and how things changed today. My stomach began to cramp up, finally four o’clock came and I saw Dan coming around the corner. I met him at the shore, and didn’t dare ask. It was about two very long minutes before I could get up the nerve to ask "how did you do?", he just nodded his head yes. I said "did you catch them good", another nod yes. He asked me what was leading, and I told him around 12 pounds. He then told me he thought he had 12 pounds. OK, at this point my heart was racing. He weighed in his fish, and due to a eight ounce penalty for a deceased fish, his total weight was 10 pounds 15 ounces. He finished up in 10th place for today. We were very excited, but this is only day one, he needs to catch five more fish tomorrow to be able to make the cut to Friday.

I was a little edgy tonight due to all the emotions going through me. I am so extremely excited for today’s finish, he did a superb job and really showed that he could do it, I pray he can do it again tomorrow. But, the other side of me is saying, don’t get over excited, because if something happens to change tomorrow I have to be the supportive person to bring his spirits back up, so I am trying to keep my feelings on the back burner. I do hope that he has a good tournament tomorrow and we can celebrate, tonight, I am a little apprehensive.

By the end of the day yesterday I was thinking that I was lucky to have pulled as much weight out of Lake Onalaska as I did, considering how much tougher it was than just two days prior. I attributed that tough bite to the fact that the wind blew so hard, and as a result we went to bed last night praying for bright skies and calm winds for today. What we got instead was a rude awakening at 4am by a huge thunderclap, and a look outside confirmed that the trees were swaying and the rain was falling. Oh well, it looks like we’re fishing Plan B today.

Plan B involves running south to the riprap and cranking for smallmouth, as opposed to north to the lake and pitching tubes for largemouth. Pitching the Gambler tube yesterday is what put me in tenth place at the end of the day, so that’s really what I wanted to be doing today, but I had to abandon that pattern halfway through the day yesterday and fall back on the crankbait pattern to fill out my limit.

By the time we launched the boat this morning, a change in the weather seemed to be taking place and a bit of optimism crept into my thinking. Was the wind really laying down for me, or was that just wishful thinking? We were crowded into a protected backwater prior to takeoff, and when they called my number to go, I headed out towards the river. Would I turn south towards my reliable smallmouth, or gamble on the wind and turn north, towards the big fish? It wasn’t until I was actually IN the river that I made my choice: north it is.

We locked through and headed up into the lake, racing once again to the far end and to my special little grassline. I didn’t mention it before but my new Lowrance X15 GPS has worked wonders this week in pinpointing my spots. I just head for the X on my screen, and as I get closer and closer keep zooming in the display, and when I’m zoomed-in all the way and the cursor indicates that I am on my spot, that’s it. I’m there. No triangulating on shoreline landmarks, no searching with the depthfinder - this thing puts me within thirty feet of where I want to be every time.

The wind was blowing some when we arrived, but not nearly what it was yesterday, so I immediately had a good feeling about my decision. We didn’t get bit for the first hour or so, at which time a major storm front blew in from across the river bringing with it howling winds and drenching rain, and both north and south of us, lightning and thunder. It was in the very midst of this fury that my fish decided to bite. I broke one off and my partner missed one at virtually the same instant. Five minutes later, barely able to feel my bait dragging through the grass on account of the wind, my rod just started pumping. I yanked, and I pulled, and my drag was slipping, but eventually we horsed my first fish into the boat - a solid three pounder.

The lightning was getting dangerous so we opted to head over to shore and wait it out. When the front had passed, the rain ended also but the wind remained, just not as strong. We returned to our spot and over the course of two more hours, put two more good fish in my livewell. I figured I needed at least seven pounds today to make the Top 30 cut, so I weighed my three fish and came up with a total of around eight. That’s not enough of a cushion to be comfortable, so even though I don’t want to catch an ounce more that I have to today off of my little honey hole here, I kept on fishing.

At 10:30 my practice partner, Scott, came racing over in his boat to check on my progress. I told him I had three. He said "If you want more, come with me. Right now." His fish were schooling, and he had just caught a ten-pound limit in a half hour. I yanked my trolling motor up and chased him back to the other end of the lake. When we arrived, he pointed to a spot and told me to throw it "right over there." I did. Bang, first cast, I nailed a three-pounder. Unbelievable. His partner had been trying all morning to catch just one, and I pulled in and stuck a big one on my very first cast. And that was the end of it, too. For another hour Scott’s partner, my partner, and I all tried to catch another one, but failed.

Scott had caught only six pounds yesterday, and he had his limit today so couldn’t fish anymore. He believed the tournament was over for him and he wasn’t going to make the Top 30 cut. I on the other hand was now guaranteed a Top 30 spot. In fact I had four fish in the livewell that weighed almost twelve pounds, and I said to the guys there that if I were to catch one more, I would be leading this tournament after today. That’s quite a prediction, coming from me, for it’s been a long time since I’ve had that kind of a premonition.

We decided that my best strategy for the rest of the day would be to go looking for new fish. Fish that I can come back to tomorrow, in my quest for a Top 10 slot. So we split off from Scott again and went to do just that. I returned to a place I had looked at back in practice, but didn’t get bit on. I looked it over again today, and began fishing the edge of the flat, where hydrilla grew right up to the edge and then over into the deeper water. I told my partner that that was good looking stuff, and that if I were a fish, I’d want to live here. "But I’m not a fish," I said, "and that’s why there ARE no fish here." A second later though I heard myself exclaim "Except that one! Get the net!" That was my fifth fish of the day, and the one that turned my earlier prediction into a reality. I weighed-in 13.5 pounds, the second biggest stringer of the tournament, and when the smoke had cleared at the end of the day I found myself leading this tournament by just under two pounds.

Notes:

• I am savoring my two-pound lead and milking it for all it’s worth tonight, for tomorrow morning when we start out again, the weights are reset to zero and we all start out even again. Bummer.

• Scott, my practice partner who believed he was heading home after today, instead will be staying to fish the Top 30 with me tomorrow, for his five-fish limit today landed him in 24th place overall. I wonder if he’ll be as nice to me out there tomorrow as he was to me today???

Even though everyone starts at zero tomorrow, this is two minutes of fame, Dan had the second biggest stringer of the tournament and was in first place. This feels VERY good, the strange thing is, it really feels right, I have a feeling he will make it to the top 10 by the end of the day tomorrow. I am so proud of him. The kids called, we called Dan’s mom and my parents. Things have really been going well for us, no matter what happens, we definitely get a check in this tournament, which makes it 4 out of the last 5 tournaments we have been paid.

Being the leader after Day Two though was a great experience for me, as in fact was this entire week. It didn’t work out for me out on the water today, but I have learned valuable lessons, and finding myself in first place after yesterday gave me an opportunity to do press interviews, to gain some good exposure, and to experience the pressures, the stresses, and the demands put on you by the expectations both of others and of myself.

I can’t say I’m not disappointed about not making the cut to the final day, but I know that I did my best here, and also that my best was good enough to produce my strongest tournament performance in a long time, and to draw my fourth check out of the last five tournaments I’ve fished. Good things are beginning to happen, finally, and I’m just proud to have taken it as far as I did this week.

Annie writes:
Last night we decided I would not go with Dan this morning, I will pack up the motorhome and meet him at the launch ramp for the weigh in. This way if he does not happen to make the cut, we can get on the road immediately following the weigh in.

I was a basket of nerves all morning, throughout the day my enthusiasm increased. I was not nervous for today’s outcome, it was more of the excitement of Dan being in the lead after yesterday. Dan was in first place, the number one spot, the most weight of the tournament, that is rare for us and it felt so good. He got to do interviews, was mentioned everywhere, the recognition and confidence it gives you is like nothing else. We have received over 20 emails from fans following us, wishing us luck, the phone was ringing off the hook, and it felt very good.

This afternoon I packed up and moved to the launch ramp. At 1:00 my phone rang and it was Dan, he informed me, we are not fishing tomorrow. My feelings on this............ it’s OK. I am extremely proud of him and his performance here. He was in tenth place after the first day and first place after the second. He did a great job, and we got another check. That now makes it four out of the last five. Now it’s on to Detroit for the FLW at Lake St. Clair!

Dick and I discussed strategy. He has fished just two days here, caught a few up in the north end, not done much down around the mile roads, and went to Detroit yesterday, where he couldn’t locate keeper fish either. I told him what I had done last week when we were here, and then we split up for the day.

Annie and I launched the boat and set out to fish a hump in Anchor Bay. First we tried to fish a hump out in Anchor Bay, but it was just too so windy and rough, and the pleasure boat traffic was just awful. The cruisers on this lake will run right at a bass boat just sitting still out there... we had it happen to us three times today and could have hit each one with a long cast of a 3/4 ounce spinnerbait, and one of them ran right over my marker buoy, which disappeared and was never recovered.

We then started working our way down the west side of the lake. We fished many different areas from Anchor Bay all the way down to the mouth of the Detroit River, which is where I had my best day in pre-practice, but never found the big fish. I estimate that between us we caught 75 bass today, but out of that number perhaps only five were fourteen-inch keeper size, with the biggest being no more than two pounds.

We pulled the boat out at 7pm, after a long day on the water which accomplished nothing but eliminating a lot of water. Tomorrow it will be critical to find some bigger fish.

Annie writes:
Awoke at 5:00am, packed our lunch bag, and spent the day with Dan out in the boat. He does not have much practice time, so I figured I would go with him to try and help. It is a weekend, so the lake was extremely busy, I do not think I have ever seen as many boats on one lake as I did today. It was pretty windy on the ride out and the waves were splashing into the boat regularly, except that they only seemed to be coming in on my side. I was drenched when we got to our first spot and Dan was dry. He found it amusing and I told him I was just proving my love for him. We spent the whole day working hard, and we caught a lot of fish, but not that many keepers. On the way home the roles were reversed and Dan was soaking wet by the time we got to the launch ramp. It was my turn to laugh.

All in all, we had a good day and he got the last laugh because due to our ongoing bet, whoever catches the least amount of fish cooks dinner, I had to cook. We slept right where we were parked, at the launch ramp, overnight, this worked out great, seeing that the nearest campground is about an hour away.

Dan did not arrive until 9:00pm, we ate dinner and did not go to bed until around 11pm. I told Dan not to set the alarm to early because he needed to get some sleep.

I eventually crossed back over to the west side, and wandered around some more in Anchor Bay, fishing it deeper today looking for the bigger fish. I never found them, and at around 11am had to call it a day. The wind was blowing about twenty-five mph making for a simply awful ride back across the lake to the boat launch, and I was thoroughly drenched by the time I arrived. After that it was an hour’s drive back around to Metro Park, where Annie was with the camper and where the tournament registration would be this evening.

We spent the afternoon in the huge parking lot there at Metro Park, setting up rods and organizing the boat for tomorrow, then went to the registration meeting, and then moved over to a parking area just outside the park where we set up for the night.

Annie writes:
Seeing that the campground is about 30 miles from the launch ramp, we decided to move the camper, the truck and the boat over to Metro Park. While Dan was practicing today I drove the camper over and Dan met me there in the afternoon. We spent a couple of hours working on his tackle and boat while visiting with a few of our journal readers, who just happened to see us parked in the big open lot. We have met at least five of our readers here this week, and it is nice to get to meet some of the people who follow us. We asked their opinions of the journal, if it’s too long, or detailed enough. Each one of them said it was not too long, they love the detail and would like to see some of it even longer.

After going to registration and the partner pairings meeting, we went to the Metro Park office to see if we could sleep in the parking lot overnight. They said absolutely not! We asked if there was a parking lot nearby that we could sleep in, and they mentioned a golf driving range not a mile away that sometimes lets campers park there. The name of the place was Marino Golf Center, we drove over and spoke with the owner. He had no problem letting us camp for two nights, and charged us twenty dollars. It works out great for us. We are one mile from the launch ramp and it is very convenient for tournament days.

We were catching some short fish, and were drifting over a large opening in the grass when I spied a great big bed, and I threw a buoy out to mark the spot. When I came back to it a few minutes later and threw my Gambler tube into it, I saw a keeper smallmouth follow it up to the surface. Had I not seen the fish I would not have spent much time on this bed, but I had no fish in the boat so I stayed and worked it. The fish bit twice and I missed it both times, but that just got me excited and I told my partner that once you get them to start biting it like this, they won’t stop until you catch them. When it bit for the third time, I just got too excited and jerked too hard, breaking her off on the hookset. Of course I was quite upset with myself, and blamed it on the fact that I’m not used to fishing ten-pound test line, so I sat down in the boat, stripped off the ten-pound line and respooled with twelve. I then re-rigged myself a tube, stood up and told my partner "If I can get a fish to bite three times, then I can get her to bite four." We circled back to my marker and I started throwing in there again. Two minutes later I had her on again, and when I saw the size of her, I knew she was worth the wait. When she finally made it into the net, I had my first fish of the day, a three-and-a-half pound smallmouth.

My second fish came shortly afterwards, this one on a jerkbait. I have had dozens of fish follow my jerkbait in the last few days, so when they continued to do the same today I changed the colors a little, and caught a two-and-a-half pounder almost immediately. Now I had two fish that weighed around six pounds, and was feeling a little better about this area.

We fished a couple more hours though without catching any more keepers. The change in water clarity had me wondering if maybe the fish had moved out deeper, so we got on the big motor and moved out about a quarter-mile. Most of the other tournament boats fishing this area were out here also. The water looked better, and it wasn’t long before I spotted another big bed that I just had to mark with a buoy. I returned to fish it, and the scenario played out exactly like the last time: I missed her twice, then hooked her and broke her off, and then told my partner "I WILL catch this fish." We gave her a ten-minute rest and when we returned, I put her in the livewell, another two-and-a-half pound’er, with my first tube still stuck in her throat. God, I love smallmouth on the beds!

My partner was catching just one short fish after another by pitching a tube out behind the boat, and eventually got his one keeper of the day, but for some reason I just couldn’t slow down enough for that, and kept throwing the jerkbait while keeping my eyes open for beds. It paid off when another two-and-a-half pound’er jumped on it, and I put my fourth fish in the livewell.

With just about a half-hour left to fish, we wandered over another big bed and I marked it with a buoy. I don’t know how I’m choosing which beds to mark, for there are hundreds of them out here and we’re catching rock bass instead of smallmouth on most of them, but without ever seeing a fish on these beds some little voice in me is just telling me when to throw out a marker. So we returned to this particular marker and I began fishing it. On maybe my twentieth cast I finally got a bite, and, following the pattern for today, missed it. I kept at it though, and about five minutes later got a second bite, and guess what: missed it again! This time though the fish had it for a second, and I got to see a good bend in my rod before she dropped it, so I was confident that this was another fish worth spending time on. It was another fifteen minutes before I got the third bite, and now, a little worried that I was running out of time, I wasn’t paying attention to which rod I was pitching at her with and jerked too hard, breaking her off. This was a heartbreaker, for though I knew that while this one was being more stubborn than the first two, still she was a catchable fish, but I had run out of time for today.

I weighed-in four fish for eleven pounds, one ounce, which left me sitting in 78’th place. That fifth fish, let’s just say two-and-a-half pounds, would have bumped me up into the 30’s. I had her on twice and blew it, and I’m afraid that that mistake is going to cost me in the end here.

Annie writes:
I wanted to use the truck today, therefore, I had to go with Dan at 5:15am to launch the boat. I came home and got a couple more hours of sleep. Before the weigh-in I managed to catch up on our laundry, respond to some emails, and get in a phone call to Dan’s mom.

Dan came in at 3:20, with four good fish. I was very proud of him and feel good about his start in the tournament. We have not had the best practice, so for him to bring in four good one’s today is a big relief. At this point I am just hoping for a check here, not to win. Of course winning would be nice, but I will be satisfied with a check and to keep up with our winning streak. This is the last FLW of the year and if you end with a bad tournament you have way too much time to think about it over the summer.

We returned home (the driving range), around 7pm and had dinner. Dan showered and prepared for tomorrow, and by 9:00 we were caught up with everything and had a nice hour of quality time together.

Dan was due in at 4pm. He arrived with three fish, which was not enough weight to get us a check. It is a bummer, but I am trying not to dwell on it. We had a better year this year than last. Let’s just try to remember that.

Dan is driving a camera boat tomorrow, so after the weigh-in he had a meeting and then we packed up and moved over to Walmart. This works out great because he can just get up tomorrow morning and meet everyone there. It was around 7:30 when we got parked and I cooked dinner. Dan was exhausted. He sat on the coach after eating and began nodding off, so we went to bed around 9:30.

Tonight I was edgy. Okay, maybe it is PMS. I was quite irritable. We got home finally around 7:30 and Dan realized he wanted to get something else on the boat worked on. He had to go back to the service truck and by the time we ate it was 8:15. Dan has to be at the tent in the morning at 4:45am, so I know he is exhausted and has to get some sleep. But I miss him and miss spending quality time together. Tomorrow we drive home and that puts us in separate vehicles all the way home. That is not going to be fun at all, and I’m sure our stress levels will increase during that ride.

The guys took off at 6:00, and once again I followed Steve Daniels down through Detroit to the end of the river. What made it more interesting this morning was that the ESPN television crew followed us down in the helicopter, and flew right overhead as the boats were tearing through downtown Detroit. They had a cell-phone hookup in Steve’s boat, and Jerry McKinnis interviewed him as he was running along at 65mph with the Detroit skyline in the background.

Steve’s fishing unfortunately was not as exciting as yesterday. He caught only around seven or eight keeper bass, and no real big ones. Sometimes on Day Four of this event, since there is no co-angler in the boat with the pro the cameraman will get in instead and shoot a portion of his footage from there. When this is the situation there is no need for the camera boat to be right there with them, so I can just sit a hundred yards off and stay out of the way. Around 10:00 this is what I was doing, and because of the long week and early mornings, I drifted off into a little nap. Though this is probably not the first time I’ve taken a nap, what was a first was that when I opened my eyes, I was all alone! My fisherman and cameraman had left, and along with him the three spectator boats as well! Did I ever feel like an idiot. I never heard any of them go. I tried to act casual, calmly looking about me out to ever increasing distances to see if they had perhaps just moved off on the trolling motor. They were gone though, so I casually picked up my anchor, put on my life jacket and left.

I found them thankfully in the first place I looked - Steve had really just been bouncing back and forth between two spots for the last two days - and I pulled in and set my anchor again a hundred yards away like nothing had happened.

Back at the weigh-in Steve had a little over ten pounds, but everyone else had caught ‘em real good. This was surprising, since everyone seemed to have struggled a bit yesterday. The guys who stayed in Lake St. Clair today seemed to have made the right adjustments, since there were three bags of over sixteen pounds each, but Larry Nixon is the one who weighed-in eighteen pounds to take the $200,000 first prize.

After the weigh-in we said our good-bye’s and quickly got on the road. We wanted to make it down to the Flying J truck stop where we would spend the night, but it was a difficult hundred miles for both of us. We’ve been kept occupied up until now by the busy days, but on the drive this evening it hit both of us that this was the last FLW event, the end of the season. Things would have been different had I caught just one more fish this week and at least gotten a check, but I didn’t. So we got to thinking during our drive about what we had accomplished this season, about what our plans would be regarding the future, about where we stood with sponsorship deals, and we were both rather depressed by the time we stopped for the night. We’ll write more on that in future updates, as we reflect on what we’ve learned this season, and what we feel we’ve accomplished or not accomplished.

Annie writes:
I went out window shopping for a little while this morning. Then I cleaned the camper and got it ready for our ride home tonight, and I also planned out a route for us to drive back to NH. When we drove out here we came through Canada, but this time we are returning home through the States.

I met up with Dan at the weigh in. I had gone over early so as to schmooze a little more. When Dan came in things were very hectic. We went to the camper to drop off his stuff, then went to watch the weigh in. It was a good weigh in and I was glad to see Larry Nixon win. We are not sure when we will see everyone again, so we said our good-byes and got ready for our drive.

We were feeling very melancholy. We were glad that we are going home and have lots to do there, but we are once again left with the feeling that this season is over and we are not sure what is in store for us next year. As we were driving to the Flying J Dan would call me on the walkie talkie’s and ask me how I was. I informed him that I was doing OK physically, but mentally I was really shaken up. So much is happening, the unknown, our new house, end of the season, no check here. When you drive you have way to much thinking time. Dan reminded me of the Serenity Prayer, which I said, and within 10 minutes I felt that my shoulders were carrying a lighter load.

When we got parked at the Flying J, I cooked us dinner and Dan suggested we do nothing but hang out and watch a movie together tonight. This quiet time was much needed, and we felt much better by the time we shut off the TV for the night.