[August] September 2001 [October]

Back at the house Dan spent the next couple of days preparing reports for his sponsors. In these he listed his activities over the past six months as well as our plans for the upcoming season. We have committed to the B.A.S.S. Open tournaments, which begin next week in New York, but we still have not made any decisions regarding which Operation Bass events (FLW, EverStart) we want to fish next year. It’s awfully nice being home in our new house, and spending more time with the kids, but at the same time we occasionally hear that call of the road, and feel that pull to get out there and compete. We’ve got another month before we have to make up our minds on that, so for now we’re just putting the decision off.

After a 450 mile drive today, we pulled in to Grass Point State Park in Clayton, New York at 5pm and set up camp on a nice, flat site. The temperature was 88 degrees - very unusual for this time of year, as we could easily see temps below freezing before the end of the week here. Coming out through western Massachusetts this morning we passed a number of areas up in the hills where the swamp maples were already quite red. Fall is right around the corner.

This afternoon we went into town and washed the boat and truck, and on the way home picked up a few groceries. Later we went out and found the cottage where Craig and MaryAnn are staying, and hung out there for a while, making plans for the week.

Fifteen minutes later, it’s still quite dark out and I’m sitting in the screen house sipping my coffee. All of a sudden Cooper bolts from the tent and begins a spitting, snarling wrestling match with a wild animal right there in the middle of our campsite. Round and round they go until eventually it breaks up and they stand three feet apart, staring at each other. It’s a skunk, of course. Both animals seem to appreciate me stepping in at this point to break it up, and as they head off to their respective corners I think maybe the skunk has not had a chance to do it’s thing. Wrong. Even though there is a light breeze blowing through camp this morning, there is a definite skunk smell also.

Right now Cooper is locked outside in the screen house, while I have come back into the tent to write my journal and finish my coffee. Oh yeah, Annie did get out of bed during the commotion, but has since returned. Her only words so far: "Don’t forget... the dog is going with you in the boat today."

Fishing report:

I met Craig, my practice partner, at 6am and we trailered down to Chaumont Bay. This as you may recall from reading about our last trip here in July, is where I would like to fish if the weather cooperates and allows us to come this far. The weather did not cooperate today, as the wind must have been blowing 20+ mph, kicking up five-footers out there in the open water. I made two drifts over my favorite area, caught one good fish and had another follow, but I couldn’t take it any longer out there. I was having to stand down in the bottom of the boat to fish, and the waves were crashing over the stern and into the boat.

Because of the rough seas all of the other places we would like to have fished around Chaumont were inaccessible. We spent about four hours up the Chaumont River instead. Craig caught a couple of three pound’ers on a Pop-R, and I caught a few smaller ones on a worm. A major front passed through during this time, and after the rain ended the temperature dropped considerably.

Around 1:30 we quit this area and trailered back up to Clayton. Here we put in again and fished the main river (the St. Lawrence Seaway) until about 6pm, but neither one of us had another bite all day. After the front we now had blue skies, and I think the fish have just shut off for the afternoon.

Annie writes:
We started the day off with the excitement of the skunk fight. Later, Mary Ann, her daughter Jessie, and I spent the day in Canada. We had a good time and went to the Hershey chocolate factory. Well worth the trip.

Dan came in around 6pm and we ate a big spaghetti dinner and had a nice campfire. It is very quiet in the campground since we are the only fisherman staying here. That makes it nice, knowing that when Dan comes in we get to spend time alone with each other.

At 6pm I loaded the boat onto the trailer and pulled out. I also pulled my cell phone out of the bag and saw that I had missed thirteen calls. Thirteen? Something’s wrong. That’s too many. Just then the phone rang in my hand. It was Annie, and she was immediately mad at me for not having checked my messages any earlier today. She said "Have you heard any news? Do you know what’s going on?!" She told me that we were at war, that America had been attacked. She had had no TV and no radio all day, and what little info she did have she had gotten from people emailing her throughout the day, which she had had to read via the cell-phone hookup. I told her I was already on my way home, that I would listen to the radio as I drove, and that I’d call her back before I got to the campsite.

A half hour later we were both huddled in the back seat of the Suburban watching the TV, trying to absorb the horrible news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. At 8pm we went over to the B.A.S.S. registration meeting, and B.A.S.S. officials at that time did not have enough information to make a decision about canceling the tournament. We watched some more TV with Craig and MaryAnn after that, then headed back to the campsite for a fitful and anxious night’s sleep.

Annie writes:
I can not think of the right words to express my feelings of today. This morning I was not feeling well, so I stayed in bed until about 9am. When I eventually got up and walked to the shower house, another camper informed me that there had been an attack on the World Trade Center. That is news that gives you goose bumps, and you pray to God the families of the victims will get through it. I checked our email throughout the day and the story just kept getting bigger. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. We were being attacked everywhere, it seemed. We were at war. I tried calling Dan all through the day and had no luck. Most of the time the lines were unavailable. Dan’s mother finally got through to me after trying for two hours. I am out in the woods with no TV, no radio or newspaper, and am just listening to stories I can pick up here and there.

After trying Dan about 10,000 times, I finally reached him at 6:26pm. He answered the phone "Love Boat." I started yelling at him because he hadn’t checked his messages all day, and he started asking what was wrong. He had no idea what was happening in the world. I started crying, told him that we were at war, and explained everything that had happened today. He was already out of the water and on his way home.

These are the things you hear about in other countries, or read about in your history books. Never would I imagine going through something like this in my lifetime. I called our parents, and the kids, and made sure everyone was okay, telling them to stay close to home, and letting them know we were safe.

We had a registration meeting tonight and they told us that as of that moment, the tournament was still scheduled. We went over to Craig’s for dinner and watched TV until about 9:45. We just cannot believe what we are seeing. I am very afraid. We do not know if this is the end of it, or if we will go to war. I cannot believe we are living out here in America, right here in the same state even (New York), what we would expect to see on TV happening only in other countries.

We packed up the campsite and went to the B.A.S.S. meeting at 6pm, where we got the official word on the cancellation. We all said a prayer for the victims and their families, and B.A.S.S. officials listened to anyone who had anything to say. Aside from mourning the events of yesterday, there was serious debate over what to do about the canceled tournament. Was it being canceled, or just postponed to another date? What date? Where? Who would be entitled to fish it? Would there be refunds? Nobody had any answers today. At the conclusion of the meeting we all wandered back out to our trucks, and then headed home to be with our families.

Annie writes:
I was up before Dan left this morning. He decided to put in at our launch ramp, so that means I could have the truck for the day. After returning from the shower house I watched the news on the TV in the Suburban. It was a relief to hear that no other attacks had taken place through the night, but the feeling is that this is not even close to being over with, that this is going to last a long time.

Later I went into town to do some laundry and pick up a few groceries. MaryAnn and I had decided to meet for lunch, and I was a little early so I drove by the weigh-in site to see what was going on. I saw a few guys already in for the day, and I kidded them that they must have found the fish early. They informed me that the tournament had been canceled. I tried calling Dan, but he was out of service so he I just left him a message. I found MaryAnn and told her the news. Craig’s phone was also out of reach. MaryAnn and I still went to lunch, seeing that there was not much we could do, so we went and had a conversation about everything that was happening. After lunch I figured I might as well start packing up the campsite, and that way we could get out of town and on the road tonight.

Dan finally checked-in with me mid-day. He had just gotten my message. He came in and was relieved to see most of the campsite packed. We finished with that, went to dinner and then went to the B.A.S.S. meeting. Around 7pm we started driving and made it 200 miles before pulling into a rest area, where we slept until early morning.

We were glued to the newscasts too, but as it became apparent that no new attack was imminent, we ventured out. We went to Chris’s football game on Thursday afternoon, and my mom and my aunt came down from the lake to take us all to dinner. On Friday we went to the varsity football game. Saturday Ann went shopping with an old friend in the afternoon, then again with her mom later in the day. Sunday Dan worked in the attic with Jeff (they’re making it into his bedroom) and then played tennis with Chris. Finally on Monday we called Operation Bass to see if they had plans to cancel the Detroit EverStart tournament (which they don’t), and then spent the rest of the day packing up, so we can leave early tomorrow morning for Detroit.

By the time I made it out to Chickenolee Reef, some of the waves were about six feet, and running directly downwind I had already taken five over the front of the boat. Soaking wet, I set out my drift sock and crawled on hands and knees up to the bow, where I unstrapped the trolling motor and reattached the depthfinders. Sitting down on the deck, for it was too rough to be standing up, I began dragging a tube and drifting across the reef.

As I sat, the approaching waves were above the level of my head. The rain had begun in earnest, and I could not make out land in any direction. There was also not another boat in sight, and the wind was getting stronger, and the waves higher, as time went by. I broke off five times on the zebra muscles, and had not had one bite by 10am, when I decided I’d had enough. It was a mistake coming out here at all, and I was anxious about making it back to shore safely.

Thank goodness for GPS technology and for products that use it, like my Lowrance X15. Anyone who comes out on big water like this without one is crazy. It took almost two hours for me to get home today, but thanks to my Lowrance unit I was able to do it without any landmarks, or even any visible shoreline, yet I knew at all times my exact location, the path I had taken to get out here, and how far it was back to safe harbor. And if I ever broke down out here, with my cell phone I could call for help and give someone my exact coordinates for rescue.

I was back at camp by noontime. Coming in early allows us to break camp this afternoon, travel the two hours up to Detroit and find a campsite there. That at least will give me a full day of fishing tomorrow, but we have wasted now two entire days out of the five we’ve allocated for practice.

Annie writes:
I like the fact that it doesn’t get light out until around 7:00am. This allows Dan to stay at home later in the morning. He left around 7:00, it was raining, so Cooper and I hung out in bed for a while longer. I spent most of the day working on the computer and doing things around the campground.

My mom called last night and she said that she heard there were papers found in Detroit, Michigan that mentioned something about a second wave of terrorism that was supposed to happen this Saturday (tomorrow). It makes me very nervous, but you hear so many of these different stories and rumors, that you do not know which ones are true, if any at all. I will definitely keep an ear to the news stations tomorrow just to be sure.

Dan came back much earlier than expected, he was soaking wet all the way to the bones. He told me of his experience on the water and I am so thankful he made it home OK. When he gets nervous on the water I know it is really bad, because he is so used to driving in rough water. I am glad he was smart enough to come back in and not try to stick it out, and risk getting hurt.

We decided to pack up and move our campsite today rather than tomorrow, so he will get to fish early tomorrow. We were packed up and on the road by 3:00. We arrived in Detroit around 5:30 and found a great State Park to stay at. There are other fisherman here also and we got to socialize a bit while setting up camp. We got the tent and screenhouse all set up, it is mostly organized and livable for the night. We cooked a can of stew at 9:30 and I watched a little of the news before going to bed.

Back at the ramp in the afternoon, I met up with friend who, like me, has been trying to get out around Pelee Island for the last two days. He finally made it today, and he caught ‘em. If the wind cooperates tomorrow, I’m going to try to go again, though it’s a long way.

Annie writes:
It is a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and it’s fairly warm. I finished organizing the campsite and getting things dried out from the past few days of rain. Got a lot of work done on the computer too, and all my emails caught up. Dan came in around 7pm. I had the water boiling for spaghetti, but he needed to go out and get gas, so I shut the stove off and went with him. We ended up eating at 8:30 and then went into the tent. We read a little then went to sleep, but the phone rang at 11:00. We were fumbling to find the phone in the dark, Dan thought it was his alarm clock and time to get up, it scared the daylights out of us, and made our hearts race, as we thought something was wrong. Thank goodness that was not the case, but neither one of us had a good nights sleep after that.

We next headed out to the area off Pelee Island where I spent both tournament days last month. Now I need to explain a little about how I use my Lowrance X15 out here. Every time I caught a fish out here, I immediately saved the location as a waypoint on my GPS. Over the course of three days on this one big reef, what developed was not a random scattering of dots (waypoints) on my screen, but rather a fairly distinct line running west to east. Today, with the wind blowing from the south, we lined up so that a drift would carry us across this line and sure enough, as soon as we got close, I put a three pound’er in the boat. I looked over at Scotty and he was boating a decent fish at the same time. I tossed my tube back out and within a hundred yards I put a second three pound’er in the boat. We continued the drift until the reef dropped off into deep water, but had no more bites. That’s okay though - in one pass across my area we caught three good fish, and they were all exactly on my waypoint line.

One pass was all we needed on this spot, so we moved off to check some other reefs. Over on Grub Reef I caught just one two pound’er, and Scotty caught nothing. On Chickenolee again I caught just one two pound’er, and Scotty nothing. On St. George’s Reef we both blanked, and we then started heading home. We stopped at East Sister Island, where I did nothing but Scott caught two four pounder’s, which got him pretty excited about this spot, while I’m excited about my first spot from this morning.

From East Sister it took an hour and a half to get back to the launch ramp, and I took at least five waves over the front of the boat. Thank goodness it’s warm out, and the water is warm as well. It was 7pm when we put the boats back on the trailers - twelve hours since we took off this morning, and we burned about 45 gallons of gas apiece.

Annie writes:
We looked up the weather last night and every day it is going to get colder and the rain is also coming. When I say colder, the weather forecast said it will drop about 10 degrees a day!! So, I spent today preparing for rain and cold, secured the screen house, made sure all food is in a dry box, tightened down the tent and the heater is running. Bring it on!.

Dan did not get off the water until 7:00pm, when he called he told me he had to get gas and would pick up some ice on the way home. I was starving so I already made myself a grilled cheese sandwich, when Dan finally came in I made him some soup, as he was pretty wet and that helped him warm up. Just as Dan pulled in the weather came with him, large gusts of wind, rain and lightening. We just made it in the tent and stayed in there for the night.

Dan was home by 7:00, and I had coffee ready for him, but no dinner. The wind was so fierce that we could not cook out on the grill. Dan had planned to go out to eat, thank goodness. We went in a nice warm, dry restaurant and spent almost two hours there, we just chatted and had a good time. We got home around 9:00, and I knew Dan was leaving very early in the morning, so I bundled up, went in the screen house and made him some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to take with him. It was very difficult because the peanut butter was so cold it would not even spread. It was just kind-of in lumps on the bread.

Back at the campsite, I setup my gear for tomorrow. All the weather forecasts call for 20mph winds, but I’m just hoping against hope that either 1) they’re all wrong, or 2) the wind comes out of a direction that still allows me to get out to my spots on Lake Erie. I just don’t know what else to do, and I am really not looking forward to fishing tomorrow.

Annie writes:
Dan kissed me goodbye before it was even light out. He was all bundled up so I knew it was very cold out. I awoke around 8:00 to a dog that was laying next to me shivering. It was way to cold for me to get out of bed, so I stayed there and read until about 9:45. I knew I would eventually have to get up, and when I did and looked at the thermometer. It read 62 degrees, IN THE TENT. We got dressed, in long johns, jeans, wool socks, more long johns, wool sweater and hat, and ventured outside. It sure is cold. I fed Cooper quickly, did our dishes and grabbed supplies I thought I would need throughout the day and went back in the tent. Eventually I got it as warm as 72 in the tent. Now we’re cookin’!

This afternoon Dan came in fairly early, and I helped him get his boat ready for tomorrow. Afterwards we went to the registration meeting, then came home and prayed for the weather to improve for tomorrow.

We took off at 7, and I was glad to see that quite a few boats ahead of me were heading out to the big lake also. I could see perhaps ten boats in front of me, and I followed them for many miles. But as the waves got bigger and the boats began to spread out, it became more and more difficult to keep track of where people were. A half hour into the ride, when I’d counted five boats who had already turned around and were heading back, I began to question whether I’d made a good decision. My partner had expressed no concerns about venturing out onto the lake today, and I stopped a number of times to ask how he was doing. He was fine, we’re doing good, let’s keep going, he’d say.

An hour into the ride we had made surprisingly good time, and had already covered twenty five of the thirty eight mile ride. I had my Lowrance X15 set to navigate to the point of Pelee Island, and at any time with just a glance it told me how far I was from my destination. We were traveling mainly across the waves, and riding in the troughs much of the time, so it wasn’t too bad. The trouble came when the further out we got, the more the wind direction turned around, and shifted my course such that progress towards my destination became slower and slower. Eventually I had to quit traveling across the waves and instead head downwind to get pointed at my goal. This made for a very nasty ride, got us extremely wet, and it took us another hour to go just ten miles. The waves were now bigger than anything I had ever seen, with some towering over us that must have been ten-footer’s. By this time I was having serious doubts about my ability to make it back through these conditions.

About two miles from the Pelee Island I stopped to assess the situation. We had driven for two hours and were now within sight of our destination. On the other hand, traveling towards that destination was becoming increasingly more difficult, and I estimated at least another half hour to make it. The air temperature was in the forties when we started out this morning, and it was not expected to get much warmer throughout the day. The wind was blowing at twenty to twenty five knots, and as I said, I think many of the waves were at about ten feet. Also, the water was muddy, which the fish don’t like, we were soaking wet, and cold, and I wasn’t sure we could even fish under these conditions.

I now made a decision, and turned around. Wow. Up until this point, we hadn’t had to face these waves head-on. Now we did, and we realized how big some of them really were. Almost as soon as we turned to head back, we were faced with the biggest, steepest wave I have ever seen, and we were headed directly into it. It towered over us as it approached and looked like it would just swallow us up. It was truly frightening. Instead of crashing over us though the wave lifted the nose of the boat up, leaned us back in our seats like it was trying to dump us out, then shot us up toward the sky. I didn’t know what would happen on the other side, but somehow we came down straight, and dry, and thankfully there was not another monster waiting for us.

We traveled for perhaps ten minutes into the wind like this, hardly ever more than at fast idle speed, just trying to keep the waves out of the boat, and made very little forward progress. I tried turning north and heading across the waves instead. It was about twelve miles to the Canadian shoreline, and if the wind continued out of the north then it was possible there was some calmer water over there.

It took us forty five minutes to get within a mile of land, and conditions had not improved at all. The wind turned to be out of the west again, the waves continued to be monstrous and with the spray coming over the side of the boat I felt I was driving blind much of the time. This was the point at which an uncomfortable ride was turning into a dangerous one. I was so wet that there was absolutely no possibility of drying out out here in the boat, even if we had found calm conditions for the rest of the day. Combining wet clothes with these high winds and temperatures in the low fifties could spell hypothermia, and I could already feel myself beginning to shiver.

I made another decision. There was a launch ramp somewhere on the Canadian shore. I could call Annie and have her meet us there with the trailer. We could dry out and warm up in the car on the ride back, then re-launch the boat in the river and get a re-start from the tournament director. We might get in two or three hours of fishing, which is more than we’d get if I tried to drive the boat back by water at this point, and I wasn’t even sure I could do that.

By sheer luck, when we made landfall we were within a quarter mile of a protected river mouth, with a marina and a launch ramp just inside. We pulled in, shut down, and stood up for the first time in three hours. Water that had settled into pockets of our clothing gushed out now and ran down the insides if collars, sleeves and pant legs, and stiff muscles were pressed into service as we stumbled up onto the docks with what had to be forty pounds of wet clothing on. The first thing I did was dig out my cell phone and call Annie. She didn’t answer and I had to leave a message, but she called back within a minute or two. I was shivering and my voice was shaky, and when I told her I needed her to drop whatever she was doing and come and get us, she knew I was serious. She was already on her way over to the tournament site, and I told her to call me back after she got there, got the trailer hooked up and found a map, then I would tell her exactly where we were.

When she called again she was standing with the Operation Bass tournament staff, and I relayed to them where we were, and also that another boat had staggered in after us and was looking for assistance as well. It was arranged that those two fishermen would ride back with us, and could return later that night with their own truck and trailer to retrieve their boat. (It turns out this other boat had put in an emergency 9-1-1 call about an hour earlier, because their big engine had gone out, the bilge pumps weren’t working and they were taking on water. A half hour later while waiting for rescue they got the engine running again, and started heading for port. They called in and told the dispatcher that they were out of danger, but somehow the message never got relayed to the Coast Guard, who launched a search-and-rescue mission with cutters and helicopters and were out for hours looking for these guys.)

Annie finally arrived about two hours later. She had had to cross the border into Canada, which is a long and slow process these days. During this time we were able to get some hot coffee into us, and I had a chance to peel of my wet clothing and dress instead in the spare rainsuit I keep in the boat. I exchanged nine layers of wet stuff for one, thin layer of dry, but at least it was dry and by staying out of the wind I was able to warm up some.

It took another two hours to get back to the tournament site, where we arrived just in time to see some of the weigh-in and to talk to others who had been through similar experiences today. The overall results of the fishing today were: out of 142 boats total, only 71 caught any fish at all, and only thirty-something caught more than one fish.

My practice partner Scott also went out to Pelee Island, and he actually fished for an hour or so before making the return trip, by water. By the time he got back to safe harbor he was so shaken up that he said first, he had never been that frightened in his life, and second, he was not going to fish the next day.

Posted next to the weigh-in area was a sign-out sheet. It was the list of anglers who were dropping out and not going to fish tomorrow, and the list was growing rapidly. Me, personally, I had had a terrible experience, bad enough that there was no way I was going back out on that lake tomorrow. I’ll fish, in the river where I’ve caught only one fish in two days, but after this I’m simply not ready to go out on the big water again.

Before I close here, I’ve simply got to give credit to my partner for today, Steve Hamilton, who never once complained, even though I almost drown him and we never made even one cast all day. He was a real trooper, and had he had less fortitude, good nature and understanding, then a bad experience could have been made even worse for all of us. Thanks, Steve.

Annie writes:
It was a pretty unusual morning. I woke up with Dan, showered at 4:30 (not recommended, as I froze), and then loaded up the truck since I planned on staying out in town for the day. On the way to the ramp I asked Dan how he felt about today, he said that he wasn’t looking forward to it. Dan never talks like that about fishing. I had a very unsettling feeling about him going out and I actually had tears roll down my face as I told him to please be careful.

I got him launched, dropped the trailer in the parking lot, so I didn’t have to tow that around all day, then went into town, where I found a nice Laundromat and got all our laundry caught up. I went poking around in Home Depot (never liked that store before I had a house, now it’s my favorite), Target, Meijers, and then was driving when my phone beeped and said I had a message. I was waiting for the message, saying to myself "Please don’t let it be Dan, Please don’t let it be Dan", then the message came, and it was Dan. He said "Hey Baby, I need to talk to you so call me as soon as you can." It was left one minute ago, and I quickly called him back. It was awful, his voice was shaking, and I knew he was freezing. He was in Canada, on shore, and they could not get back. They wanted me to get the trailer and go pick them up. Where? That was the problem, he knew approximately where he was, but I didn’t have a Canada map. I hooked up the trailer, told Operation Bass I was going to get him, and was on my way to Canada. I had the computer with me, turned on our road atlas software, and got a few main roads to travel in Canada.

Throughout the ride we kept in close contact with our cell phones, talking at least six or seven times. Thank goodness we both had a phone, or I would have been lost. I got into Canada and headed South, basically until I got to the water, then I followed the water all the way. Two and a half hours later, after driving the shore and beeping my horn every quarter mile in case he could hear me, I see this soaking wet guy, walking on the side of the road, talking on a cell phone. It was the best sight I had every seen.

We turned into the marina where his boat was, and there were two other guys there whose boat had broken down, and they needed a ride back to the U. S. to get their trailer. I still had our laundry, so I offered everyone dry shirts at least. We got back to the launch ramp at 3:15, which coincidentally was Dan’s due-in time, but of course that didn’t apply after all this. At the weigh-in, I had never heard so many pro fisherman talk the way they did today. They were all scared, saying prayers, and were very glad to be back on land. I heard the Coast Guard had to make three rescues of tournament anglers today, and I think lots of other guys called for their trailers, too.

We went to the Christian Anglers meeting after the weigh in, and from there went back to the Laundromat, and threw all Dan’s wet clothes into the dryers. They were so heavy we could barely carry them in one load. With dry clothes, we then went out to dinner (much deserved) and to talk about or days.

Following the 1000 Islands EverStart tournament back in July, I wrote here in the journal that I had found the fish in practice that could have made the cut for me. I didn’t go out and fish them the first day though, for I felt it was too windy to get out there and back. I went on to say that if I had made the right decision that day - to brave the elements and to fish those fish regardless of the conditions, then there was a good chance that I’d be fishing Top 30, and I concluded by saying that it was "another lesson learned, about toughness, and about doing whatever it takes to be competitive in this sport."

I don’t know what to say now. If I learned a lesson back in July about being tougher in order to be competitive, then what did I learn this week? I was tough yesterday, and I did brave the elements, and they beat the crap out of me. Had I waited and gone out the second day instead, like I did at 1000 Islands, I could have loaded the boat. My friend caught a 23 pound sack out there today. I just seem to keep doing things backwards.

Perhaps my biggest disappointment this week is that coming into this tournament I was in 32nd place in the year-to-date standings, and was almost guaranteed a spot in the Championship. Catching just one fish here would have left me in about 40th place, but I didn’t fish at all yesterday and today never got a bite, so my Championship berth just disappeared. I didn’t come out here to fish for points - I didn’t need to - even a mediocre finish would have guaranteed my spot. Instead though, now we’re driving home, documenting our experiences in this journal, and making other plans for that first week in November.

Annie writes:
When we left the campsite this morning we both felt better about today than we did yesterday. I launched Dan in the water, unhooked the trailer and left it at the weigh-in site, then Cooper and I went back to the campground and got a couple more hours sleep.

I woke up late morning, showered and started getting the campsite ready to pack up. I did not have too much to do because we decided this morning that we would stay tonight and drive in the morning. After getting organized I went into town, grabbed some lunch and went to the weigh-in. Dan came in at 3:30, and I was on the ramp waiting to pull the boat out. (They are letting them take their boats out before weighing their fish because there is not enough dock parking for the boats.) Dan did not have any fish today but I don’t care. He is in, he is dry, and he is safe. I know Dan is bothered with the results here. He has not zeroed-in in a fishing tournament in a very long time. I am trying to be the optimistic one, and am just glad that he is unhurt, his boat is in one piece, and tomorrow we go back home to our family.

While this trip may not have been our best, one nice thing to come out of it was that we had at least six new people introduce themselves to us here, and tell us how much they enjoy reading our journal. Two guys came up to me at the registration and actually thanked me for writing. It was so nice to hear. We put a lot of time into this, but after posting it we really have no idea who reads it. But every once in a while we meet our readers, either via email or face-to-face, and that helps make it all worthwhile. So, I just want to thank all of you who have taken the time to look us up out there on the tournament trail, or email us with your comments, and hope you all continue to enjoy reading.

Link to: October 2001