Super Tough Tournaments are Awesome!

Super tough tournaments are awesome if you are one of the few to catch a fish. The Ohio River tournament out of Maysville, KY was an especially tough tournament. It had rained a lot down there since Tuesday and the water was muddy. I'm talking barely seeing a chartreuse spinnerbait 2 inches under the surface muddy.

There were a few people that located some fish but not many. Four bass won the boater side with 5-11 and 2 bass won the co-angler side with 4-02. I don't know if you had to be lucky or good in this tournament but I wasn't either of those.

Jay Gillfillan won the boater side. That is awesome! He is a friend of a friend. I had been introduced to him at the Indian Lake BFL and talked to him after registration at this tournament.

I have to say that I am very happy with my experience in the FLW BFL so far. Everybody is so helpful and friendly. I guess we all have something in common. I was going to camp once I got down to the Ohio River. I met Jim Lovelace right away when I got to the tournament site. He had offered to be my guaranteed boater for the Ohio river tournaments so that I could be guaranteed to fish. He said that he had an extra bed at the hotel and offered to let me stay there.

We went out to eat at applebee's. We ran into my boater draw there and talked for a while why we were waiting to be seated.

My boater this tournament had a run of bad luck during prefish and had gotten mud plugged into one of his hoses. That cost him his first practice day as he worked on that and on his second practice day he ran down the river looking for spots to fish during the tournament.

Tournament morning we zoomed down the Ohio River. I knew it was going to be a tough tournament but was positive we would find a fish.




Throughout the day it got hotter and more humid. We fished hard but couldn't get a fish to bite. It was a very humbling experience to skunk in this tournament. I probably would have tried some different areas or techniques if I had my own boat. I really don't think anything I would have tried would have worked any better than what we did. Plain and simple, it was just tough fishing for all.

At one point we started to go upriver. As we were boating toward the power plant on the East side of Maysville, the air started to get hot. Hotter than it already was. It was an unbearable hot. We slowed down to look at a creek that had flowing water into the river. As we were slowing down I noticed the temperature on the electronics was showing 100 degree water temperature. I felt the water and it was hot. We left that area. We were getting low on fuel so we could not get too far away from the ramp so we fished the main river a little ways from the ramp.

It is easy to be a co-angler. All we do is show up and fish. I didn't realize until this week how much more added pressure comes from trying to get your co-angler on fish as well. At the previous 2 tournaments it was easy for the co-anglers to catch a fish, as it was easy for the boaters to know where to find the fish. This week I heard from more than one boater that they were more concerned about getting their co-anglers a fish especially if their co-anglers were doing well in the standings.

I hope my boater don't beat himself up over me not catching a fish. I had a fun rewarding experience even though I did not catch a fish. This was probably the toughest fishing I have experienced. We fished some fishy looking areas. I still can't believe that we didn't even catch a short fish or a bonus other species fish. I was waiting for a bite all day as I put my lure in more than one perfect place for the fish to bite.