PREFISHING

For the first tournament of 2003 we rented Cabin #9 at Joe Wheeler State Park. 

More pictures of the cabin.  Click on photo to enlarge.

Here's a picture of Lake Wheeler's dam.  Our cabin was about 2 miles from the dam.  Lake Wilson sits below the dam, Lake Wheeler above.  Joe Wheeler State Park is located on both bodies of water.   For this tournament anglers had the option of fishing either one.

Here is a picture of a boat running towards the dam on Lake Wilson.  This is a calm day.  The waves are supposed to get pretty big when the wind collides with this strong current.  Naturally, the tournament forecast called for strong winds perfectly suited to create big waves.  For this reason, all anglers elected to fish above the dam on Lake Wheeler. 

 Click to see larger pictures of the dam.

The weather was nice for prefishing and plenty of nice fish were caught by all.

This was caught in my (Bo's) first 30 minutes of fishing.  I was feeling confident for a while.

But Bill and Russell were catching plenty of nice ones too.

During practice I finally got the smallmouth monkey off my back.  (This is my first smallmouth).  It only makes me want to catch more.

Russell said that so many fish hit his white spinnerbait during practice that they destroyed the skirt.

More prefishing pictures.  The neatest thing about this lake is the variety of fish caught.  Not only did we all catch plenty of largemouth, smallies, and spots---but the trash fish bit well too.  Everyone caught catfish and crappie (not to mention white bass) while bass fishing. 

As winners of the Lake Martin tournament, Lance and Bill won a steak dinner from me and Lance.  Without any help from me, Lance delivered big time.

Standard party-foul.

TOURNAMENT DAY 1

Nothing like waking up to a nice boat ride over a huge lake, filled with commercial barge traffic, 30 degree temps, and 20 mph North winds.

Needless to say, fishing conditions changed dramatically on the first day of the tournament. 

The club imposed 15'' size limit for this tournament added to the difficulties.

Lance weighs in a nice 11 oz crappie...

...which is immediately beaten by David and Clint's 14 oz crappie.

And they've got something to back that crappie up.  This one weighed 3 lbs 9 oz.

No problem says Russell, check this out...(4 lbs 6 oz)

Oh, and don't forget this one (4 lbs 15 oz)

Fishing was supposed to be tough with these weather conditions.  Yet Bill and Russell managed to weigh in a very nice stringer while the rest of us struggled to catch fish over 15''.    Here are the day one results:

Day 1 Results

Can you say A$$ whoppin?  It is worth noting that Russell caught all these fish.  While we were fishing, an Everstart Tournament was held 14 miles or so down river.  Had Russell caught this stringer during that tournament he would have won 1st place.

Tournament Day 2

Lance and I talked a big game on day 2 in order to make Bill and Russell sweat a little.  In the end we reached in the livewell and couldn't pull out a single fish.

My butt is still hurting from this trip.  (Not just from the Gulf of Mexico type run we made either)

Russell even had a 1 lb 7 oz catfish that won the trash fish prize.

More Tournament Photos.

Day Two Results

FINAL RESULTS

This is by far the most lopsided victory in TMT Angler history.  This is also the first "grand slam" in club history where one team won biggest stringer, biggest fish, and trash fish in the same tournament.  Congrats to Bill and Russell (again). 

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