The cabin came to life about 4:30 on the morning of the first day. The smell of bacon was in the air and the weather channel was on TV. Dense fog warning until 10:00am. "This should be fun" was what many thought. Last year day two was greeted by a 3 hour plus delay and it looked like day one this year would continue that trend.

I picked my partner up at his hotel and headed for the ramp. After putting the boat in it was obvious we would be sitting for a while. My GPS was the only reason I made it to the take off area a few miles from the ramp. Visibility was slim. Boat were beached all along shore waiting for the tournament director to give us the go ahead. 3 hours later we started to push off.
I had drawn a good boat number in the first flight. My original plan had been to hit some community holes and burn those fish before going to the water I had found in practice. The fog delay however changed my plans as I figured a limit was going to be the most important thing that day. I started on a weed line turn that had held a school of 2 pound largemouth in practice. As is usual in tournament fishing things had changed. The shallower water largemouth bite was gone, dead, evaporated, eliminating about half of the water I had found in practice. I scrambled around a little and managed to find a few quality smallmouth out in my deeper water spots. The biggest weighing in at 3.92 pounds. He fell to my drop shot with a 4" Berkley Gulp minnow on it. 


With about 30 minutes to go, I still needed one fish for my limit, so I headed for the 169 bridge pilings. With drop shot in hand I quickly caught my limit fish.  A 14" largemouth. I sat on the back deck and told my partner "go get 'em". He was still a couple fish shy of a limit. He never managed another keeper as we ran out of time and headed for the weigh in.
 


11.25 pounds put me just out of the top 20. Just .01 pounds behind my day two partner. That meant I had to go back to the cabin and get my gear paired down to fish out of his boat.

Day two had us in the last flight. We started on one of my partners spots. A deep water break going up to some reeds. He didn't want to fish the reeds. He was keeping the boat in 40-50 feet of water and casting a soft plastic jerk bait just below the surface. I guess that is how he caught his fish on day one but it wasn't really getting it done on day two. Every so often he would drift in a little close and I could hit the weed line with my drop shot and I would catch a fish. It didn't take too long and he was digging into his rod locker for a spinning rod. We moved to one of my areas. A small point with good weeds dropping out into 20 plus feet of water. I had seen quality fish on the camera there but didn't get a single bite. My partner however manged to school me catching 4 keeper large mouth on a wacky rigged senko. Nothing big but enough to make him feel a little better.
From there we moved to my big fish spot from day one. The fish had moved a little but I found them and landed two quality smallmouth in the 3.5 lb range. My partner then asked me for a Gulp minnow to put on his drop shot. I obliged but he only caught rock bass on it.
We jumped around on a few more of his spots and couldn't find any active fish. We finally went back to the spot we had started on and tried out deep again. Nothing. When I was asked where next, I mentioned we should at least give the reeds a quick try. First cast with my hand tied jig, I put a 2+ pound Largemouth in the well and culled a 13 incher. As I slid him in the box I told my partner I may have just won myself a trophy. I hadn't been nervous the whole tournament. I fished clean only missing one bite and not breaking off any fish. Although it was a slow bite, I had stayed focused and confident. Once I had that fish in the box however my nerves hit me. Even though we had a little over an hour left to fish, all I could think about was getting my fish into the scales.
Weights were up on day two. Bags in the teens were being called off as we waited for room to beach the boat. My bag came in at 12.05 and was good enough for 20th place. Good tournament and my highest finish at state. I got that trophy but not a chance to fish divisional next summer. Maybe next year.