The championship was the 2nd Crappie Masters tournament the wife and I have fished and we knew it would be fun to see the "show". We had no idea what we were in for.
Wednesday night at the banquet was about what I expected with normal pre tournament stuff.
Thursday morning we hit Lake Ferguson and fished till noon and caught 1 fish. We picked up, got a Subway sandwich and headed to Whittington. We fished until 6 pm and caught one fish. Not exactly what I expected.
I knew the fishing would be tough due to the river falling and that was holding true. I had pre fished Washington and Lee, so I made the decision for us to fish Lee. That's where I had caught some good fish and I knew we just had to get in there and grind it out.
Friday morning found us on the water at 5:20 am amongst 25-30 other boats. What a sight! To see the boats come in and people you read about start unloading gear and boats was awesome! The lake and ramp was lit up like a city street and excitement filled the air. Christie and I were humbled by the sight of it all which was a good thing. It gave us something to talk about and kept our nerves down a little. By daylight, at least 50 boats were on the water ready to fish.
We started promptly at 7 am and caught our first fish at 8:45. By 10 am, we had a limit and were culling fish. What a relief just to know we would weigh fish in a national championship! We weighed in early as we both were spooked that we would have fish die so at 1:45 we hit the scales with 9.29 lbs.
we left the weigh in and went out the boat up and got a quick shower and came back to watch the biggest part of the weigh-in.
We watched as team by team weighed in. That was an honor to sit and watch!
Day 2 on Lee didn't find as many boats and the bite was slower. We had to make lots of adjustments through out the day to stay on fish. We had a few run ins with BRM and Meatgetter. Right off the bat on Saturday, they came by us at a slow idle and Bill yelled, "Get off my lake". I guess he thought id listen!
We had a decent day on Saturday and weighed in 8.7 and that gave us 17.99 for the tournament. That was good enough for 28th place.
I will mirror what others have said. The people in that tournament are crappie fishermen/women and they are the finest folks on the planet. I talked with several that I consider "Pros" and they were just good folks. Just like the folks you find here on C.C!
The good Lord bestowed many blessings on my wife and I during the week. The weather was fantastic, we got there and back safe and we shared some time with people I consider friends. A person just couldn't ask for anything better.