Yes dad and I were lucky enough to win the tournament but we couldn't have done it without help from the great friends we fish with. Hopefully this will be a testament to all those that have been sitting on the fence wondering whether they should come and join us and haven't fished our Oklahoma Crappie.com tournaments yet. One thing for sure if you do, you'll meet some of the nicest guys you've ever met and you'll develop friendships that you'll enjoy forever.

Dad and I don't fish Ft. Gibson often and we could count the number of times we've fished the lake on 2 hands. Knowing we didn't have much of a chance to win, dad and I knew we had to pre-fish to have any chance at all and we knew we had to reach out for help too. Dad called Charlie and Mark and I talked to Ledge to try to find some spots to fish. They all gave us several spots to fish and without that we wouldn't have had a chance. Thank you so much for your help.

Dad and I pre-fished on Friday before the tournament and stayed the night in Wagoner. We did a lot of running around and fished from the south end and way up the river on the north end. We caught some good fish both north and south but caught more keepers on the south end.

The day of the tourney I noticed I didn't have any way points on my unit and I asked Ledge at the sign up if he could help me figure it out. Ledge being the great guy he is grinned real big knowing he had me where he wanted me, as usual he didn't hesitate, he said sure lets go fix it. Two minutes later he had me back to normal. Thanks TC that would have messed with my head until I figured it out.

Dad and I got a 100 yards from the spot we wanted to start and saw a white boat off to the side about 30 yards from the spot we wanted to fish. We had fished there the day before and there was a white boat there in the same spot the day before. I looked over at dad and said should we go ahead and go in and he said *@$! yes. After we pulled in on the spot and started fishing the boat pulled over by where we were and it was Doug and Bryan. I said dang guys I didn't know that was you, we wouldn't have come in here if we knew it was you. We thought it was the boat from yesterday that wasn't fishing in our tourney. Both of them being the great guys they are said no big deal there are a bunch of piles in a big area here, fish in here with us there's plenty of piles and plenty of room. So dad and I fished the spot with Bryan and Doug and dad caught a few as I struggled with poles and tangles and everything else that could go wrong. We watched Bryan and Doug catch more good fish than we did for several hours until they decided to move on to another spot. Dad and I fished a circuit of the piles in the area and by 11 had 5 or 6 good keepers casting and dragging through the piles in 8 to 12'. Around noon we were really thinking about going north and our plans changed when we caught our biggest fish 1.8 lbs. Ten minutes later we caught another big fish over 1.5 lbs. After the second big fish we decided to stay on the circuit and try to trade up the rest of the day. It worked out for us, we culled quite a few until we had a pretty solid stringer. Catching those big black crappie was so much fun for us, we couldn't stop looking at how pretty they were after we caught them. I used my old favorite Quantum 8ft Huckabee rod with yellow high vis Berkley big game 10lb test and the same jig all day, 1/16 Timmy Tom orange weedless jig head with a 2" pumpkin and chartreuse Bobby Garland slab slayer. I dipped the pearltreuse tail in Spikeit chartreuse die to make the tail brighter. I tried minnows on 2 other rods set at 10ft and never caught a crappie all day. Dad fished with his favorite 6ft rod and Timmy Tom weedless jig heads and switched up his baits all day and caught some really good fish on blue and chartreuse.

Humbly, after having time to think about how we won the tourney I have some regrets. I wish we wouldn't have fished where Doug and Bryan were fishing. I wouldn't trade the win for their friendship. We should have went to another spot when we saw they were fishing in the area. My fishing habits come into play here too. I tend to stay in an area if it offers several piles with good fish rather than running all over the lake catching the aggressive fish off each pile and moving on. Normally the moving pattern wins most tourneys but not always. If us staying in the area didn't give them the opportunity to come back to the spot later I'm sorry. Again we should've moved on when we saw they were fishing there first. Let me make it clear, in no way has anyone mentioned there was a problem during the tourney. I just needed to get this off my chest and let everyone know we wouldn't have won the tourney without the help of the unselfish friends that we fish with. I sincerely apologize and hope to be as unselfish as they were in the future.

With dad being in his late 70's I sure would be appreciative if whoever took the pictures for the tournament would post them or send them to me. I'd really like to have the pictures from the weigh in, since it was such a memorable day with my dad.