I had a chance to fish all of the eligible waters in the weeks leading up to the tourney. I caught lots of fish on all of the lakes, but Overcup by far had the bigger bite. The Saturday before the tourney, I patterned some good fish and ended up with just shy of 12 lbs in about 5 hours of fishing.Attachment 166390Attachment 166391I felt pretty good about what I had found, so I left it alone for the rest of the week.
On tournament day, me and my son, Ashton, started off the morning with the same thing they were hitting the week before; orange/chartreuse jig tipped with a small minnow. Well, after watching Dustin and Kelly catch 6 fish before we got our first bite, I knew that wasnt going to work. After digging through my minnow bucket for a couple minutes, I put on the only big minnow we had in the boat, and WHAM!!! Our biggest fish of the day!! Attachment 166392After that, we decided to pull up and try to hit up the bait shop at the ramp for some big minners. They had em, but he wanted $4 a dozen!!! I told him I couldnt pay $4 for 12 minnows and walked out. BIG mistake!! We fished for another hour without a bite, so we decided to load up and go to Brewer where we knew we could at least put 7 fish on the scale. Probably caught 100 fish there in 3 hours, and after putting only 3 decent fish in the livewell, and a limit of good eaters, we decided to go back to Overcup. We went right back to the same spot and caught three more decent fish pretty quick, then that was it for the day.
We ended up with 6.11 or something like that, not near what I was expecting judging by the week before. But let me tell you something. I could have just sat on the water hanging out with my little boy and never put a hook in the water and it would have been worth every penny. This is the second tourney I have fished with him and I can honestly say that they were my best two days I have ever spent on the water. Sure, we fish together a lot, but something about the competition, and seeing him read the electronics, water, weather, and make suggestions based on what I have taught him. Man, that makes me so proud!!
