I have to tell y’all about my day. I’m not much on tournaments, people are different sometimes when money is involved. Doug asked me a while back if I would join him in this Shad tournament, and I agreed. Can’t say I haven’t been apprehensive but it was all for nothing. We started at a sensible hour, not at first light. Short motor to the starting point and it wasn’t long til lines were bent. First fish for both of us was a crappie, mine wound up being the only keeper today. The shad showed themselves a short while later and while they were never on fire, we were busy until we quit to go check in. We both brought the ultra lights and had some fun with those. I picked up a new Fenwick and strapped one of my presidents onto it and what fun it was. These fish weren’t small. Our drags spoke a lot today, these things are tough. Several times we had runs over 4 or 5 seconds, we just couldn’t turn them til they were ready. The wind stayed down til almost 10 and by then we had started trolling. Every way we tried caught something. Our handties all produced some good fish too. Trolling was tough as the wind got up to at least 15 with stiffer gusts. Heavy river traffic didn’t help either. Some folks are downright unfriendly. Check in was done at a riverside home at 1pm, and after fighting the wind I was ready for it. This was a surprise.
Not just a check in. There was food and friends gathering reminiscent of a good Crappie.com Slabfest.a lot of these folks were close to my age and went through school with some of the other folks there. Pat and his sister have put this on for 9 years now and are well practiced at it. They’re 4th generation Sanford. God Bless them, true Florida Crackers are very hard to find. This whole crowd acted like I was one of their friends and made Doug and I feel very welcome. And the food. Good Lord, the food. Bass, crappie and catfish, hush puppies, cornbread, pasta salad, and on and on. Every bit of it very good, and plenty of it. I didn’t see desserts but it didn’t matter, we didn’t have room. Everyone brought their best fish, and one gent walked up sporting a 5 or 6pound striper he caught on a Mepps spinner. I’d like to have seen that fight. We dropped our fish on the table and it came out to be 18 1/4”. Cool. We visited with Pontoon Pappy and Mongoose for a while, and someone called our name. Turns out that a husband and wife had both caught a 19 1/2, and they got first and second and the plaque, and we got third! Never dreamed it would turn out like this. A good day fishing, a great meal with really good folks, and win a few bucks to top it all off. I know where I’ll be next year.
A big shout out to Don AKA Pontoon Pappy for bringing this to our attention and helping us get registered so we could participate. We couldn’t have done it without your help. You have to let me return the favor sometime soon. Here’s a few pics from the day, and maybe Doug will add a few too. I hope y’all had a day as good as we did and if we didn’t see you on the water today, I hope to see you one day soon. Til then...... Skeet
