One More
I hadn’t planned on fishing the Payback Bass event on the Grand as I was a little late to signing up. However with the last minute change of the D&R Classic to October one of the teams that was signed up had to make a choice. I ended up getting the call to sub for Kyle and got a rare chance to fish a tournament with my buddy Dave Hoeker again. We’ve had a pretty good track record of fishing together so I was excited and hopeful we’d catch a few.
Neither of us practiced and we mostly fished Dave’s stuff throughout the day so I’m not able to give you a detailed sequence of events. I can say we caught a bunch of them and were able to get 2 of the right bites. One made it in the boat and that fish was barely hooked. I still don’t know how we landed it, the hook was just barely hooked in the loose skin further back in the fishes mouth. The other fish is going to haunt me for awhile and is definitely one of the strongest fish I’ve felt all year. Everything went well with the hookset and everything but after a solid fight it just pulled off. That bite came early and certainly would have been a day changer. It wasn’t going to win it for us but it would have bumped us up a ways for sure.
At the end of the day we had a solid bag of 14.51 but there were too many guys that are so good on the river to feel like we would get paid. Somehow, we snuck in at 9th place and collected a nice Payback Bass paycheck. It’s a high risk, high reward series so anytime you can get paid it is significant.
I also got a chance to take Mabel out fishing for a bit this week. She asked to go out of the blue and I’m never saying no to that. We had some time on an afternoon and headed to Muskegon Lake armed with perch rigs and bobbers. She absolutely smashed the big bluegills on the perch rig out deep, sometimes 2 at a time! I think the next trip it will be time to make things a little more challenging for her.
At the forefront of my mind right now is the last D&R on Muskegon Lake. That place can be super tough this time of year and I have squandered and AOY lead at the last tournament there before. D&R AOY is my biggest goal every season and we are in a great spot to close it out. I’m certainly going to put in a loooong day of practice out there this week. Hopefully I can find a few solid things and catch a decent bag. I’ve got an 18 point lead but with bonus points involved and too many guys who can win on any day behind me I am not comfortable at all. Getting a top 10 in this one is going to be critical.
I certainly remember what it felt like last time when Shaun and I were leading and then somehow only weighed in 3 fish on Muskegon Lake. However that isn’t giving me any less confidence. Trevor and I have been fishing well, making good decisions, and keeping an open mind. I’m confident we are going to get some of the right bites we just have to put them in the boat. Looking forward to seeing how this one shakes out.