FOM East Dt. River

[fishon1219]

This past Saturday the FOM east division hosted the 3rd tournament of the year out of Elizabeth park. My partner Mark Clark and my self practised for the event Friday and focused our attention on Lake St.Clair as we weren't comfortable that our river fish would be there. On Friday we were able to catch several limits of smallmouth, but they were all in the 2lb range and didn't even see a bigger fish. We only practised around the Delphine Channel area as we didn't really want to run any further than that. Our plan for tournament morning was to run up to Clair and get our limit and be back to our river spots by 10:00am. The fish that we have been catching in the river were bigger, but we only would catch 1 here and there and being that we are leading the points in the division we didn't want to chance not coming in with a limit. We felt good that we should finish very high in the event and felt that our biggest competition would be the team of Wayne Carpenter and Scott Hayes. Well come tournament morning we find out that team Trombly and team Bucarrelli are now fishing our tournaments and anybody that knows these guys or there tournament history knows they are tough to beat on Erie. We didn't let this get us down though because they are fisherman just like anybody else so we went at it.  We stopped at our firs spot after the 23 minute run from Elizabeth park and managed to get 3 short fish so we moved a little bit further north off of a rock reef and proceeded to get a limit by 8:30, but we only had about 8 lbs. We went to our next spot just further north that is always good for a 3lber and Caught one. We fished around the area and managed to cull out a total of 3 of the smaller fish and were sitting with about 11 lbs at 11:00am. We were a little bit behind schedule so we decided to head back down river before the south wind really kicked up. We hit our first 2 river spots and nothing. On our third spot we managed 2 cull out 2 of the last smaller fish and were sitting with about 13 lbs. We had about 1 hour left in the tournament and hit our last spot were we were able to cull out one more fish and were sitting with what we guessed at 15 lbs. When we got to the weigh in we put our fish on the scales and ended up with 14. 76. 1st place went to team trombly with 22 and some change and Wayne and scott had 18 something for 2nd. #rd went to the Buccarellies with 17 something and me and mark ended up with 4th place. Were we happy with a 4th place finish? NOPE!! It made us realize that despite our limitations in boat size and horsepower we still need to get out to Erie and find those quality 4 lb smallies if we want to compete against those guys in the bigger boats. My hat does go off to Wayne and Scott though because they are fishing out of a boat the same size as mine and were able to get it done, so I know it is possible. The good thing is the next tournament is at cass lake and that will even the playing field for all participants. Congratulations to Wayne and Scott for the 2nd place.

[WayneC]

Ok, so I'm a little slow on the response here but thanks for the kudo's.

Scott and I had a single rock pile out by Colchester that we worked all day for 5 bites.  Our fifth fish came with 8 minutes to go.  I really hate fishing like this but when the quality is there, it's a legitimate way to win. 

If we had more experience here than one pre-fishing trip I'm sure we could have pulled 21 lbs. out of this spot but it wouldn't have mattered in the standings because 1st was in the 22 lb. range. 

The most impressive thing of all was the response from the FOM regulars.  I've fished club touraments and opens but this circuit has been a refreshing change of pace.  Those of us who have been at all the tournaments do enjoy the comaradarie and hanging out.  Fellow competitors were sincere in their congratulations on a good finish and that is something that can be hard to find these days.

It's a great circuit with a good mix of different bodies of water where everyone gets a chance to pick up points.