First Tournament of the Year!

[blakstr1]

Long Lake, Alpena County
Saturday May 27th ? (PRE-FISHING)

The wait was over, it was time to hit Long Lake again after waiting and dreaming for a full year.? Savage and I launched about 9 am and planned on spending the next 8 or 9 hours searching beds and pinpointing as many big fish as we could.? The team tournament has a 7 fish limit so we needed to find 15 decent fish, we weren't looking for 2 ? ?s we wanted 3 ? - 4?s?this is what was needed to win, we knew that, we thought about it daily for a year!?

It was sunny today but windy, the water temps varied between 63-66 degrees, we both had our spots to try but the wind would dictate where to go.? Once we got to our first spot we realized the water was very murky due to the winds coming right down the lake, this poor clarity would continue all day.? We saw fish at most of our spots and marked quite a few beds on my GPS, we caught quite a few fish and estimated the size of others.? Our goal was to be able to pass up the 2 lbers and just swing for the bigger fish.?

Around 1pm I started to notice my trolling motor was beginning to loose power after only 3 hours of work,? I checked the batteries and sure enough I had a battery go bad and was holding a very small charge, just enough to allow my 36V system to work.? We were already frustrated with the wind and water clarity, now this.? It was decision time: we hadn?t found the fish we needed so we didn?t want to leave, we also had to go to the poll position meeting at 6 pm to register and get in the draw.?

Brandon (Savage) made a gutsy move and called his wife, I couldn?t quite hear the conversation but it went something like this: ?Honey, please?I?ll buy you?I?ll never ask you?you are the best?please?.I am so lucky?.how do you put up with??. Whatever was said, within 10 minutes he hung up smiling and his wife was on her way from Onaway pulling his boat to Long Lake so we could finish the day.
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She arrived around 2:30 pm and we were able to fish until 5:30 pm, at the end of the fishing day we felt confident we had a good group of fish marked, estimating a catch of 24lbs or so if everything panned out on Sunday.? 23lbs won the tournament in 2005, we had just under 21 lbs last year, we wanted to win and felt we were going to be in the hunt.? We went to the poll position meeting and ended up with the 16th launch spot out of 39 boats.? Things were already going better in 2005, last year we drew the 43 spot out of 48 boats.?

Brandon and his wife headed home with their rig and I headed to the Alpena Super Wal-Mart for a new battery, then drive the hour back to Onaway for some sleep.? We both needed to re-focus and get passed today's adversity, things would be better, we were counting on it.

[dartag]

when do we get part 2..

[blakstr1]

Long Lake, Alpena County
Sunday May 28th - (TOURNAMENT DAY)

After a short night?s sleep and the morning excitement a tournament brings we were back on the road heading to Long Lake.? My batteries were all fully charged, our gear was ready, and we had ice in the cooler.? The rest had calmed our minds and allowed us to attain a new level of focus, we reviewed our game plan on the 45 minute drive and got our back up plan in tact too.? All we could do now is wait.? We waited for boats 1 thru 15 to blast off and then it was our turn, we were waived on and with our Fish Hedz donned in the morning rain we proceeded south at full throttle towards a pleasant surprise..no one near our starting spot!? We had planned correctly, our fish were there and no one was around, a tournament start from my dreams!

We immediately hooked our first fish, but it was only a pound and a half, but it was a start, shortly after we hooked the 2nd then two more rather quickly.? The rain was coming down really good at this point, our bite seemed to die down and we decided to go to our next spot, we had one bay we wanted to check out on the way to our second spot, we went in and noticed a boat fishing the outside point to the main lake, I hugged the other side of the bay as we were going to head in way to the back where we had found fish the day before, Brandon popped up on my trolling motor and was going to take us to the back when the boat that was out on the point started to make a hard charge to the back and was letting us know he was upset, I was ready to argue but Brandon just said good luck and we backed out and went to our originally planned on spot.? Glad he was there to keep things civil, but the other guy was about to rub off on me!? Now don?t get me wrong if someone ran up on me I would get upset but we were a good deal of distance from them and they were fishing the point, if they had good fish locked up in the back of the Bay they should have went right for them.

We headed to our second spot and somebody was directly on our waypoint, so we headed out to our third spot, again a boat directly on our waypoint, so we headed to our then backup plan, but still forth spot.? We were in the shallows of the north end of the lake fishing in the weeds, we found a few beds but again, very hard to see in the murky water?mix that with the wind and rain and it was almost impossible.? We did pick up a few more fish in this area.? After being away for a while we decided to go back to our second spot to see if the fish were possibly still there.? Our marked fish wasn?t but we found two better ones that were, so that experience told us to go and try the little bay that we got run out of again.? This is when I bounced my skeg on the rocks, a finger reef extends at a right angle to the point and I went right into it, luckily I had just cam off plane, but still the damage was done, not too serious but a good piece of the skeg is now missing.? We did find a 3 lber left in the Bay that gained us about ? of a pound, so it was loosely worth it!

We decided to head off to our last spot of the day, our limit was in tact, we were sitting with 20 ? - 21 lbs, not what we were looking for but with the water clarity and weather we might still have a chance.? I knew the spot we were heading too had good fish, I had caught them there the year before, so maybe we could cull one or two more, we caught a couple more here but again not the big ones that would have helped, we were heading to the last reef in this area that seems to produce the best when Brandon starting yelling at my trolling motor, he had control and SNAP!? The steering cable broke!? We tried to repair it but it was no use, we were done, that was it?we limped around for a bit but could mostly go in left circles, we used the big motor and the wind to drift a bit, but by this time our spirits were frazzled and our confidence had died.? Luckily the trolling motor problem didn?t arise until the last hour of the tournament, so we had our limit, our weight was solid, and we were content for the most part.

The weigh-in started and in our minds we were calling our weight 20 ? pounds, trying to be conservative, dock talk was flying everywhere and we heard guys talking of not filling out their limits and not finding big fish, so again our confidence began to rise, maybe we could squeak out of this in good shape.? We heard a few weights and only one was close to ours so far, we hung back.? Mark Modrak and his partner came in with 22lbs, so now the competition was on, the tournament paid down to 8th place, we thought we were still in good shape.? ?A couple more low 20?s were weighed in, then Jeremy Tulgestka and his partner (Alpena Bass Club) came in with a sack of 3 ? pounders for a weight of 24.60 lbs (winners for the 2nd year in a row).? It was our turn, our big fish wasn?t as big as we thought, we had overestimated and when the scale settled down we stared in disgust at 19.20 lbs.? We were pretty disappointed to say the least, immediately the what ifs and should ofs started but today just wasn?t our day.? Hardy Tulgestka (Jeremy?s dad and former Bassmaster Classic contestant through the Federation) and Ted Prisbey also landed in the top 5, I believe we finished about 11 place.

Our most anticipated tournament of the year was over and we let ourselves down.? Although we had fun and caught a load of smallmouth throughout the weekend, the ultimate feeling is we could?ve done better and that?s exactly what we will do, next year we will do better?our focus is BACK!

[Dan]

Hey Blake,
Great article. Your dedication, frustration, trials and tribulations certainly were well expressed. I'm betting you're in the money or taking that coveted tourney win away from those Alpena guys next year!!

[Savage]

Man, I tell you what, had the water been the least bit clear, we would have smoked everyone.  It was tough fishing for bass in that soup, when we expected to see them from a mile away as is usually the case on Long Lake that time of year.  I did manage to get my fix the next day, sight fishing for smallies on one of my favorite lakes in crystal clear and flat calm water.  Oh well, there's always next year.

Blake really gave you the "G" rated version of the events, you should have heard him when he dragged his skeg across about 30 yards of Long Lake bedrock.  Wooooeeeee!

[ronhuntfish]

Busted skegs, broken trolling motor, dead batteries!!!

Welcome to the expensive world of boat ownership. 
Shouldn't you partner pay 1/2 of the cost?

[dartag]

great report.  as my buddy says.  " it is always and adventure ".. 

[motocross269]

Blake,

What tournament series was this? Was it an open???....
My father-inlaw wants to fish a team tournament up on Long lake so I have been kind of looking..
Thanks,
Brian

[djkimmel]

I think it is the Alpena Bass Club open they have up there opening weekend every year.