TBF of MI State Team report by cameraguy

[cameraguy]

I will be posting a series of short reports about the TBF Championship just held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, albeit they will be a bit stale.? I took a computer with me and the hotel had wireless internet, but it wasn't working two of the nights and my computer was acting crazy at times.? Hope it didn't get some kind of virus while I was on the unsecured wireless network.? I didn't take many photos as I wanted to concentrate on fishing. Sorry about that.

I want to delve into a little more than results just in case there are people browsing this board that have never been to a Federation Divisional.? Hopefully, you will want to join the TBF and participate in the State Championship next year for a chance at fishing the TBF Divisional which will be in Ohio, most likely Lake Erie out of Sandusky.? The TBF really put a big effort into making sure that the anglers and families were treated to a top-notch tournament and all around experience.? Fishing this tournament was and will be a real treat.?

To start off with, many of the Michigan team came up on Sunday, which was scheduled to be the first official practice day.? I had to work on Saturday and many on the team fished a BFL tournament that day, as well.? Eric Bond came up on Monday.?

There was a Kickoff Dinner at 6pm on Sunday in the host hotel, the Park Plaza.? The theme of the dinner was "indoor picnic" and a fine buffet of potato salad, pasta salad, and other great food that I can't remember.? Forgive me for that.? I just turned fifty and my memory has not served me well lately.? It would be great if some of the other team members would help with any details that I either got wrong or left out.? Anyway, the tournament staff and officials from the TBF were on hand to lay out the schedule of events for the week.? The meeting was informative, and short, thankfully,? That drive through Chicago can wear a guy out.?

The weather reports were calling for it to be nasty for the next two days (official practice days), rainy and windy for the most part.? On Monday, winds were going to be from the east at 10-20 mph.? Winnebago is a pretty big lake being roughly 30 miles long and 10 miles wide.? That meant big waves on the west side where many of us wanted to fish.? There are also three other lakes to get to, Poygan, Winneconne, and Butte des Morts, in addition to miles and miles of rivers.? ? ?

The structure in Winnebago appeared to be just right for smallies even though the Fishing Hot Spots map hardly even suggested that smallimouth were in the lake.? I guess the locals hardly fish for them.? It's all about walleye, panfish, catfish, and sturgeon in that area.? Winnebago is filled with reefs, rockpiles, scattered rock, and gravel.? I planned on driving around the lake and fishing on the east side.?

We had a short meeting in Dennis Beltz's room to discuss practice the following day.? In this tournament the teams are competing for prize money, not individuals, although the top two anglers from each state move on to the TBF National Championship next April.  So it behooves team members to share information in order to finish as high as possible.? Of course, each man wants to advance to the National Championship, but for each place higher the team can finish, the money increases greatly.? Sharing patterns, lures, general locations, is highly recommended.? Each day the team has a meeting to discuss what they have learned.? Although the tournament staff discourages contestants from revealing exact locations of the fishing areas of their partners, general information is helpful and if everybody is willing to discuss things like techniques, lure info, and general patterns, the meeting can give a boost to team members who might not be catching fish.?

During this meeting we all find out that we will have only 10 guys fishing instead of the full team of 12.? Also, both anglers that dropped out were non-boaters so that bumped me as a boater to a non-boater.? Oh well, I've been in that role before.? At least I had a boat to fish the practice period and justified the fancy Map Source Fishing Hot Spots maps I purchased a few years ago for my Garmin GPS.? It did have the Winnebago system so I got to use it.? Yay.? ? ? ? ? ?

Wow, this post was way longer than I intended.? I'll try to keep these short.? Who has time to read a novel after all?

I did want to mention the sponsors who presented the Kickoff Dinner because they deserve to be recognized; the Oshkosh Convention and Visitors Bureau, Ranger Boats, Yamaha, Keelshield, and the Wisconsin Bass Federation.? Thank you sponsors.? Your generosity is appreciated.

My next post will be about Monday's practice and registration.? Did anybody find fish on this rainy windy day??

Also, at the two Federation Divisionals I've been to there is swag for the anglers at registration.? What about this time?? It's a new organization and a first-time tournament.? Gifts are nice and can help offset some of the expenses for the week.? Who doesn't like free stuff after all?? ?

Finally, please consider joining the The Bass Federation.? FLW Outdoors is making sure that the TBF will be a first class organization for years to come.? Go to http://www.bassfederation.com/ for more information about joining this great Federation.? Thank you.?

Photo below?
Lodging for the contestants and families-Park Plaza Hotel

[Team houston]

We are all reading. Keep it coming

[joshimoto son]

Thank you for breaking it up into short little segments. That makes a longer post MUCH easier to read.

You got a nice report going too!

joshimoto son

[cameraguy]

Monday, September 11, 2006

When I got up it was raning pretty hard so I wasn't in any hurry to get out.? Plus, I was still tired from the trip, especially through Chicago.? What a pain.

I trailered my boat around the lake to the NE corner and launched at High Cliff State Park.? I don't know why they called it High Cliff.? I didn't see anything that remotely looked like it might have been a high cliff.? Anyway, I was hoping to find some smallies hanging around some shallow rock.? I had a lot of ground to cover so I started slinging spinnerbaits and traps in six feet of water or less.? I hopped down the east side of the lake and found zilch.?

It was windy, but the rain had slowed down and at times stopped.? The west side of the lake was a mess, but the east side was fine.? I pulled out the Hot Spots map and decided to go to Stockbridge.? There is a big area that has about 8'-10' of water and the map has a couple of areas marked with an "R" to indicate that it was rocky.? They need to put more "R's" on the map.? There are a whole bunch of rockpiles that started in 8' or 9' of water and topped out in four or five.? One rock ridge I found was about eighty yards long.? As good as they looked however, I only caught a couple of 13"+ shorts around them.? What gives??

Dennis Beltz called and said that he and his roommate, Eric Smith, had given the south end a go, but it was a complete muddy mess.? They ended up launching at Stockbridge Harbor.? I saw them working shallow.? I staryed out away from the bank at this point.? It had started raining again and I was starting to get wet and cold.? I marked another rockpile on my GPS and called it a day around 3:00.? Registration was at 5:30 at the hotel.? I got an early start back to dry off.

At around 5:20 or so, I headed down to registration and saw Dennis Beltz.? He and I talked for a bit and waited until the long line subsided somewhat then got in line.? We had to first show that we had a Wisonsin fishing license.? I think that most of the guys had a 15 day license which cost $28.? Then we had to register.? Dennis still had not seen Eric Bond so he wasn't sure just yet if I was a boater or non-boater.? Eric was there.? I ended up a non-boater.?

Then came the goody line at a series of long table butted together to look like one long table.? First there was a hat.? Then a gallon of Castrol 2-cycle oil.? Down the table we go.? They were raffling off a $700 Lowrance GPS and some other good stuff (I don't remember what-I said in the last post that my memory isn't so good lately), so I bought a raffle ticket.? I don't know why.? I never win those.? I didn't this time either.? Then came a plastic bag full of stuff.? Included was a Fuji disposable underwater camera, a 330 yd. spool of Berkley Trilene XT 12lb. low vis. green line, a .95 oz. box of Fruit Loops, a 1.2 oz. box of Frosted Flakes, an FLW/Partners in Fishing/TBF Federation patch,? a couple of individually wrapped packets of Wet Ones moist wipes, and a big plastic pill-looking thing that unscrewed in the middle that could hold some common pills and was adorned by some logos that I'm sure were put there to entice us to deposit those particular drugs (Tylenol, Pepcid Complete, Imodium Advanced, and Tylenol Severe Allergy) in that plastic storage unit.? Then four more real nice hats.? We all ended up with five hats; Ranger Boats, National Guard Fishing, Yamaha, Lowrance, and FLW/TBF.? Oh, I just found a very nice plastic FLW/TBF decal, as well.? Good stuff.

There were events held for the women and children who accompanied the anglers.? My wife didn't come so I don't know how those turned out.? I'll list the itinerary anyway,

9:30am? Mary Kay Extravaganza Open House
11:00am Bingo
11:45am Welcome to Oshkosh, Explanation of Tuesday
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?-Hand out welcome bags, explain a little bit about Oshkosh, give rundown for Tuesday

Nice treat for the ladies.

At 6:45pm the sponsors held a chicken dinner for the anglers and families.? Chicken, dressing, potatos, salad, dessert, etc.? Nice.? ?A short meeting and we're off to have our first meeting after everyone has been on the water.? Some of us were very candid.? Dennis and Eric had caught a few good fish.? I don't really remember much else.? I told everybody exactly what I had found and planned to go back and launch from Stockbridge Harbor on Tuesday to try and find more rocks and hopefully better fish.? Some of the guys didn't have much to say.? I guess after years of tournament fishing, habits are hard to break.? Oh well, most of the guys seemed to on something, plus we have another day of practice to work on finding keepers.?

Next post...day two of practice and pairings meeting.? Who will we be fishing with and will it be out of a nice big safe boat?? The weather is supposed to be nasty for the next two days.

Below is a scan of the patch we received.? The TBF on the actually patch is a nice blue not purple.? It's too late and I'm too tired to fix it.

[Dan]

These reports are great! I love to read them and really appreciate the time you have taken to post them.

[CuradoKev]

Great post !! Keep it up and thanks !!

Ckev

[cameraguy]

Thanks for the nice comments.  I'm going to take tonight off cuz if I don't my wife will kill me.  I was gone for a week and I've been trying to catch up with all the stuff that I didn't do while I was gone.  Plus, she's been trying to keep our 22 month old daughter from gettin' into everything except the toys she's allowed to get into.  I'll try my best to post the next one tomorrow.

[cameraguy]

I swear I will do these about the rest of the tournament.  I haven't had time lately.  I want to get into my laptop and get the e-mails I sent Dan to refresh my memory.  Maybe tonight.

[cameraguy]

Okay, I know I dropped the ball in this thread, but I've been super busy.  Plus, I just don't have access to my computer after 9:00pm or so.  That's when my daughter goes to bed in my office/her bedroom.  I bought a laptop to access my wireless router, but I can't get it to connect.  Help!

Anyway, since it has been months now, I don't remember a lot of the details.  I'll do my best.  Plus, Dan was kind enough to look up an e-mail that I had sent during the tournament and I have some of the paperwork handed out at the tournament.  So here goes.

On Tuesday, the rain just wouldn't let up much.  It stopped for a few hours and then started again in early afternoon.  The wind wasn't letting up either, but on the east side of the lake it wasn't a problem at all.  I launched at Stonebridge Harbor on the east side of Winnebago.  What a fine, fine facility.  A terrific ramp, long docks, clean bathrooms with running water, and superbly designed breakwalls should be a prototype for any new facility or upgrade here.  No signs warning against power loading to be found anywhere.  I guess I should have taken pictures, but it was raining and I needed the practice time.
     

I caught a couple of small keeper smallies off of the first rocky break just north of the ramp on a crankbait.  Then I flung the lure (a Fat Free Fingerling-chart./white) about a mile when my line broke on a cast.  Oops, that was my last one.  I lost one more (chart./blue back) the same way.  Later I lost one when it was cut on some zebra mussels while cranking (last one) a rockpile a little south of Stockbridge.  I guess I should check my line for nicks more often when cranking rocks (I don't throw cranks too often).  The water color is very off color and chartreuse seemed to be the color they wanted.   

After a day of fishing that really didn't reveal much about where they were (just where they weren't), I was kind of glad that I wasn't a boater.  Although, I saw a number of smaller boats that made me a little nervous about fishing on a big lake with lots of wind.  Been there, done that.  The first day of the Federation Divisional in Green Bay ("98 ?) my first day boater took my right up the middle of Green Bay, 40+ miles in 3-5 footers running just about full throttle, beating the crap out of me the whole way.  When we got there we discovered that his port gunwhale was cracked wide open with fiber glass frayed at the edges.  And we had to drive back at some point, of course.  Nice.

Back to Winnebago...I found out later that I was in the general vicinity of a lot of fish.  More about that in a later post (much later?). 

The partner pairings and rules briefing was to start at 6:30pm SHARP!  If a competitor was late is would cost him $20.  They really wanted to start on time.  So did I.  I was hungry (as usual) and wanted to grab some dinner.  We were on our own for dinner until the Awards Banquet.

My boater was Scott McIntyre from Illiinois.  He said we would fish the river for a mix of smallmouth and largemouth.  He said he was on 'em pretty good.  He was the Illiinois State Champion and had a Ranger V20.  Great boat and seemed like a good guy.  Should be a good first day.  I was looking forward to it.

The TBF had some activities scheduled for the families again.  I didn't hear how it went but here is some of what they had scheduled.

Morning--Explore Downtown Oshkosh,  Gallery Walk, shopping, coffee shops, pedicures/manicures--Kids--Menominee Park Playground and Zoo

11:30am--Oshkosh 100 lunch at the Knox Furniture Great estates--Enjoy a delicious lunch while admiring the magnificent artwork. 

At our team meeting it seemed like some guys were on 'em okay, but most were not saying too much.  The habits of tournament anglers are hard to break, I guess.   Plus, I really don't remember many details from the early meetings.  I am going by the e-mail I sent Dan just before I went to the pairings meeting.  Yes, I am stealing material from myself.   

Next post (hopefully soon), TBF Northern Divisional Day One.