TBF Regional

[Team houston]

Here is a quick recap of the Regional held at Sandusky last week. I arrived on Sat at noon had lunch and went to check out the ramp. On the way back to the hotel a viscious thunderstorm rolled thru and downed trees and power lines. The hotel was without power when I got back. It was back on a couple hrs later.  Sunday I practice with a guy from Illinois. Tried for some smallies first by Ruggles. No luck there so we went LM fishing. Did pretty good in East harbor, would have had about 13lbs. My roomate Ronnie Shephard showed up late Sunday so I was able to fish with him the next two days. We tried for smallies the first day and LM the next because it was supposed to be rough out. We had little success with each, only a couple short LM. Monay night was a nice banquet to go over the rules and other info. The meal was very good. the captains introduced all the team members. We also got a lot of free stuff, hats, shirts, line etc  including nice Ranger team shirts that had our name and 2007 Michigan team on them. Tues night was the pairing and I drew Steve Quinn from the In-Fisherman tv show who was on the Minnesota team. They confined us to the bay because of the forecast for gale force winds the next day. Everybody knew it would be tough. 3 guys weighed limits out of 72. I believe 23 guys blanked. I was lucky to catch one LM that went 2.5oz. I was happy to have it, it kept me in contention and helped the team, even though we were in 5th after the first day. I caught my one on a sweet beaver on some marina riprap.  I will finish tommorrow

[Team houston]

2nd day I am paired with Bob Kuhn from Minnesota. We have no idea where we are going to fish. We head toward ruggles but end up down by Vermillion. We see it says dumping grounds on his map and head that way where a couple other boats are and a ton of perch fisherman. We idle around and mark a couple rises with fish showing on them. We start fishing  and I am stunned to get a bite after about 10 min. Thinking it must be a Sheephead I am shocked when a 4lb plus smallie comes to the net. This is one of those special days and at 10 o'clock I put #5 in the boat. They are all clones and I know I have 20lbs in the box. Knowing I cant do much better I back off hoping my partner can get his limit. He ends the day with 2 and even fishing sporadically I cull twice. I weigh in 21lbs 4 oz. I am shocked to have the biggest bag of the day and even more shocked to be leading the whole thing. Day three I am paired with Loren Peters of Illinois. He is not on much but him and his partner each weighed in a nice smallie today. I did not want to go back to vermillion because it was going to be rough water again in the forecast and I felt I accidently fished on some of my teamates water. Even though they encouraged me to go backto it, it just isn't me. So we decided to hit the area where he caught the smallies and then grind it out for LM. I knew it would be a tough day. We only caught sheephead ,catfish and silverbass on the SM spot so we started grinding. Loren managed one nice Lm that went 4lbs plus and I only caught 6 or 8 shorts. I had my chance and it did'nt happen. I missed being one of the Mich reps at the Nationals by 15 oz. Congrats to Wayne Macklin and Thom Kiefer for making it. Wayne was fishing the area in Vermillion that I did not want to intrude on. All in all it was a great time and I look foreward to trying to make the team again next year. Thanks to Dennis Beltz for all his hard work

[djkimmel]

Nice report Phil. I was excited to see you were leading the 2nd day. Thought you might change the title from Phil Borsa, All-American to Phil Borsa, National Champion. Sounds like you did the right things to make the best of tough conditions. I did not miss being out there while the winds were howling.

The good news is next year's divisional is somewhere in Michigan!!!