St. Clair BFL

[dashaver63]

Awesome job Brian on the win today! Congratulations!

[Durand Dan]

Is that correct, less than 100 boats for this tourney?

[motocross269]

Thanks....It felt great...I am kind of kicking myself for not going as a boater that was my original plan then it started to look like they were going to be short Cos and the weather was looking pretty nasty...My boater didn't get a chance to prefish much, but he was great to fish with and was open minded enough to try one of my areas...Believe it or not it was kind of a secondary area for me and I was surprised that it held over 21 pounds.....

[Durand Dan]

Congratulations!!

[Dan]

Congrats to the GLB BFL guys. I see several names I recognize. I also see Balog on top on the boater side. Did he fish Erie or St. Clair or is that a silly question?

[dashaver63]

Also see Brian Shaner moved up to 19th in the points. Keep it going!

[motocross269]

Brian Shaner and Seth Valentine are both having great years...I don't know if I have missed anyone..

[Dan]

Anybody have any pictures that they would send me that I could put up on my blog. I didn't fish the BFLs this year, but have been keeping up on the standings.

[motocross269]

I don't have anything..My wife was going to come down to the weigh in, but the rain kept her away....Alot of people left early to get down to the Wonderland registration..

[SethV]

Man, it was BAD out there.  I mean really, brutally rough.  I was 16 miles directly SE of Metro when I started back to weigh in.  The wind was blowing straight out of the SE, so I had to go directly with the waves.  We caught some good fish right near the end, so I stayed a little too long.  Gave myself 29 minutes to run 16 miles in some stupid huge waves.  No other boats in sight for most of the run, I know why.  A wave took my trolling motor pedal off the deck, tore up the base of the trolling motor mount - but that is not the big deal. 

Problem is that I speared a couple waves, not bad, just clipped them.  I flipped the pumps on and kept going.  After I clipped a few more, I noticed water gathering on the floor and turned around - both pumps had quit.  It was raining all day, both worked fine all day.  What are the odds both pumps die?  Well, I hit a wave rather hard, and the glove box lid popped open, stuff started flying so I stopped.  Got everything back in the glove box and went to take off, the boat would NOT get on pad.  Water was up to the bottom of the seats, no way to get it going.  I sent my co angler to hang off the nose of the boat (in 4, 5 and 6  footers....) and it still would not get up on pad.  When I would accelerate, the water would shift to the back and I could not get leverage.  So much weight in the boat that I had to raise the jackplate all the way, and i was still getting water over the top of the cowling - stalled the 250 ProXS twice.  I tried to get it up, swerving, everything, for 6 minutes.  Finally with 3.5 miles to go and 5 minutes before check in, I pumped out the livewells.  That combined with my co angler hanging off the front was enough to get the boat on top.  Problem was, I could not stop.  He bounced down the deck to the floor and we were off and running.  Made it back with less than a minute to spare.  No dead fish either!

With all of the water, I have water in my jackplate reservoir and my on board charger no longer works.  I also broke the center seat latch (done that several times before).  I spent the afternoon today drying stuff out.

When I looked at the pumps, one was clogged with grass/weeds.  The other had a hole in the outlet tube and was dumping most of the water right back in the boat.  The hose had rubbed on a screw and picked a great time to let go.  2 bad pumps on the same run - what are the odds?  My last boat had 3 bilge pumps, this one will also have 3 next time out.

Seth

[TCook]

Congrats Brian, very impressive!

[djkimmel]

Congratulations Brian. I see my friend Ben Felton finished 8th. Lots of GreatLakesBass.com members in the money for this one! Joe, Mike, Heath, Seth, Ryan, Dave and anyone who's real name I don't know verses a screen name here - great job!

[skeeterman190]

 Way to go Seth sounds like an adventure..im still wonderin how 800 dollars later i had to fish in Metro.. i was the smoker..haha nice job kickin arse and takin names this year.. my buddy brians leadin so id like to see either 1 of ya win this

[MadWags]

Great job guys!

[Team houston]

Seth you didn't give us an answer on what the fish did?  Those were definetly wave spearing conditions on the way back. We took several as well. That rain just did not stop, steady from about 9 and still going when I was driving home at 3:45.

[LAPORTE]

Last year I fished that same event as a co out of a 18.5 foot boat.... man that would have sucked this year.... Seth, Nice job getting back in. I'm sure I would have had to change rain gear after a trip like that in my boat..lol

DL

[t-bone]

I fished as a co-angler in a Legend boat and we ran all the way to Grosse Isle in the morning. So we took the hard ride in the morning. Coming back wasn't too bad but it was a single console boat and I took two waves in the face that felt like a heavyweight boxing punch. We went all that way to fish largemouths. My boater caught 3 and I caught two. I've never shivered in August in the afternoon but I can attest it did happen. I was about as drenched and soaked through as possible. Rain gear didn't really help much other than to hold a little heat in. I saw one co-angler that fished in a t-shirt and shorts the whole day. I don't know what he was thinking.

Seth - Nice job making it back. Thank god Ranger makes a tough boat. After all the damage, I'm glad you cashed a check. Seems like you'll need it for the repairs.

[DDBethke]

Congrats Moto! that was one tough day to pull out a sack!

Seth, that lake gets scary when your Outboard stalls in that stuff! I had a similar problem in the Detroit river open... it turns out I was missing the rubber gasket @ the cowl latch on the side of the motor.

For me, that was one of the most frustrating "weather" and "fishing' tournaments! I just felt bad for my Co-anlger s he only got one little guy

Great job guys!
Duane

[dashaver63]

I had a similar return trip last year at the St.Clair tournament. My boater waited about 10 minutes too long to start heading in. We were out off the mile roads and had just started in when a monsoon hit. I couldn't even look up. He speared a couple waves and competely filled the boat. The bilge pumps were pumping as hard as they could but couldn't keep up, plus the motor developed a miss and he couldn't get on plane. We made it in with about a minute to spare. That was about as nervous as I have ever been in a boat.

[TCook]

It was another strange and frustrating week for myself and the guys I traveled with. Skeeterman had boat issues all week and had to use a loaner to practice after he was told he would get his boat back and fixed on friday, a big thanks goes out to McCarter for his generosity. We found two areas with big fish friday and things were looking up for Phil. But when it rains it pours and the bad luck continued because his oil leak was not fixed in fact it was worse when he got it back. Maybe you guys remember that smoke screen as we all idled out of the channel. So Phil only had one option and that was to stay in metro and fish for bucketheads and he pulled out 4 little guys and some how kept his sanity and got his needed points. Must have been mentally taxing when thinking about the giant smallmouth he could not get to that we found the day before.

Our other buddy that traveled with us Jason Fowler fished as a Co and drew a guy I will not name because this story is too embarrasing for this character. The first thing he told Jason at the meeting was you got a good draw man, I am expecting 24 pounds tomorrow so be ready to use the net a ton. Well it didnt take long after the monsoon began for this guy to throw his $1000 a set rods and reels accross the boat and cram himself in the rod locker and wine about the weather. Shortly after I was told he said he was done with this BS and they were heading in this was at about 10:30 AM and they both had fish!!

Now my day, I fished with Brandon Beil and cool guy who guides on st clair, although did not practice all week. We started on the mile roads much closer to shore than we found them in practice and cought dinks and small keepers mostly on slow presentations and a couple keepers on deep cranks, and I jumped off a 3 pounder that really ended up costing me a good check. As soon as the clouds thickened and the monsoon started his GPS went out for the remainder of the day so we were forced to fish blind for about 6 hours. He opted to fish new water and just see what we could come up with. After half way through the day I commited to cranking and put the tubes and dropshots up, I just felt that we were drifting to fast to work them properly. I went through about 7 diff cranks and various retrieves until I finally started getting good bites which happened with about 45 min left. I had a 4-12 and a solid 4 within 20 min until we had to leave so to little to late to put a bag together. That squeaker ended up shrinking on me and I had to toss it back so no check for me this time around. This week brought a whole new meaning to when it rains it pours because it was just problem after problem all week and I never been that wet in my entire life, and I too was shivering out there it got cold in that wind.

Again congrats to Brian on the win and Seth on 2nd overall so far in the standings and everyone else who cashed.

T