New Sponsor, Season Opener Canceled
I’m so excited to have Chevy as my new title sponsor. I look forward to a long run in the Chevy boat and many more Chevy Pro nights. The Chevy Team visits various Chevy dealerships near the FLW Tour site on the Tuesday before each event to meet fishing fans, give some goodies away, and show off some cool trucks. I had a great time at Red River Chevrolet, thanks to all of you who came out to visit.
We are home from what was supposed to be the first FLW Tour event of 2010, but unfortunately it was canceled. 40 hour round trip adventure! At least we didn’t take the RV I guess. We stayed in a suite because the trailer is getting wrapped. It was nice being in the same truck together for a change. We were at the Red River in Louisiana and to be honest the river conditions were dangerous. Area officials had closed down all the ramps on the river with the exception of the Red River Marina where our take off was. I can’t remember ever feeling so disappointed as I was waking up on a beautiful (but cold) Wednesday morning and not idling into my starting spot in pool 5. Though it was a sick feeling, I was in full agreement with everyone who wanted to cancel and am satisfied that the FLW staff did the right thing. There was really no other choice.
I’m irritated a bit with some of those who displayed their ignorance and wanted to put others and themselves at risk. And the risks were pretty high, which is why around 100 concerned anglers showed up before the registration meeting to voice their opinions. Among them were a lot of guys that were feeling good about their chances as far as the fishing was concerned. I was one of them, I felt like this event could have been an easy win for someone and I was confident and ready to go slug it out in my dream type scenario, it was perfect for me. I didn’t lug my family 20 hours from home and waste a bunch of expense money, just to turn around and drive home because the fish weren’t biting as some suggest…get real.
On the second practice morning I got up at 4:30am and fired up the computer. I looked for ponds on the river that were way off the main channel and that looked inaccessible by boat. You could say I was completely desperate to find at least one place I could get a bite. I printed out a few arial photos and Mr. Alton and I headed to the boat ramp.
At around 3pm we met up with Ott Defoe and his Dad on the water. I told Ott about one place I found that I might need some help getting into. I didn’t want to damage his boat, which I was borrowing for this tournament. So I traded Mr. Alton for Ott and we took off to check it out. We got in there with relatively no problem, it was a long idle, but the high water made it fairly easy. We put the trolling motor down and I let Ott run the boat while I sat in the back. He grabbed my spinnerbait rod and in about 15 minutes caught two fish in the 4lb class. We decided to leave there and run up to a place Ott had found.
The day before, Ott noticed a place where he thought he might be able to bust into. When we got there and tried to blast the boat over some trees, we realized we needed to cut down about 7 trees to make it happen, so we decided to purchase a couple saws that night. The next and last day of practice, we spent a long time sawing down trees to Mr. Alton’s amusement and finally worked our way in there. But after all that, we never had a bite, but I still knew I had a good place to go come tournament time and my confidence was through the roof. Ott had another place he was going to fish, it was a community hole actually, but he was going to weigh some fish in for sure too.
Having said all this, Ott and I still felt like it was important that safety be the first thing on our minds. It was obvious that more than half the field was weighing out the same issues. Is it worth possibly loosing a life over a bass tournament?...no way. Someone actually died during an FLW tournament once from hypothermia which was the biggest concern at the Red River.
Alton and I managed to waste half of day one in an unmarked off limits area. I put a photo of my first bass of 2010 on my Face Book page, but unfortunately it was caught in a place I couldn’t fish in the event. It was kind of funny how many friends of mine caught fish in that exact area during practice. That’s a weird deal.
The next tournament, which will be my first of the season, is on Table Rock Lake in Missouri. We will be staying in Branson which is a cool city full of stuff to do. Last time I was there I got to spend a day on the lake with famous violinist, Soji. He caught a stinking 5 pound large mouth in the same spot I started every single day. It was awful…I mean awesome. We are looking forward to going back to Branson, hopefully there will be some shows running while we are there.
Take care everybody and good luck in Fantasy Fishing. I hope to do you all proud from Table Rock!
Dave
