Champ188

Impressive, indeed. And good on you, too, QB for correctly identifying both aircraft. I was sure of the P-51 myself when we saw them fly over the golf course that day but could not identify the other (the Spitfire).

Can't beat that for the start of a day.

Jim, you bring up a very good point with the angle advantage of each angler on boat docks. Donna and I do this intentionally and she nearly always outfishes me off the back because she is able to use the boat drift to her advantage in getting her lure farther back under the trailing dock corner as the boat goes by. We were at Lake of the Ozarks a few years back in October for the Central Pro-Am championship. We got there on Tuesday to have 3 full days of practice. She caught no telling how many fish that week weighing 3-6.5 pounds pulling a Lucky Craft 2.5 in the splatter back shad color under dock corners. In fact, she chipped one corner off the lip and it still runs fine, but she calls it "Lucky." Don't know about luck but it was definitely her pet bait that week. Of course, a very strong front blew thru just before the tournament and totally killed any kind of "winding" bite. The tournament ended up being won by a local guy who had lots of brushpiles to fish and just soaked a jig in them.

Yep, the solo pro format is gaining popularity all the time.

Donna and I saw them last Sat while playing golf. Went north first then came back south.

Definitely been a few caught amongst them. And they were catching em long before the days of jerseys and buffs arrived.

They've all gone to the banks. Yippee! LOL

Hey dblades, you might drop a pm to Sprint21 or Fishrman. They may know something about them.

I thought you were doing nothing but drop-shotting these days. Or are you drop-shotting your crank plugs?

I'm old enough (by a long shot) to have cut my teeth fishing draw tournaments, and I've had to split the day/front of the boat with some pretty good fishermen. But some of the best have been nonboaters that I've been paired with in later years in pro-am derbies. Your front-deck guy was obviously smart enough (finally) to copy what you were doing and put some fish in the boat. That's what club tournaments are about ... having fun and learning from each other, while competing for a little money or trophies at the same time.

Some very good points there. I did nearly all of my 80's cranking with the brown/chartreuse/orange or black/chartreuse/orange Deep Wee-R's. Threw the Deep Little N a fair amount, too. For my money, the Rock Crawler is the best "new" crankbait we've seen in a long time. It just gets bites, and a lot of them. Haven't really given the Strike KIng XD's a fair try. Heck, you can't throw everything. I do like the Bandit 200 and 300 series, too.

Never played golf with him but i hear he's a pretty good player. And we all know he can fish his butt off. Besides, he's a heckuva nice guy.

As always, Ben, thanks for the data. And glad you got into some fish. Hard to beat those brownies for a fun fight.

Let me see if I can enlist the help of my bride, Donna G. She's definitely the organizer in the family. I do like the sounds of it. A lot.

I'd take Mark Wiese any day.

I've never personally met Bob but have been around him at a lot of tournaments. He's obviously a very nice guy and a credit to the sport. Glad to hear you had a good experience with him and nice of you to share that story here.

Dang, Hammer. That little dude should really catch em.

Love that bluegill-colored skirt. Awesome job of tying that up.

If the pro finds a shallow bite in practice that requires casting parallel to the bank, he would be taking himself out of contention by not fishing that way for the benefit of his co-angler because you can bet the guys he's competing against are doing whatever it takes to catch fish. I know from Central Pro-Am experience that by the time you pay pro entry fee, truck and boat gas/oil, lodging and meals for a few days, you've invested at least $1,000 in each tournament. Yes, the co-angler has spent a good bit of money, too. But the rules allow you to position the boat however you need to in order to catch fish. Your competition is doing just that without a thought to their co-angler. And therein lies the issue for me ... if you don't cut the guy off in the back, you're screwing yourself. If you do, you're screwing him. Sometimes you're on a pattern where both of you can fish effectively without the co-angler being pigeon holed. But for a shallow-water guy like me, that's not the case a lot of the time. That's why these days I prefer guiding over tournament fishing. I get to help my fishing partners catch fish and get paid for it. Win-win for me.

Well, I should clarify that I was never looking to advance past the regional level. If you are fishing to pay your light bill and put shoes on your kids' feet, you better not feel one bit bad about front-ending your back seater. Co-anglers know going in that they are fishing leftover water. So is every other co-angler in the event, and that's why there are two divisions --- pro and co. As soft as I was about sharing fruitful water, I did have to remind a couple of guys that they were not entitled to throw over my line or (much) past the center line of the boat. In fact, I came very close to bringing one back to the dock in a Central Pro Am event on Table Rock. First thing that morning, we were unable to run to my river fish because of fog. So the little twerp tells me he has a spot close by. We get there, I go to the front and drop the trolling motor, then I look thru the bushes (it was a flood year) and there is Dave Barker, who my guy had fished with the day before. I turned around and asked him, "Is this where you and Dave fished yesterday?" He says yep, like there was nothing wrong with taking me to Mr. Barker's spot. Fortunately, I didn't make a single cast and got out of there as quickly as I could . Aside from the ethical issue, it was strictly against CPA co-angler rules for him to reveal to me another boater's fishing spots or techniques. Next, I had to take his hung over butt back to Ahoy's before he crapped his pants. By then, the fog was breaking and we were able to run up the river. For the first two hours, he continually threw in front of the boat, even over my line at times. Finally, after asking him repeated times to stop, I put him dead against the bank for an hour and when I tried treating him decent again at our next stop, he had miraculously learned some manners.

Sorry you had to endure that, BC. And I'm glad the jerk didn't catch a fish all day. But as you pointed out, thankfully, not all boaters treat their co-anglers like that.

That's one reason I've pretty much given up fishing the pro-am format. For starters, my strength is fishing shallow, knowing my targets and fishing them carefully and thoroughly. I like to cover a lot of water and when fishing alone, I keep the boat pretty close to the bank. I've had to do that in pro-am tournaments in the past and never did extremely well because I felt like a heel for keeping my back-seater cut off all day. I like for the person with me to catch fish, even in derbies, which was pretty evident a few years back when my partner won the co-angler division of that year's BFL stop on Table Rock. I probably could've caught a few more myself if I hadn't been generous enough to let him have more than his fair shot at the fish. But this guy was new to tournament fishing and I wanted him to have a good day. And did he ever. Not patting myself on the back at all. Just saying, pro-am events can be a bad deal for both the boater and non-boater, provided the boater has enough of a conscience to feel bad about pigeon-holing his partner all day.

That's another thing about that big Plopper. It's like throwing a baked potato.

Nice job, littlejasper. Always more fun when you make some money.

Very pretty fish.