Down At Dardanelle For Bass

[Doug Weston]

I am playing marshal for the elite tour BASS tournament down here. Ill let you know how he does and who my second day pro will be. I can't say how he catches the fish until the tourn is over though.

[KC Trout Fan]

Awsome, Please let us konw how it is I am gonna try to do this next year!

[Whack'emGood]

You drew "The Squirrel" eh? He seems to be a really good guy with lots of personality... Oh, did I mention he can really catch'em?

Should be fun!

[Doug Weston]

Guys, sorry I forgot to follow up on this. I seen the TV Show today and it jogged my memory. I was really tired after the first day because of rough water I didn't even turn on my laptop while I was down there.

Jeff Kreit was probably one of the best boat partners I have ever been with. He is funny and fun to be around. He explained anything I wanted to know about. The rules keep us from sharing information, so he did not hold back as far as I can tell. We were fog delayed for about 3.5 hours that first day, but he still managed to catch 4 keepers. It was tough down there. The water had risen from practice and cooled off. I guess it cooled off for the entire tournament. The fish were just about to spawn, or had just started spawning. Jeff basically pitched a Sweet Beaver all day, but ended up catching his fish on a Zoom trick worm weightless, texas rigged. He found staging fish. He did catch some fish by stumps but mostly small ones. These guys really put their boats through it. I seen several aluminum boats in this tournament. Mark Menendez ended up winning it out of an aluminum boat. Rick Clunn, and the pro from Russelville, AR both had aluminum boats too(Clark Rheem I think). Many guys fishing the same areas. There is only 101 boats in these tournaments, but they all seem to find the same water. I guess they are just good at finding the fish. I have fished several local tournaments and I am struck at how these guys share information with one another. I know several guys that hide baits, tell misinformation, etc, but these guys do share information pretty good. Both guys I was with didn't hide stuff from other competitors. My second day partner was extremely dull. I tried to be quiet and not talk too much but this guy wouldn't answer hardly any questions. He would get excited when he caught a fish and start spitting out all these tips at the same time, but then wouldn't even say a word until next fish. He Just wasn't a good partner for me at least. I'm sure he is a great guy. He must be a pretty good fisherman, as he has won an elite series event(the one befoe this one), but maybe I shouldn't put his name on here since I"m not exactly giving him good press. He fished really similiar to Kriet except no trick worm.

All in all, I would like to share the boat with Jeff any day, any time. He was great with the fans too. Some of them are kind of standoffish. Jeff Kriet did tell me that he has a new Shaky head jig coming out soon from Jewel Jigs. I got to see some prototypes of it and I'm sure it will be popular with us here on Table Rock. I Worked the FLW event for the National Guard, and I must say I liked the Elite series guys better, at least what I seen of them. Any questions and I'll try to answer.

Doug

[Ham]

How was the Marshall experience for you? Did you feel it was worth your time and money? Was the free stuff you got worth something to you?

[motoman]

Cool report Doug, thanks for the writeup. Kreit always does seem very personable.

[Doug Weston]

Ham,

I think it was worth the money. It costs 100.00 and I got a $25 gift card from Bass Pro, Marshall hat and shirt(uniform), several bags of Berkeley soft plastics. Plus the time with the pro was just better than any discussion you can have in a seminar or any other way to get access to these guys. I feel like its worth the time spent. I got to see how they spend their tournament day. Most of the Pro's love the Marshall program, so they are really nice to you. I asked why they didn't like the Co angler and they said, in a nutshell, that they find productive areas, and usually they aren't the only ones to find these areas, so when Co anglers catch fish out of these areas, it can hurt them. Yeah its selfish, but I see it both ways. If I were fishing like they do I guess I can understand. They really do find the same areas to fish. I always got to see several other competitors. They would talk to one another and ask how they were doing, etc. I do wish I would have been able to fish a little, especially the second day. ESPN really didn't make any money from the Co anglers, but they didn't want the Pro's to fish alone. Oh they fed us dinner during the tournament meeting too. I think you get your moneys worth.

Doug

[Ham]

Having been a co-angler in two BASS tourney's and one FLW tourney, I can tell you that the pros are not going out of there way for you to catch fish. They for the most part seemed happy enough for me to catch some fish (and I caught fish behind all of them), but they don't leave you anything on purpose.

$100 isn't a lot of money anymore and you got some stuff in addition to the time on the water watching the pros do their thing. Having heard your take on it, it doesn't sound as bad as I first thought.