Good Job Champ!

[Sore Thumbs]

Champ188 had a 6th place finish out of 145 boats at Grand Lake today. He weighed in 15.00lbs. Just wanted to say Congrats!

[edwin]

Way to go Champ!!!

[Ham]

Good job!

[Quillback]

Congrats!

[snakem]

Good job Champ

[RSBreth]

Thats a tough field to compete against, too. Great job!

[Bill Babler]

Sounds like you had to have your work cloths on today down there with 6th. being 15 pounds. That is just a Super job of taking what she was givin up today and putting them in the poke. Great Job, very impressive.

[Champ188]

Thanks everyone. You're too kind. Had a good day of fishing and sure put the new Ranger and my aging back to the test. Rode honest-to-God six-footers and a few even taller coming back from the dam. No damage to anything but the screws in the base of my Ram mount on the front loosened up from the beating.

Those fish over there have been stubborn ever since the Classic and have really taken a beating from derbies and recreational fishermen alike. Last weekend was a 300-boat Nichols Marine tournament. This weekend was BFL plus a 200-boat Skeeter XFL event. Every "pretty" place was covered with boats to the point they could often cast and hit each other, so I decided to go "ugly" and got on a little deal of throwing a RC Stix jerk bait in smaller, unimpressive main-lake cuts. I also made a point to stay in the wind, which made for some darn hard fishing in a 25-40 mph gale but gave me an added degree of privacy since most of the other boats were trying to avoid the big swells. That's when it pays to have a pole seat on the front.

Again, thanks for the support. You're a great bunch of guys.

[motoman]

Congrats Champ!....... well played sir..........and thanks for the write-up, good read:-)..........proof positive, it pays to tread where others won't dare.:-)

[Donna G]

I'm so proud of Champ. Our bite had totally disappeared the last day of practice. He had one spot left that produced a fish, but it was a one-and-done deal. He told me the night before the derby that if he didn't catch fish on that spot, he didn't know what he would do. I told him, "Just go fishing." He really put on his thinking cap and leaned on his years of experience and got 'er dun. He was diagnosed with a ruptured disc last July. Saturday was our third day in a row on the water. I was in the Elk with my pro and it was pretty darn rough there. My guy told me he really felt sorry for any of the anglers who had to come in from the dam, which is where Champ was at. Tough guy when it comes to tournament fishing.

Wish I could say I did as well. I was thrilled to draw a local who had really been on the fish, but his bite was gone, too. He threw three different styles of A-rigs, plus jerk baits, spinner bait, jig, tube and Wiggle Wart. He caught one keeper fish late on a tube. I was amazed I caught anything since we weren't around active fish, but I finally had a short green one on a jig. Super, super nice guy. I enjoyed the company and learned a few things. Always do and that makes it worthwhile. Oh, I learned don't drop your bibs in the parking lot. Someone will run over them and break the buckles.