Wfc Tourney

[ozzie]

Is anyone in the tourney on the chain this weekend?  I am giving it a go for the first time and am excited more so just to have a full day of fishing without the wife asking me when I am coming home!! haha

[JP Z]

I will be out there Ozzie, I think this is about 8 years in a row.  Planning to get out pre-fishing Friday for a bit.  It's going to be a bit toasty to say the least.  I think 90's and mild wind, there will be plenty of pleasure boaters out there me thinks.

[ozzie]

Awesome and I too will be up there pre fishing Friday.  My teammate/father in-law was out yesterday and found the walleyes and my buddy also has been out (also in the tourney) and found walleyes so now we need to locate the bass and bigger northerns if they exist!  haha  With the way the weather is looking we may need to take the pontoon instead and utilize the bimini to stay out of the sun!!  Can't wait to get a couple days of fishing in...Hope to run into you JP Z as it would be nice to but a face to your name after all these years!  Good Luck

[JP Z]

Friday I'll be in my lund Rebel.  My dad and I fish the tourney out of his 20' Alaskan....it's white   Look for us in the top 5

[ozzie]

I will keep an eye out for you.  We will be in a either a 16 foot black lund or if windy or horribly hot we will be in  an 18 foot lund Tyee and utilize the bimini.  I will look for your team under mine as we will be sitting in the top spot!! HAHA!!!!  I just hope to catch some fish...

[JP Z]

Yeah, 93 and sunny....maybe some wind.  I think the weighin will kinda look like a Crawdad boil with all the "lobsters" walking around.

[JP Z]

Well that was a bit wet today.....But now the sun will be out for the rest of the day and tomorrow.  Bring on the Tourney!

[JP Z]

How did you end up doing Ozzie?  We could not find the fish we needed, from what I heard it was slow for quite a few.  Didn't even go to the weighin.....if that says how we did.

[ozzie]

well Friday we were out when the big storm hit at 11:30 and got rained out with only 2 hours of pre-fishing.  The tourney was our first and we learned a lot.  don't spend a lot of time on eyes unless you have your bass n therns...a 20" northern isn't that big and we mistakenly threw back a few that would have qualified and then only weighed 1.  We ended up with 11.5 lbs.  Poor showing but had fun and know what not to do next year.  The bummer was we had a 3 nice bass that jumped and got off right near the boat and they would have all added at least a 1lb each to our total...given that and if we would have kept 2 20" therns at 1.5lbs each all the sudden we were closer to the $$$.

[ozzie]

It was a tight race...if I heard correctly 18lbs got you in the $$ and 10th place was 19 something lbs so a tight pack.  We were in heat 3 so by the time we just left the 1st place guys were coming into dock with a  9.6lbs walleye setting the field in a big hole.  One thing I learned is that this tourney will always be a drag as long as the joker that runs it runs it.  He is something else...nice guy but holy cripes does he like to hear himself speak and some of his thinking is a$$ backwards.  For instance the biggest stringer of eyes didn't go to the guy that caught the 9.6lb eye but to a team that weighed 4 at 6lbs total!!!  That makes no sense at all.  Also I noticed that they didn't measure the fish so in essence you could have snuck a fish that didn't measure out into the basket and get weighed.  I know it is suppose to be kind of an honor system but when $2000 is at stake....

the 1st place team weighed like 29lbs of fish but they are the ones that landed the big eye

[JP Z]

that is very strange on the Big walleye bag.....I wonder if they caught the issue.  Also, since this is your first tourney I'll let it slide   But yeah, Joe likes to hear himself talk, but that is for a reason, they like to make the weighin and pre-awards last as long as possible to sell more beer at Moonlight.  EVERYONE complains about that part.  So they weren't measuring fish yet eh?  Yep that was always what threw me for a loop, considering even a few years ago you are only allow 1 30" pike per person, but when a team weighs 3 8lb pike or so you need to think that ALL of those are over 30"....

[ozzie]

Funny that you say that...a buddy of mine said a few years ago he lost out on big $$$ when some guys weighed in a couple northerns that were all 30" or bigger! so he clarified at the rules meeting if you could only posses 1 30" at a time yet register 3 or what it appears to be in the rules (and is) that only 1 over 30" can be weighed period.  I didn't mind Joe as much as he likes to talk but he tried to be a bad_boy and scare us when we registered saying  that we better not cheat yada yada or he will send us off the lake!!  We laughed caused we just wanted time to fish more than anything but then when watching how things were run I realized all the ways a person could cheat and then with the walleye bag issue I picked up that good ol Joe is a lot of talk but not much else on running a tight ship!  I will be back in it next year playing by the rules and will have a little more patience listening to Joe!

[JP Z]

Yep, it is what it is I guess.  But back in the days when teams would weigh huge stringers of pike you know there are more than 1 over 30" in that bag.  I honestly don't know what to say.  So is it only 1 pike total over 30" or can I just come back 3 times??