I was an Elite Series marshal for 3 days and two of those days I spent in the boats of recent Elite Series AOYs - Brent Chapman and Skeet Reese. Brent Chapman was having a rough go of it on Guntersville but he was a great guy to hang out with and we chatted about a whole lot of stuff during the day. I spent the third day of the tournament with Skeet Reese, the 2007 AOY and 2009 Bassmaster Classic champion. The day was nothing short of epic. He brought in the biggest bag of the day and I had the best seat in the house for it. He ended up winning the tournament the next day. Skeet is a very popular personality and we were followed around by spectator boats for a good chunk of the day. I was glad I have a good bladder because I probably would have had stage fright with all the spectators hanging around. This is Skeet's biggest fish of the day, a 6.25 lb largemouth that was hanging around a fallen tree.
Since I didn't get my name drawn to be a marshal on the final day of the tournament, I rented a jonboat at Guntersville State Park and went for a fish in one of the main Guntersville "creeks". This so-called "creek" is bigger than Mississippi Lk but it was just a little creek back in the day before the Guntersville Dam was built and Lake Guntersville was created. I just threw a swimbait and a worm over the flats all day and hooked into a couple of Guntersville bass. And yes I will be towing a boat to Guntersville sooner than later.
After a very fun week at Guntersville, I hit the road and headed towards Vancouver to start taking care of Mom's estate. My first stop on the 4 day drive was in Springfield MO and visit to the first Bass Pro Shops store. This store is massive and is as much museum and aquarium as it is a place to shop. I spent several hours just wandering around looking at the the displays and aquariums and walked out only having spent about $200 on stuff.
I was in Vancouver for about a month taking care of estate stuff and when the deal to sell Mom's house closed, I was on the road again heading back home, arriving on the Monday of the May long weekend. May and June had the usual pike trips on the Ottawa and a day hosting a blind angler for the annual B.A.I.T. tournament out of Nangor Resort. There were also a couple trips down to the St Lawrence to go carpin' and after more than a few trips, I finally got to experience first hand what the hard-fighting fuss is all about with a couple of average St Larry carps.
Mid-June arrived and it was off to Zone 18 to get bass season started (memo to MNR - feel free to extend the bass season in Zone 15 too) on Big Rideau. Big Rideau is one of my favorite bodies of water and a really wish it wasn't a 2.5 hr trek to get there. June, July and Aug were a whole lot of fun. I decided to take a break from fishing tournaments and just get out to have some fun trying out new stuff and just catching fish. Instead of doing the typical tournament pre-fish stuff of moving on when I found some good fish, I stayed around to stick as many as I could. There were scads of these.....
.....more than a few of these.....
.....and the biggest largie I've ever caught on a frog (5.31 lbs).
Sept 1 arrived and not only is that the beginning of the fall fishing season, it also marked my first day of full-time retirement. Since then I've gone fishing.....a lot.....
In the fall we see.....
.....smallies getting fat.....
.....colorful largies.....
.....a bit of gold.....
and on Nov 3, my biggest bass of the year at 5.46 lbs.....
I mentioned earlier that Big Rideau is one of my favorite waters to fish. I like it even more after picking up a cool $1000 with this 4.30 smallie in RJ's Big Bass Megabucks.
That pretty much sums up my year. I caught a ton of fish this year that included three 5+ largemouth and I lost count of the number of 4+ lb smallies that came into the boat. However I'm disappointed I still didn't get my first 5 lb smallie from somewhere other than the St Lawrence River - it certainly wasn't for a lack of effort. Biggest smallie of the year came in a 4.91 lbs and that was on my last outing. I'll get one next year.....
Thanks for reading.....
Doug
