I was doing my first tournament today with my dad. It wasn't part of any trail but most of the best bass guys in QC were there. Since practice had been awful I decided to try an area where I had caught good size smallmouth in the past and it paid off!! Water temp was in the mid 50's in the morning with a 10km/h wind from the South. It was the perfect weather for jerkbaits and it took about 10 casts to get my first hook up and it was a NICE one. I was soo nervous being in a tournament and knowing I had a 5lbs + bass at the end of my line so early in the day... I didn't want to lose it. Call it luck or whatever you want but I had my biggest smallmouth of the summer on my first tournament 15 mins after the launch! It weighed in at 5.25 and was the second biggest fish of the day. Pro Marc Levac came in with a hawg of 5.85lbs to win the lunker. Marc was fishing with one of the best musky guide in the world, Mike Lazarus.
After my big fish I was really pumped because I knew I had a good chance at winning the lunker but since it was a 3 fish tournament I only needed 2 other quality fish to win the tournament. I tried 2 other nearby area where we had caught decent smallies in the past but we got nothing so I decided to move a little further to another good spot. The jerkbait paid off once again... I had left my line in the water for at least 2 mins and I guess a smallmouth had seen it and couldn't take it anymore so it bit the last treble hook and got hooked. It ended up being very close to 5lbs so there we were at 11am with more then 10lbs with 2 fish in the livewells. I couldn't believe it... I don't think my dad had seen me this happy before... I was totally FREAKING OUT. We fished the same area for about 45 mins and got our last fish but it was tiny!! It was about 1.5 lbs and we needed more then that to win it. I knew we needed at least 12-13lbs to win it. We caught a few more fish on the same spot but nothing bigger then that last one.... At 1pm I decided to give a shot at largemouth hoping to get that kicker fish... Again, we caught a few of them but only small ones so we headed for the weigh in with a decent bag afterall.
We got to the weigh in and one team had already weighed in over 12lbs so I knew we weren't going to win it but I was still hoping for a top 3. Our bag came in at 11.23lbs and we had the lunker at that point. Levac and Lezarus came in first with a bag of 13.94 followed by Brian Attwood with 13.54. We finished 7th and still managed to beat a few pros like Daniel Cousineau and other known veterans so I was very pleased afterall. We got to meet a lot of people and it was nice to talk about fishing with people who share the same passion.
I should do at least 7 or 8 tourney next year maybe even more.. who knows!
