Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ndskeeter" data-source="post: 117542" data-attributes="member: 358">I fished the tournament this year as well and there were lots of issues from the get go. It was a struggle to get boats off on time and it didn't matter if you were the 1st or 2nd flight. On Day 1 half of the 2nd flight took off at 745 which was the scheduled start time and the rest were told to come in 15 minutes later than scheduled due to not getting off on time. On Day 2 we were the first flight and in line super early and the road straight down to the ramp (day 1 route) was blocked off and they had us circling through the campground. By the time I got to the inspection area I figured out what was taking so long and it was because they started letting trucks come down the route that they didn't let us take initially causing 2nd flight boats to get inspected and in the water before some of the first flight guys who were there earlier. Then there comes the scale issues that everyone has heard about on day 1. On day 1 we weighed 5 fish that were 19 3/4" - 21.5" and we only scaled 14.17 lbs  (17-18 lbs on the north scale) which seemed a little light to me but there was nothing I could do about it. I knew the leaders were 10lbs out on us so we needed a big basket on Day 2 as there was a lot of ground to make up. Knowing some of those top teams used the scale that was giving them an extra 3-4 lbs really had us pissed off as 6-7 pounds is a lot easier to cover than 10lbs is. Needless to say we ran north and within the first 5 seconds of our first crank hitting the water we had a 20" fish in the livewell. We didn't go much further and all 4 rods were banging with fish so I grabbed the back one and skied it in while I left the side rod just hanging as I dealt with unhooking the first one, especially since I figured it was the cookie cutter 17-18" fish that we kept throwing back. A couple minutes passes as I get the fish unhooked and released and the trebles pulled out of my sweatshirt so I finally get around to dealing with the fish that has been holding on for a few minutes and as soon as I grabbed the rod I knew it was a better fish....turned out to be a 23.5" walleye that was 5.5lbs. We turned around and picked up a 21.5" fish and then things slowed a little bit but it was only 730 and we had 3 pretty good fish in the well. We made a move to our next spot and picked up a 22.5" fish that was fat and puking up smelt so now we had 4 and I was guessing we were cutting into that big deficit we were faced with. We added one more 21.25" fish to the well and I knew we were awfully close to 20lbs but I had to verify with my own scale before getting the boat loaded. I set all the fish in a bucket (added to the boat the night before after the Day 1 scale issues) and my scale was reading a touch over 22lbs. I knew the bucket was a little over 2 lbs which put us somewhere between 19-20lbs and we scaled 19.52lbs which was the 6th biggest basket of the day and jumped us up to finish a legitimate 15th. I know of atleast 5 teams that finished ahead of me that used the North scale on day 1 so if that wouldn't have happened it could have been better or atleast tighter at the top but the fishing was phenomenal overall.</blockquote>

Verification: What is the most common fish caught on this site?

Reply to thread

Recent Posts

Friends of NDA