It has never crossed my mind to launch my boat around daylight at 19 degrees, but I did. I know your thinking "You Alabama boys don't know what col dis". And you are right, but I don't usually go fishing in those temps.

Our tournmaent started at fleet harbor with 7 teams and ice along the edges of the lake. The wind was calm, but got stronger as the day progressed. Most teams launched and waited a while before heading out, but a few went ahead. A couple of us had to wait for our streering cables to thaw. They were frozen solid. I have a catch area on my transom that had water in it. It was frozen solid and had to poor coffee over it to get the plug out. We were dipping our rods in the water until about 10:00 to get the ice off the eyes. Lids to coolers and minnow buckets were freezing. Moslay because of the thick fog that was coating everything in moister, which froze immediately. My boat looked like it had snowed for and hour or two. Ladies and gentlemen, it was Canada cold.

Thank goodness the sun came out, but the fishing was slow for us. Most fished in Shoals Creek most of the day. Once the wind got up, it was one of the few places you could fish, and the main lake was impossible. Wind chills stayed around 36 most of the day.

I am proud of Brad Whitehead. He ran the table and simply put it on us. He had done his homework and found a 20 foot ditch running along side the main channel. He marked it with his bouys and proceeded to tightline/slow troll with his minnow tubes. He caught some good ones. The rest of us were trying to catch a few fish while Brad was culling at 12:00. Good job Brad and the rest of us for simply going on a day like today. The SACA have dedicated folks. They proved that we are not fair weather fishermen.

Here are the results:

1st Brad Whitehead 7.69, big fish 1.64
2nd Keith Dodd, Donald Ledbetter 2.16
3rd David Waters 1.38
4th Jeff White .95
Pat Stegall -
Mark Mitchell -
JIm Lovett, GC Nichols -

Our next tournament is not until February. It will be on Cedar Lake. See you guys after hunting season