what can I say ?

[CrappiePappy]

As has been so eloquently said, already ........ it was a "tough" tournament - tough in that the winds were howling at 20-30mph. This made a lot of the "good" areas tough to get to, let alone fish ... especially for those with smaller boats or those trying to fish drops, or deep brush. It was even reported to me, by some of the top team members, that they had to go to heavier jigheads than they normally use ... and some even had to "shoot" docks from the "back side" of the dock - just to get out of the wind and waves.
Partner Paul and I braved the whitecaps on the main lake, in order to run to one of our spots up the lake. Paul picked up two nice fish from a dock, while I kept the boat positioned. Once we were convinced that the dock held no more fish, we moved out to a deep bushpile in the immediate vicinity - it was completely devoid of any fish !! We tried several creek mouth drifts ... but couldn't stay on the area long enough to tempt any takers. When a 37lb thrust MinnKota on max (5) power won't stop you from going backwards ... the wind wins, and you've got to move :D .
We attempted to go to some docks in the White Creek area ... but, those that could be fished, were already being "shot" by other contestants. We weren't up for another bone jarring boat ride - so we opted to try another dock, close to the bay where Eden Marina is located. We had fished this dock many times before (and even the previous day) and never so much as caught the first fish from it. But, knowing that it has produced some good catches of quality fish (for others), we decided to "go for broke" and give it a try. I caught my ONLY tournament fish from that dock. We tried our best to give a good accounting of ourselves - but, Ma Nature had it in for us :D (and everyone else, too, it seems). We weighed our three fish in and ended up in 8th place out of 33 teams. Does that tell the story well enough to show how tough the conditions were ? ....LOL!!
As always, the quality of fish was great. And, as Nathan said - a 9 fish weight of 10.4lbs did take 1st place (by coin toss) over a 10 fish weight of 10.4lbs - our 3 fish weighed in at 3.8lbs ... so one can readily see that the "quality" of the fish is excellent. Had the wind been just a "tad" lighter, like maybe 20mph lighter (LOL) ... the creels would have been much greater for most everyone. I think there were around 70 fish weighed in by 33 teams. We had 19 places covered with prize packages ... but only 16 teams weighed in fish. The remaining 3 "place" packages were awarded by draw, along with 7 other draw packages ... all awarded to those teams that did not weigh a fish. Thanks to our generous Sponsors - we had enough prize packages to award all the teams, that stayed around for the Weigh-in Ceremony, a package of some sort.
The Fish Fry Buffet Social was a huge success .... calm winds, sunny skies, great food, and great company. My thanks to all the cooks and helpers.

I was glad to meet and fellowship with my "old friends" and aquaintances from past tournies ... and meet some of the newer members of our "extended family" of Crappie angling enthusiasts. I was also glad to see the lady anglers and the young ones participating, once again. I was expecially proud of the young gentleman that took big fish honors. We had another 3 way tie going, with 1.6lb fish ... until this lad weighed in his 1.8lb Slab. That fish brought him a special prize of a multi-piece Crappie Magic Jig Kit. Thanks to Mike Simpson of Crappie Magic, we award Big Fish honors with this beautiful hand crafted jig kit, in each of our tournaments. I'm sure that young man will get good use out of his prize.

There will be pictures of the top teams ... but, sadly, there will not be pics of the teams holding up a "brag board" with Slabs hanging off of it. There just wasn't enough "limits" brought in, to make that viable. (at least I don't remember any such pictures being taken) Hopefully, other participating anglers will post their "experiences" from this tourney, share their knowledge, and their perspective on how the tournament was run ... so that others will know what to expect and will want to come join us in future events. That's what the whole "tournament" aspect is about, in our tournament series ..... fun, fellowship, food, friends, and fishing - there just isn't any better combination.

Hope to see ya'll again soon, and meet some more of our Crappie.com friends and other members of the Crappie angling family .............luck2ya ...........cp

ps - the Yorks are on vacation this week, so the pictures and their posts concerning the tournament will not be available until next week.

[Moose1am]

Good to see that you had a good turnout. Fishing with high winds is hard and sometimes almost impossible. Last Sunday I didn't catch anything until the winds calmed down. I found that the crappie wanted my jig just sitting there for a while and not moving at all or barely moving. Normally they hit the jig when I move the boat with the trolling motor on the lowest setting. Sunday I fished 8 hours and they didn't hit my jigs until I held the boat in one spot for about 30 seconds. Belive me I tried changing jig body colors, jig heads, type of line by switching rods and reels and various depths but finally the hang the jig right on the bottom for more than 30 seconds did the trick.

Boat control is the key to catching them crappie. I love to fish when there is no wind at all. I don't care if it's hot or not just as long as I can slow my boat drift down to almost nothing and hover over those deep brushpiles.

CP I hope you decide to fish the TeeZur Tournament this year. Even Ed is coming down this year and I know we will have some good fishing if the weather is calm and warm. The water temps should be ideal to get the fish to bite in early Nov.

As has been so eloquently said, already ........ it was a "tough" tournament - tough in that the winds were howling at 20-30mph. This made a lot of the "good" areas tough to get to, let alone fish ... especially for those with smaller boats or those trying to fish drops, or deep brush. It was even reported to me, by some of the top team members, that they had to go to heavier jigheads than they normally use ... and some even had to "shoot" docks from the "back side" of the dock - just to get out of the wind and waves.
Partner Paul and I braved the whitecaps on the main lake, in order to run to one of our spots up the lake. Paul picked up two nice fish from a dock, while I kept the boat positioned. Once we were convinced that the dock held no more fish, we moved out to a deep bushpile in the immediate vicinity - it was completely devoid of any fish !! We tried several creek mouth drifts ... but couldn't stay on the area long enough to tempt any takers. When a 37lb thrust MinnKota on max (5) power won't stop you from going backwards ... the wind wins, and you've got to move :D .
We attempted to go to some docks in the White Creek area ... but, those that could be fished, were already being "shot" by other contestants. We weren't up for another bone jarring boat ride - so we opted to try another dock, close to the bay where Eden Marina is located. We had fished this dock many times before (and even the previous day) and never so much as caught the first fish from it. But, knowing that it has produced some good catches of quality fish (for others), we decided to "go for broke" and give it a try. I caught my ONLY tournament fish from that dock. We tried our best to give a good accounting of ourselves - but, Ma Nature had it in for us :D (and everyone else, too, it seems). We weighed our three fish in and ended up in 8th place out of 33 teams. Does that tell the story well enough to show how tough the conditions were ? ....LOL!!
As always, the quality of fish was great. And, as Nathan said - a 9 fish weight of 10.4lbs did take 1st place (by coin toss) over a 10 fish weight of 10.4lbs - our 3 fish weighed in at 3.8lbs ... so one can readily see that the "quality" of the fish is excellent. Had the wind been just a "tad" lighter, like maybe 20mph lighter (LOL) ... the creels would have been much greater for most everyone. I think there were around 70 fish weighed in by 33 teams. We had 19 places covered with prize packages ... but only 16 teams weighed in fish. The remaining 3 "place" packages were awarded by draw, along with 7 other draw packages ... all awarded to those teams that did not weigh a fish. Thanks to our generous Sponsors - we had enough prize packages to award all the teams, that stayed around for the Weigh-in Ceremony, a package of some sort.
The Fish Fry Buffet Social was a huge success .... calm winds, sunny skies, great food, and great company. My thanks to all the cooks and helpers.

I was glad to meet and fellowship with my "old friends" and aquaintances from past tournies ... and meet some of the newer members of our "extended family" of Crappie angling enthusiasts. I was also glad to see the lady anglers and the young ones participating, once again. I was expecially proud of the young gentleman that took big fish honors. We had another 3 way tie going, with 1.6lb fish ... until this lad weighed in his 1.8lb Slab. That fish brought him a special prize of a multi-piece Crappie Magic Jig Kit. Thanks to Mike Simpson of Crappie Magic, we award Big Fish honors with this beautiful hand crafted jig kit, in each of our tournaments. I'm sure that young man will get good use out of his prize.

There will be pictures of the top teams ... but, sadly, there will not be pics of the teams holding up a "brag board" with Slabs hanging off of it. There just wasn't enough "limits" brought in, to make that viable. (at least I don't remember any such pictures being taken) Hopefully, other participating anglers will post their "experiences" from this tourney, share their knowledge, and their perspective on how the tournament was run ... so that others will know what to expect and will want to come join us in future events. That's what the whole "tournament" aspect is about, in our tournament series ..... fun, fellowship, food, friends, and fishing - there just isn't any better combination.

Hope to see ya'll again soon, and meet some more of our Crappie.com friends and other members of the Crappie angling family .............luck2ya ...........cp

ps - the Yorks are on vacation this week, so the pictures and their posts concerning the tournament will not be available until next week.