The Crappie Stalkers’ First “Big Time” Tournament by Mrs. Crappie Stalker

We’ve fished local club tournaments, Elks and VFW tournaments, but haven’t attempted anything bigger until this year. Back in September, we fished our first CUSA tournament on Ky Lake and qualified for the Classic on Oct 25th and 26th. Now, let me clarify, we qualified because of the bump down but hey, we got there. This was purely for fun and the learning experience.

There were around 180 teams that qualified between both divisions and I think that about 167 of them competed in the Classic from 18 states. Let me tell y’all, there were a lot of sharp boats to look at and drool over! After a mostly sleepless night (I never sleep well before anything big the next day!) we were up at 4:30 and gearing up for day 1. It was cold -- 30 degrees on the way to the ramp and the temp dropped into the upper 20’s before daylight. The courtesy dock was frosted over and so was my nose. Have you ever seen a camo popsicle?

The wind was blowing a little more than forecasted, but it wasn’t bad. We even had some calm water a couple times, which seems to be a rarity when we fish there. We fished Big Sandy, because that’s the area we’re familiar with and we felt confident that we could weigh in a limit. We were spider rigging jigs tipped with nibbles in 10-12 fow. Yes, we had minnows in the boat. No, I never used one. My hands were so doggone cold I wasn’t about to get them wet unless I was taking a fish off the hook, even with hand warmers in my pockets. We made it to the weigh in with our 7 fish, the biggest of which was 1.39 lbs. We didn’t set the world on fire, but ended the day in the middle of the amateur division pack.

Day 2 was cold (again in the upper 20’s) and windy. When I say windy, I mean whistling through your rod eyes, wave rolling, blow your hat off winds. So much for our confidence in catching our 7 fish limit today!

Spider rigging was impossible, so it was back to single pole fishing. This was a day when an aluminum boat definitely was not an advantage and boat control was difficult at best. I felt bad for Paul trying to hold position and fish simultaneously. It was a rough day all around and we only managed to weigh in 3 fish. We ended up in 53rd place overall.

At the banquet on Saturday, we saw a lot a folks there who are incredibly dedicated to crappie fishing. There were some who had fished nearly every tournament this season. There were husband & wife teams like Paul and I, father and son teams, brothers, three generation teams and other family teams as well. I think that’s pretty cool and not something you see on the bass side. We met some fine people and really enjoyed the whole experience.

So, I said earlier that we did this for fun and the learning experience. Yes, I had fun even though there were moments that I wished I was back in the camper with a cup of hot chocolate. And I certainly learned a few things:

1. We need a bigger boat

2. We have to explore more parts of Ky Lake to expand the area we fish.

3. I need thicker socks.

4. We need a bigger boat

5. It’s good to step outside your comfort zone and take on a challenge.

6. I really can spend two straight days in a boat with my husband and not want to do him bodily harm.

7. I’ll probably do this again, but only if we get a bigger boat!

8. Crappie fishing is still more fun than anything else!

Here are some pics from Day 2.


That youngster weighing in is Adrian Hale. He’s already one heck of a fisherman and the young angler of the year in 2012. He was at Grizzly Jig’s spring tackle show promoting Lake Fork lures and he did a great demo.


A shot of some of the weigh-in crowd on Saturday afternoon.


Capps and Coleman receiving their 8th championship awards.


I’m so glad we had our crappie.com shirts. We actually looked “official”.