A good tourney partner is always there to help, allows you to crash at their place and feeds you. A good tourney partner always offers to pitch in for gas (and if you not quick enough, the sneaky hick will pay for more than their share while your still pumping). A good tourney partner doesn't clutter the boat, but brings tackle you don't have and holds their own weight with fish for the day. A good partner is adept with the net and does not knock off fish. but MOST importantly, a REALLY good tourney partner knows exactly when you need a really good laugh and will "accidentally" inflate their SOSpenders in the back of the boat and ride around all day at 60 mph with bright orange, jugular restricting, wind catching, inflated, SOSpenders on! LOL
Yeah, Buzz and I had a good day yesterday, just not quite good enough to finish in the money. We had 8 fish (a limit) one died, took the hook too deep, but we weighed in 21.95, after the penalty 21.70 lbs. We had 2 small fish we couldn't cull out for the life of us. 32 lbs won it. Now this time last year, we only weighed 19+ lbs and got 6th and a check. But the notably better anglers were not present at that tourney. This year brought out Champlain's finest. Mike Leblanc (a now FLW pro) and his partner Jim Neidlinger (VT state team), Randy Savage (winner this time) and his partner Gille, they have won more tourneys out of Mallets than anyone I know. But there were several other good sticks out there that we had to compete against. At our first spot while I was fully concentrated on a lily pad stretch in front of me, I hear this very loud HISSSSSSSSSSS from the back. At first I thought we had viper stowed in one of my boxes or the gas tank was ready to blow (had never heard one of those SOS deploy before) and I turn around to see Buzz in a state of utter confusion looking around himself for the sound as he ALSO had apparently never seen this happen. Then within seconds Buzz's neck swelled up to a bright orange with SOSpenders working as a neck brace holding him TIGHT! LOL Note to Buzz, buy the next size up next time. Well I didn't have my other vest with me, I left it in the truck to make room, so he had to ride around with those on all day! LOL And BOY did they catch the wind! LOL LOL LOL. I started the mental countdown and sure enough, before our run back to weigh in, I hear this POP! And Buzz is back there grinning with his knife and a now very deflated pair of SOSpenders that were stabbed to death. We tried to find the release but couldn't so Buzz made one! LOL I am happy with our performance though, we fished hard and did well, just not well enough this time around. There were a LOT of big bags weighed in. If you took our best 5 fish, we were somewhere around 15-16 lbs which would have made top 5 in the BFL a few weeks back. Buzz did catch the largest fish in our limit, a 3.6 smallie and I had a 3.5 LM nipping at him. Lunker for LM was a 6+ lber. The run back was rough. We have our OWN MM here, it's called Mallets bay on a sunny day. My back is sore to say the least. The Ranger ran like it should, perfect. Hope everyone had an equally great day.
Yeah, Buzz and I had a good day yesterday, just not quite good enough to finish in the money. We had 8 fish (a limit) one died, took the hook too deep, but we weighed in 21.95, after the penalty 21.70 lbs. We had 2 small fish we couldn't cull out for the life of us. 32 lbs won it. Now this time last year, we only weighed 19+ lbs and got 6th and a check. But the notably better anglers were not present at that tourney. This year brought out Champlain's finest. Mike Leblanc (a now FLW pro) and his partner Jim Neidlinger (VT state team), Randy Savage (winner this time) and his partner Gille, they have won more tourneys out of Mallets than anyone I know. But there were several other good sticks out there that we had to compete against. At our first spot while I was fully concentrated on a lily pad stretch in front of me, I hear this very loud HISSSSSSSSSSS from the back. At first I thought we had viper stowed in one of my boxes or the gas tank was ready to blow (had never heard one of those SOS deploy before) and I turn around to see Buzz in a state of utter confusion looking around himself for the sound as he ALSO had apparently never seen this happen. Then within seconds Buzz's neck swelled up to a bright orange with SOSpenders working as a neck brace holding him TIGHT! LOL Note to Buzz, buy the next size up next time. Well I didn't have my other vest with me, I left it in the truck to make room, so he had to ride around with those on all day! LOL And BOY did they catch the wind! LOL LOL LOL. I started the mental countdown and sure enough, before our run back to weigh in, I hear this POP! And Buzz is back there grinning with his knife and a now very deflated pair of SOSpenders that were stabbed to death. We tried to find the release but couldn't so Buzz made one! LOL I am happy with our performance though, we fished hard and did well, just not well enough this time around. There were a LOT of big bags weighed in. If you took our best 5 fish, we were somewhere around 15-16 lbs which would have made top 5 in the BFL a few weeks back. Buzz did catch the largest fish in our limit, a 3.6 smallie and I had a 3.5 LM nipping at him. Lunker for LM was a 6+ lber. The run back was rough. We have our OWN MM here, it's called Mallets bay on a sunny day. My back is sore to say the least. The Ranger ran like it should, perfect. Hope everyone had an equally great day.
