My First Tournament - Virginia FOM

[Bill Hamilton]

Just wanted to let people know that after 50+ years of fishing I fished my first tournament on Saturday with Hutch911. It was the Fishers of Men Virginia TX at Lake Chesdin. Wow! What a rush. We camped late Thursday night and pre-fished on Friday. Water was like chocolate milk after heavy rains early in the week. We only found three on Friday so were a little apprehensive for Saturday.



Friday night meeting was good and I even won an AC Delco Series 30 Trolling Motor. Maybe Hutch and I could get into some money on Saturday if my luck held out. Year, right!



Saturday morning up around 0430 getting ready. 54 boats entered. Slow take off from the launch ramp with fog and no-wake zone for 500 yards, but then we were kinda off due to the fog.



Picked our location(s) from the day before and on my third cast caught a good size fish. Tough fishing all day and we ran all over the lake. Finally near the end of the day we were only with three fish in the boat. No culling necessary. Duh! Everybody we saw seemed to be having a tough time. Weighed in and found that we had the big fish at 6.39 pounds and the next closest was 6.30 pounds, but knew that many other boaters still hadn't weighed in. We decided to go and clear up the campground area and break down the tent and put it all away. Once done we walked back down to the weigh in area and found that the totals were in. Hutch and I placed 7th out of 54 and I had second big fish. The big fish weighed 6.40 pounds. One one-hundredth of a pound different. Knew I should have put some lead weight in his belly. LOL Walked away with enough money to pay for our next three TXs. Not bad for an "OLD" newbie!



Here are a couple of pics from pre-fish and the 2nd big fish.

 

[Herndonpro]

Congrats guys.

Bill - tournament fishing can be addicting and fun. Enjoy the rest of the season.



Steve

 

[Greg Meyer]

Bill,



That "devilish" 0.01lb gets a lot of folks... A few weeks ago, under very tough conditions the MWC (walleye trtail) fished the Illinois River at Spring Valley, IL. Out of 200 boats, in waters 7+ feet above flood stage, and rising, the fireld managed to weigh only four legal fish. First place for $57,500 was a 2.71 lb sauger. Second place, $30,000 less was another sauger...only 0.01lbs less at 2.70lbs. I hope your's didn't cost you $30,000....



And, congrats to you and Hutch... cool

 

[Bob G.]

Congrats!!



Bob G.

 

[Bruce Freeman]

Great job Guys, keep up the good fishing and enjoy the company and spirit entended..



BF

 

[William H. (Bill) Barham]

WoW Guys, way to go!!! Yippppeeeeeee... That's fantastic and congratulations. That was a great showing. I've got some lead lying around so I'll get busy pouring some small sinkers for you. It'll give me something to do and you'll get big fish next time.:lol:



Uncle Billy

 

[Mike L.]

Nice going guys! Some good fish & cash makes for a good day out! Congrats.

 

[Bill Hutchison]

All I can say is Bill is the Man

 

[Scott Hammer TOXIC]

He's hooked.......Wish I could say the same about my T yesterday. We were on the "buck" pattern.:lol: We had 4 or 5, 4+ pounders located under a dock. We could SEE them they were so shallow. We could only get one to bite. Had to round off our sack with the biggest bucks we could get.



TOXIC

 

[Gene B]

Way to go Bill!



Gene

 

[Jim in VA]

Awesome Bill!! Not a tournament fan (mostly because I'm not in the same league:lol, but always glad to see a fellow enthusiast having fun!

 

[fatrap]

Way to go. The way to add a couple of ounces is blow down on the scale as the numbers are stabilizing.

fatrap

 

[Carlos Hathcock III]

nice fishes guys and good placement!!!!!



Missed you all!!!

 

[Mini]

Great job