First
Tournament
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Steve looked at me and asked, "Where's the net?"
I pointed it out to him. He then tells me that I'd have to back him up when we got back to the marina, that he'd got his first fish.
I told him, "If you don't get the fish in the boat, you didn't catch him."
That kind of set him back, but he was still pumped that he'd finally got a bite. Politely, I suggested that he set the hook next time, to which he responded that he didn't want to pull the hook out. I insisted that he wanted to rip the next one's lips off, and it will bury the hook so he wouldn't lose the next one. Also I told him, unless the fish is to big, in which case I'll be back to either lip him or use the net, just swing it into the boat.
The next couple of fish I caught, I warned him, so he could observe the hook set, and showed him how to lip a bass. He gets a hit and whips the rod back so far I thought he was going over. He reels this ten inch smally to the boat, swings it up and around in an arc, then bang, plops him onto the floor of the boat. He was positively
giddy.First he wants his picture taken, but neither of us had a camera.
Then he wants to keep it, but all keepers must be fifteen inches or longer. But he was so happy, he'd finally caught his first fish, it was kind of neat.He got two more, before we called it a day, which was fortunate. The next morning during the tournament, a front came blasting through. The only pattern we finally got to work was dragging four inch "French Fry" Carolina rigged, dead slow. I caught four fish, but only one keeper. Steve got nothing but snags.
We fished the next year together. He'd invested in equipment and tackle and did much better. The year after, he wanted to take a close friend of his, so he set me up with another construction guy, Brian, who had at least caught a fish.
Last year Brian and I finished in the money, enough to cover the cost of the room.We're looking forward to this year as well.
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