Location: Rhinelander | The bite was a bit tougher today, but at least 130 teams limited, so it wasn't as tough as it could have been. The final weigh in was very exciting, with lots of moving about on the leaderboard. Final pictures will be up tonight and tomorrow morning, look for the photo album to have a ton of new shots from the stage today.
Congratulations to the top teams and the Merc National 2005 Champs, DAN BODINGER AND BRIAN FUCILE!!
Thanks to TFM for assistance in gathering the leaderboard data, and for running a tight ship at the event. |
Member
Posts: 3899
| Congrats to Dan and Brian! Also to WFer WalleyeX for 38th, Jimmy Hughes in 8th, Shink in 95th, Clarence and Chad in 52. Shink, you two were consistant!
I feel OK with what Little Nephew and I did. I did not get to prefish at all, due to work and new lawn planting, and kids baseball games. Neph got out a couple times, and found some fish, so that is what we went with on Saturday. I became a bit distracted Saturday, when I noticed my livewell wasn't holding water when I had the recirc pump on. Turns out, the outlet from the pump had broken, and instead of going back into the livewell, it was pumping it into the bottom of the boat! I think the bilge ran all day! But, we did manage to find a decent limit of fish, and all our weigh fish came on the same color harness/blade. I really thought we were going to do well, as the very first fish in the boat was a 23 1/2! We caught lots of fish both days, and really, not that many sheeps or whiteys. It was nice to see saugers from 6-13 inches, too.
Sunday, with hopes high, we set out with some more rigs tied like our hot bait from the day before. It still worked, but the fish were not in the same area. We moved out to find them, would get a couple, return the pass, and would not get any more. We had two small fish in the box at noon, these coming on a double. With an hour left, Neph said let's point the boat in and go shallower. We did, and caught 3 more 16's. Just couldn't get that last fish in to fill the limit. Not sure what happened exactly, but we just couldn't get any bigger fish to go Sunday. I was hoping to at least repeat what we did Saturday. Had we done that, we were looking at a top 50, and a check. It was not to be, but at least we were in the top half.
Was nice to hear the cheers of my wife and kids as we came into the channel for the weigh in. Took my mind off the heat for a bit. Wow, the sun was brutal! In all, a fun time, especially since we sucked so bad last year! It's fun to compete against so many good anglers, and then have some beers with them afterward. I can't wait for next year!
Now it's time to take a week off, and watch my grass grow.
Edited by Shep 6/13/2005 8:43 AM
|
DSC_0034.JPG (95KB - 97 downloads)
