Arkansas Tech Invitational - Final Day

Here is an essay I wrote for a class at school about our second tournament day, sorry its a bit of a cop out instead of writing a blog entry. Graduation and the process of moving out of Iowa City has been busier than I thought it would be.

All for a Little Green Fish

Dull yellow light spreads out onto the concrete from the tall street lamps disturbing the pitch black boat launch. Its 4:45 a.m. as college anglers from around the nation roll into the parking lot with big trucks and shiny bass boats in tow. Boat after boat is swiftly launched into Lake Dardanelle. The boats slip into the water, motors are started and smoke shoots out from the engines and rises into the cool crisp air. Seventy plus collegiate teams idle towards the long dock that parallels the bank and position their boats gunnel to gunnel. It’s the beginning of day two of the largest collegiate regional fishing tournament in the nation.

As I wait for the official take off at 6:30 a.m. my boat is tied to the dock. I sit in the driver’s seat with my legs and arms crossed and my chin tucked down into my jacket as I visualize the day ahead. Scenarios run through my head: If this happens, we’ll do this, if that happens, we’ll try this… We need to have a game plan, if the fish move we need to adjust with them. I’m trying to stay calm yet I abnormally have to pee every half hour. The butterflies in my stomach are growing to enormous proportions and want out.

“You boys from the Iowa team?”

I open my eyes, a bright light blinds me, naturally I shield my eyes with my hand. “Yeah, what’s up?” A man with a large TV camera stands on the dock looking down into our boat.

“We need to get some mics on you guys, your leading the tournament right?”

“Yeah, we are. You guys following us today?”

“Yes sir, the tourney is gonna air on the VS network next fall.”

My stomach turns again. I’ve never had a camera boat follow me around a lake before. It’s tough to catch an unpredictable fish with camera boat on you, especially when the camera men expect you to catch them. What if we fail? What if the fish don’t bite? That makes for a boring show. As they mic us up I take a look out past the break line, the wind is stiffly blowing against the current, creating huge rollers. Sweat begins to form on my palms as I wonder if we will even make it to our spot thirty miles upriver. Large waves and bass boats do not mix; think large pot holes in the road, only ten times worse.

The TV guy explains their plans, “The wind is pretty bad out there today, we’re going to trailer our boat up to your area and we’ll meet you there.”

Nodding, “I hope we can make it.”

The wind continues to pick up as an orange light breaks the tree line and the sun begins to rise above the Ozark Mountains on the horizon. College anglers sit in their boats, others pace up and down the long dock, while the hungry munch down breakfast sandwiches complimentary of the tournament staff as they all wait in anticipation for day two to begin. As takeoff time gets closer the boats dislodge themselves from the dock and a flotilla of watercrafts begin to fill up the small bay inside the rock break line that separates the boat launch from the main river.

As we drift out into the bay I prepare for our thirty minute ride up river to our spot. My old, silver mirrored, Spy snowboarding goggles made a resurrection from my youth this week to keep the wind and bugs off my face while we race up the river. To keep my hands from freezing during the cold ride I put on my leather gloves lined in a soft warm fabric, these usually only see the light of day during a Minnesota winter. Anglers and spectators rise and remove their hats in the final moments before takeoff. The colors are presented, the national anthem is sung. Anglers take one last moment to make sure everything is securely latched down before the boat numbers begin to be called off through the loudspeaker. As takeoff numbers begin to be rattled off, tournament boats quickly shoot out from behind the break wall towards the main river. College pride takes off 60 mph down the lake as school colors and logos on flags attached to the boats by steel poles flap in the stiff breeze. A lake wind advisory has been declared for the tournament anglers as they fearlessly make their runs to the best spots on the river.

Boat 48! That’s us, it’s our time. We clear the calm water behind the break wall and my nervous thoughts of catching fish and winning the tournament rapidly shift to controlling the boat in the large rolling waves that blanket the wide river. I lean forward and grip the steering wheel tight. My rain jacket flaps ferociously from the wind causing a loud beating noise that deafens any other noise around me. We make the first turn around a corner and the wind settles a little bit. I open up the throttle and we hit 61 mph, the beating from my jacket gets louder and the air flying by my ears sounds like I stuck my face in a wind tunnel. I turn the boat again to go around another point, the wind is streamlined down this stretch of the river and the waves get taller. The ride gets worse as I begin to bounce in my seat, a few inches in the air each time. My body feels like a rag doll getting tossed around at ease. A headache is setting in from the pounding that my body is taking. I slow the boat down but keep the speed up enough to stay above the big waves. Nearly every twenty yards the boat smashes into a big wave. My back is becoming tense and sore as I begin to question my passion for this sport. We nail another large wave going 40 mph and this one jacks the front of the boat vertically into the air. The front end points back down towards the water. I have a split second to realize what is happening before I get nailed right in the face with a five foot swell. My body is jolted back from the force of the water hitting my face and chest. Our ride becomes halted. Everything goes silent. The engine kills. We speared a wave and are under water in the cold muddy river.


Seconds later we surface with the boat just beneath us; my breathing is heavy and uncontrollable, my eyes blink rapidly. The water clears from my face and shit is floating all over the place. My beanie, goggles and shattered pieces of my windshield float right in front of me. Rods are strewn all over the front deck of the boat and tackle floats all around us. I stand up in the bottom of the boat and water still reaches my waist, the boat is completely full of water. Panic sets in as I fear for my life. I’m certain that my boat is going to sink. It’s completely submerged in the river and is somehow staying afloat just under the surface. I’m completely soaked, freezing cold, and shaking feverishly. I turn the key once, the engine doesn’t start. I’m seconds away from activating my life vest by the pull of a strap. I try again and it fires up. We plow forward with the tip of the boat in the air hoping to keep the boat afloat and out of the other waves that are crashing into its bottom side. I flip on the bilge pumps and water pours out of the boat. We plow forward with water still in the back half of the boat.

I yell over to Tyler, “You alright!?”

“Yeah man, that was ridiculous! Ya lose anything?”

“Looks like the windshield smashed, besides that I think everything is still here, which is amazing.” I pause for a second still in a state of shock with thoughts flying through my mind. I begin to question what I put myself through just to catch a little green fish, it’s ridiculous.

Tyler looks out at the river, “Dude, it’s gonna take forever to get to our spot.”

A pause, “I can’t believe the boat didn’t sink…”

Heavy breathing, “mother nature’s a bitch man!”

“We’ve gotta go, if it takes an hour to get there, it takes us an hour. We’ve gotta be mentally tough, pick yourself up, we have a tournament to win.”


Since I don't explain it in my essay, me and Tyler ended up in 5th place. Our fish either moved or were not interested in what we were throwing on day two - it still eats me up inside and I still have yet to figure out exactly why they were not there on day two. With the bad wind it also forced us to stay up in Spadra when we wanted to run to the strip pits, this was very frustrating. The main river was so nasty that they had to bring my truck 30 minutes up river to pick us up and trailer us back to the weigh-in. Talk about going from the best fishing day ever to the worst.

Stay tuned to the blog as I will be writing an entry about the National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship very soon. I leave for Texas on Sunday May 23rd and will be down on Lake Lewisville for the week. This will be my fourth and final time there so we are hoping for the best. Until next time, keep those lines tight.

Arkansas Tech Invitational - Lake Dardanelle, AR

After our first few very cold stops at Lake of the Ozarks and Table Rock Lake I was more than ready to get to Lake Dardanelle for the Arkansas Tech Invitational. This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest regional collegiate events in the nation right now. We took 38th last year out of a field of around 60 boats. As I said before, we learned a lot last year and we were hoping for a much better finish this time around.

After last years tournament, we decided that this year we were not going to run around the lake like mad men in practice. We were going to put ourselves in high percentage areas that have been known to produce year after year. On the first practice day we started in the lower end of the lake. We tried the Illinois Bayou area as well as in the strip pits. The strip pits are very unique in the fact that they have deep and extremely clear water in them, much different from anything else you typically find on Dardanelle. Basically it is and old mining pit that is now connected to the lake. We were satisfied with out first practice day after catching plenty of fish and enough keepers to have a limit.

On the second practice day we trailered the boat way up lake to an area called Spadra. This is the area that we concentrated on last year, however, last year we were actually up spadra creek. This year we went past the creek and fished in and around the islands up by spadra creek. If you ever watched the Elite Series event from last year on Dardanelle, this is where a lot of the top finishers were fishing. We had some luck in the spadra area around dead pad stems and left the area soon after catching a few keepers to make sure we didn't burn up the spot. After that we ran upriver a little further to the same exact area that Mark Menendez won the Elite event last year. We were able to float across the road that he went under last year; the water was up a few feet higher this spring. We caught a few keepers in that area and then left it alone.

On day three of practice we concentrated in the midsection of the lake. This day was cold, windy and rainy; much different conditions from the previous two days. Once again, we caught our limit in practice that day and I also landed my personal best largemouth of 7lbs 1oz on a rapala DT3 Flat crankbait, it was ridiculous! Unfortunately the only picture we have of it is on a cell phone right now. If I ever get the photo from Tyler's phone, I'll be sure to post it. After we had enough of drifting around in the wind and rain we called it a day and went back to prepare for the first day of the tournament.

After analyzing our practice our game plan was to run up to the spadra area first thing in the morning to see if we couldn't get into some fish on spinnerbaits in the dead pad stems. It was a perfect morning besides some thick fog on the way up to spadra. The wind was nonexistent which made for a smooth ride. We got to our area with only one other boat up there already, however, they were a little farther back in the cut than we were fishing. After a few casts in we had our first keeper of the day in the same area we got bit in practice. We cut through to another spot between some islands and I landed our second keeper of the day on a spinnerbait again, a solid 3lb+ fish. We continued to mosey our way in and around the islands slinging spinnerbaits at every clump of pad stems available. As we made our way out of the cut into a deeper ditch we hit the mother lode. I caught our third fish on the spinnerbait, another solid 3+. I then retied, grabbed a sandwhich for something to eat, held in in my mouth and made another cast. Instantly another good fish nailed my spinnerbait. I fought it to the boat, sandwhich in mouth. One more and we would have a limit. We turned the corner around another clump of pad stems and I hooked up again with a solid 2.5lb fish on the spinnerbait, that was our limit and we were pumped. Not 10 minutes later further down the bank that was lined with a deeper ditch another good fish smoked my spinnerbait. Right as it hit I knew it was a good fish. After a short battle we landed one of our biggest of the day, a 6lb plus fish!

After deciding that we had done enough damage in that area we decided to make a 40 minute run back down river to the strip pits to finish out our day. We got into the area and it was full of other tournament boats, but most of them were up close to the bank fishing in shallower water. We backed off the bank some and as we were working our way out of one of the strips another 6lb plus fish ate my All Terrain Finesse jig. That was an awesome cull and would put us right in the thick of things going into day two. We fished one more small stretch on bank in the strip pits and made another good cull catching a 3lb plus fish using the finesse jig.

This day was becoming unreal and we couldn't seem to do any wrong. Its pretty cool when a plan comes together, but rarely does it happen like it did that day. With about 15 minutes left we made our way back to the launch site to weigh our fish. When our fish hit the scales it read 20lbs even! We had two fish that weighed over six pounds and we were both ecstatic about our day. After the scales closed, Tyler and I were leading the event out of 70 boats with a 4lb lead going into day two. You could say I was a little nervous...

Some pictures of our bag from Day One: