Vacation Highlites

Had the week off work to get a few things in order. Upgraded my boat to an 18 foot Crestliner Canadian with a 50hp Honda 4-stroke on it. Boat is really nice and is very fishable. After spending a morning getting the titles and registration in order, the next decision had to be where to go and what to fish for?

Wednesday nights, at Portage Lakes, a local bass club puts on an open tournament. Well, I know you've all seen pictures of my son Nick, and heard how much he loves to fish. This past Wednesday, I entered us in the tournament, our first bass fishing event. He was very excited. He spent all day Tuesday checking his gear, going through tackle bag after tackle bag, changing set ups, trying to figure out where to start. I have never fished a bass tournament either, so it was new ground for the both of us. There were a couple friends of ours in the event who we met through OGF (www.ohiogamefishing.com) that we've fished with before. And, we've bass fished Portage Lakes a good number of times, so we thought we'd catch something... We sure did, and it was a better showing than I thought we'd make.


Now, this is no small affair. The entry fee is $20 per man, two person teams, with a $10 one time initiation to enter, so I dropped $60 on the tournament. It was less about winning the money back, and had everything to do with getting on the water with my son.

There were 30 or so teams in the field, and some really good, experienced tournament fishers. It was pretty intimidating, being he's 9 years old, and I'm , well, me. LOL! But, what the heck. We started out fishing crankbaits in 8 to 10 feet of water along some weed edges. Within 20 minutes, we had boated 3 fish. They weren't big enough to keep, but at least we caught something. What happened next was very scary. The skies grew dark and the rain began to fall. It was a very intense thunderstorm, with some brutal lightning. Playing it safe, I beached the boat and we got out, opting to wait out the storm, rather than fish through it out on the lake, in a boat, holding graphite fishing rods. Well, as late afternoon summer storms do, it moved out quickly, and in no time, we were back on the water. The crankbait pattern went away, so we moved to a big weedy flat and started throwing Texas rigged worms. Within 3 casts, Nick caught a NICE keeper, around two pounds. Then, it was on. We ended up catching 15 fish, and brought our 5 fish limit to the scales. We weren't even close to the 15 pounds it took to win the tournament, our 7 pounds and 9 ounces set us squarely in the middle of the field. But for me, it was one of those life-moments, one I'll remember forever.

Out on the water, Nick asked me if he could run the boat's trolling motor. He'd never run a foot controlled motor before, so I showed him the ropes, and he was off. I just sat back and watched him work the motor, cast, reel, set the hook on fish after fish. It was great. He's a real good fisherman, and I was proud to share the boat with him. I couldn't be more proud. And, our buddies from OGF, TxTransplant and johnboy, they weighed in 7 pounds 9 ounces, same as us. Thanks for suggesting the tournament guys. We both had a ball out there, rain and thunder too! We'll definitely get 'em next time!

If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or just want to talk fishing, send me an email. I'm at cbachtel@wkyc.com and you can also find me on www.ohiogamefishing.com, where I'm known as "Big Daddy".

Until next time, I'll see you out on the water. Thanks for stopping by. TAKE A KID FISHING!

Carl "Big Daddy" Bachtel