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| Moments before the starting horn. Downtown Fredericton in background |
In last year's tournament I mostly used spinning gear until we caught our limit. I had fun, and I managed to catch my first bass on the fly late into the day.
Fast forward 13 months: a lot has changed since that first smallie on the fly, with the one of the biggest changes being smallmouth usurping trout as my favourite local fly rod species.
I had been pretty excited about the tournament for the past few months. But it had nothing to do with money, nor did I expect to win it; if anything, I just wanted to prove an angler could compete in a tournament using fly gear (without embarrassing himself, of course).
The event was being held by the Fredericton Anglers Club, a local group that holds five for-fun tournaments per year. 'For-fun' means exactly that: it costs $10 per person for an annual membership, and $10 per boat for each of the tournament.
The lead-up to tournament day wasn't without hiccups, however: my truck had fallen ill and was unable to tow my boat to get a spring tune-up. And my partner Pat had his boat trailer's axle snap while towing the boat a few days prior to the tournament.
Then there was the weather. A cold front was scheduled to move through, with wind gusts shooting up to 45km/h throughout the day. Not necessarily the best conditions to be flinging a fly line back & forth.
But Pat's trailer axle was fixed in time, and I rigged up a spinning rod as a worse-case solution to deal with high wind speeds. We were good to go.
The morning of, I woke up a few minutes before the alarm on my phone went off. It's funny how anticipation causes that to happen as often as it does. After getting the dog fed & out for a quick stroll, I grabbed my pre-rigged rods and backpack and was off.
When I pulled into Carleton Park, I was a little surprised at the number of boats, either in the water already or lined up for the launch.
The boats (and sometimes, matching trucks) always amaze me, especially when you compare them to the love-hate relationship I have with the Magnificent Basstard. I have less than $5000 tied up in the aluminum bastard, including purchase price, registration, accessories and boater safety course. Some of these guys have 8-10 times that amount tied up into their boats & gear...that blows my mind!
Looking around the parking lot and boat launch, I started to hope I could meet the goal of not embarrassing myself. It's about setting the bar high, folks...
Pat & I decided to have a more relaxed start to our competition: we weren't even in the water for the starting horn. We could barely hear ourselves think with the roar of some of the boats taking off; some guys were not letting the price of gas get in the way of a quick launch.
Meanwhile, back on terra firma, coffee was sipped while we loaded our gear on his boat. Ten minutes after the starting horn howled, we shoved off at a leisurely pace, bound for fishing fun & glory.
It was a good day.
And at no point did I feel embarrassed. By any stretch of the word.
I look forward to the next tournament.
- Winners' total length: 90.5"
- Winning lunker: 19"
- Total prize: $170
- Our boat total: 67"
- Biggest of the boat: 16.5" (shown at left)
Flies:
- Top fly: #4 Clouser, all-white (3 bass, including one 15" scrapper)
- Lunker fly: Barr's Meat Whistle (16.5" bass)
- Redington Predator 7'10", 6wt, with Redington Rise 5/6 reel & Rio Smallmouth line.
- Cabela's CGR 7'6", 7/8wt, with Hardy Ultralite 7000DD reel & Sage Performance Bluegill line
1 comment:
Sounds like fun, Mat. I've never fished a tourney, but can see how it would be a good time with a fly rod.
Well done!
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