May 19, 2022 at 12:26 p.m.
Fish Like a GIRL
We fish to make memories
Fish Like a GIRL
I did not fish the first event, and Chet fished it with a good friend of ours from Merrill. I like to be on shore for the first event to help get everything set up and running properly.
That said, I feel like I did not miss much in the way of fish catching. We had 27 teams that fished the event and only 56 fish were brought to the scales. Eight teams were unable to bring any fish to the scales. Only five five-fish limits were brought in. To say it was a tough day on the water would be an understatement. I suppose the one good thing that came out of it was that no one ran into anything, no one broke their boat, and everyone made it back safe and sound - even if a bit deflated.
The reports I was hearing from practice made me feel the results would resemble this, but you never know. You especially never know in the spring on the river. Conditions can change quickly. Unfortunately, it did not seem like they changed enough to benefit most of the anglers. That said, one team was able to bring in almost 15 pounds of smallmouth. The members of that team, Matt and Dan Hirman, are brothers that live in Stevens Point. Not only do they have a great knowledge of the Point Flowage, but they are always hard to beat on any body of water. "Hammers," as we call them. You can almost always find them in the top five everywhere we go.
Three of the top five teams were some of the most local teams with the most knowledge of the fishery, which was not surprising. But, honestly, the fact that so many people struggled was a bit of a surprise. We have some great sticks who fish our trail, but many of them simply could not make the adjustments they needed.
One member of the team that took second place is from the Northwoods. Kevin Brandt of St. Germain, and his partner Kevin Rapp of Oak Creek, took second place with a very respectable 12.92 pounds. They even had big smallmouth of the tournament with a 4.18 pound bronzeback. That is a great fish anywhere in Wisconsin.
To show how difficult things were, Chet and his partner, who has fished the Point Flowage quite a bit, although not in the last few years, took 11th place with only two fish. They were one of 10 teams who brought in two fish or fewer. Then, of course, the last eight teams had no fish.
One interesting thing was how few largemouth were brought in. Big largemouth of the tournament was still 3.77 pounds, so it was still a decent fish, but only six largemouth in total were brought in. From reports I heard, it was difficult to get largemouth to commit to a bait. I heard from several teams that they lost largemouth on the way back to the boat. It was like they were not taking the bait to eat it, but just to move it, as they would move a bait off of a nest during the spawn. But, with water temperatures only just reaching into the low 50s by the end of the day, there was likely some other reason they were as finicky as they were.
One of the comments that will stick with me from this tournament came from the seven-year-old grandson of a good friend who came to help run the tournament. We have two large dry erase boards where we write down all the team names and, during weigh in, we write down the weights, the number of fish, and the weight of a big bass for each team that weighs one. I was writing the names on the board when this young man came up to find his dad's name. He pointed to his dad's name when he found it, then stepped back and looked at the board intently.
"Why are there so many teams with the same name?" he asked. Indeed, there were many teams with both members having the same last name. In all, we have 11 teams who fish with family members - 12 when Chet and I fish together. We have one other couple besides us who fish together. We have grandparents who fish with grandkids. We have siblings who fish together. We have cousins who fish together. We have parents and kids who fish together. Our youngest competitor is, I think, about 7 years old. He fished our series with his dad. Last year his older brother fished our series with their dad, and that brother is now fishing another series with their dad.
The boy's comment caused me to reflect on why we fish these tournaments, and why Chet and I run these tournaments. Sure, we love the competition. We love competing against each other and competing against the fish. But is that the real reason we fish?
I think we fish to make memories. I usually come back from a tournament like the one on Point Flowage with 600-700 photos to sort through as well as video from several different cameras. I do that so everyone can grab their own photos from our Facebook page and preserve those memories. I do it because all I have of the fishing tournaments and other excursions I participated in with my late husband are those photos.
We fish tournaments to make memories. And that is why there are so many teams with the same last name, young man. I thanked him and his grandpa for reminding me why we do this. Looking out at the field sitting and reliving the day over a couple cold beverages after weigh-in was over, I was even more certain it was true.
Beckie Gaskill may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
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