A Little Success

Today was the Trophy at Indian Lake. I struggled to get the bites, only five bites all day, two of which I put in the boat. Fortunately one of those in the boat was 4.82lbs. Total weight was 6.43lbs. The big one was enough for 2nd Big Bass with a nice $264 earning, it came on a Lucky Craft 0.5 crank bait in the lily pads. The winning weight of just over 13lbs, came from a good friend of mine from college. This is two years in a row the the Tenwalde boys, Jeremey & Travis, of Ft Jennings have won this tournament. Congrats guys. Might have to make a trip to Erie this weekend for some Walleye & Crappie, if the weather permits. See ya on the water. 

1st Tournament of the Year

Saturday was the Ice Breaker at Indian Lake. This was a team event, which I opted to fish solo. I was boat #86 of the 128 boat field of anglers. Take of was a little slow, still breaking in the rebuild on the motor. About 8:00 I was fishing my 1st spot, here I was able to put two keepers in the boat within ten minutes. I was ready, the fish were on the same pattern as Friday...WRONG!!!  I did not boat another keeper until 1:30. I did have several short strikes and a short fish during the long gap between fish, like that counts for much. Come weigh-in time my three weighed in at 4.5lbs, far behind the 15.68lbs it took to win. I just looked up the full results list on the Fishers of Men site and I ended up 40th out of 128. Not what I had hoped for, but respectful considering I fished solo. Only one other angler who fished solo finished higher. Now my thoughts are focused on Sunday's tournament, again at Indian. Practice went OK yesterday, a good number of fish but nothing over 2lbs. See what happens, it's still better than going to work.  

Boating Problems

Saturday after working around the house for a while I thought I'd get the boat out for a couple hours chasing crappie on Lake Loramie. I launched and idled out for a few minutes and decided to blow the carbon out of the motor. I knew with the cool water that I needed to let the motor warm up before running hard, so ran at 3500 rpm's for five minutes or so and then I put the hammer down. About 2 minutes later I noticed a slight power loss. I immediately shut it down but that was too late. I heard a clanking noise as I set down and knew I just blew it up. I had the powerhead off that night to see that #2 cylinder pulled a ring and chewed up the piston. So what happened, just as I hit the throttle the thermostat opened and cooled the cylinder with the 40 degree water causing the sleeve to shrink suddenly - My Fault. Fortunately I just happen to have a great marina close by, so I have to give Don at Phlipot's a big thanks, he has me back up and running in just 4 days. Morale of the story...in the spring when you think you you have the motor warmed up wait another 10 minutes. By the way 1st tournament of the year is this weekend, let you know how it goes!