Walp it was fun but dem minimums on the TN section of Pickwick area a KILLER (15" for largemouth, 18" for spots). I caught fish each day but had to chunkem all back, had a couple keepers on but they chunked my Rattle Trap. :banghead Was tough. 218 anglers, 100+ didn't weigh in a fish each day.
NATURALLY I was 101 of 109 boats the first day. :soap box With the field broken into 3 flights it was about 30 minutes before I could even blast-off. By then the lake was ROUUUUUUGH and I only had about 5 miles to run to our first spot. (NO ONE passed us and we torched several ahead I'll say that much.)
The next day they flipped the field so instead of 101 I was now number 8 leaving out. :twisted evil Stupid FLW rules, gotta idle SINGLE FILE about 50 yards seperating each boat by the Tourney Director who was floatin in an anchored pontoon. Then continue to idle another 50 yards before you had the go ahead to plane off and leave out. LOL when I went by the pontoon the TD announced over the PA system too the boats ahead of me to "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, THAT ALLISON WILL RUN RIGHT OVER YALL!!!" I didn't have a race tho, everyone one else took off down the lake but I instead ran straight across the dam to try to nab a quick limit of spots before anyone else could get there.
Each day I ran over 30 miles one way down the lake, plus the idling, plus the in and out of creeks yet at days end I could refill with only 8-9 gallons. The last hour of the last day we were again fishing the dam when I cranked to move and the trim was dead! COMPLETELY DEAD from the bow, the console, even the motor. A reckon a trim selinoid took a crap under the cowl. It clicks but doesn't do anything. It was at 4.3 on the Smartcraft gage, I told my partner I didn't know if it would plane being raised that high. Thing took off like an 02, UUUUUUUUP and over and gone in a flash. Who says the big boats wont wheelie?
DID "kinda sorta" get in a race... well he THOUGHT it was a race for maybe 1/4 mile. 2nd day we were runnin down the lake, cruisin at 60ish when up ahead a Triton jumps out in front of us, planes off and then proceeds to move into my line. I was like, "That ahole, mile wide lake and he wants ME to move over so he can have this line?" I bumped the plate up, trimmed the motor and matted the gas. The look on the guys face when he saw what was passing him at a good 10+mph advantage was priceless. My partner just laughed. A minute or so later and I could barely see the Triton behind me.
SUCH IS LIFE, anyway had a good time, stayed at the same hotel we rallied at in Savannah and luckily nothing major hurt on the motor!
RA
