Dan Bass and I were partners for the WON Team tourney at Clear on Saturday. We came in with confidence, especially so since we both had areas of fish last week.

Before we even began we had engine problems (water pump wasn't working) but managed to fix it about 10 minutes before launch. Our number was 15 so we ended up launching in the second flight and had a 3:30 weigh in. Conditions were rough, more so since we were fishing out of a 17 ft rig and our trip to Rodman was a long one. We went in just fine and nobody else had dared even trying to get in past the sandbar. After pounding the area with cranks, spinnerbaits, senko's and whatever else we had tied on we decided to leave after an hour and a half. As we were jamming out we miscalculated were we were supposed to turn and ended up getting stuck in the sandbar. After about 30 min. we were able to lead the boat to a little deeper water to get going again (both of us had to get into the water).

We worked another area (not sure the name), jammed to Nice(nothing again), then Lucerne (a bit more of nothing), then finally ended up in my area, Kono Tayee. Dan ended up sticking a nice 4.35 lber and as he was getting his hooked untangled I stuck one too. Unfortunately, the fish came straight up, looked me in the eye and threw the hook. Damn! Ok, the fish didn't look me in the eye but sounded good, huh?!?

We ended up fishing a couple more areas but did not get touched. When we arrived back for weigh in I was in time to see some of the toads landed, ouch! First place ended up with 27+ lbs and second was 24+. In fact, just to be in the top 10 you had to have 20+ lbs. Ouch, OUCH!

The fishing was tough for a lot of guys but not an excuse for us!

Well, I'm glad to start this team tourney thing, I'm now over my opening jitters, and its time to start doing well! Berryessa (Dec. 1), watch out!

Todd

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