Life On Tour
Friday, La Crosse, Wisconsin
Dan writes:
Yesterday’s performance not only made the Top 30 cut for me, but actually vaulted me to the top of the leader board and made me “hero for a day.” That’s all it is though, since we all start out at zero again this morning, and I had some work to do today. My plan was to go for broke. I estimated that I needed twelve pounds to make the Top 10 cut for tomorrow, and I knew of no other way to do that but by doing exactly what had worked for me for the last two days. There was no thought of going down to crank for smallmouth – I was going back to my sweet-spot in Lake Onalaska.
At 6:30am, and for the third day in a row now, I found myself sitting on top my honey-hole making cast after cast into the grass line and hoping to feel that wonderful tap which signals that a big bass has inhaled my tube. Try as hard as I might all day though I couldn’t coax even one more off of my little spot. I think that over the last two days my partners and I have just beaten them up too bad (having taken nine fish weighing almost twenty-five pounds off of it) and now they’re either all gone, or they’re just plain tired of seeing me around. Whatever the reason, they just didn’t bite today and I ended up weighing just two small keepers at the end of the day, and finished in twenty-second place.
Being the leader after Day Two though was a great experience for me, as in fact was this entire week. It didn’t work out for me out on the water today, but I have learned valuable lessons, and finding myself in first place after yesterday gave me an opportunity to do press interviews, to gain some good exposure, and to experience the pressures, the stresses, and the demands put on you by the expectations both of others and of myself.
I can’t say I’m not disappointed about not making the cut to the final day, but I know that I did my best here, and also that my best was good enough to produce my strongest tournament performance in a long time, and to draw my fourth check out of the last five tournaments I’ve fished. Good things are beginning to happen, finally, and I’m just proud to have taken it as far as I did this week.
Annie writes:
Last night we decided I would not go with Dan this morning, I will pack up the motorhome and meet him at the launch ramp for the weigh in. This way if he does not happen to make the cut, we can get on the road immediately following the weigh in.
I was a basket of nerves all morning, throughout the day my enthusiasm increased. I was not nervous for today’s outcome, it was more of the excitement of Dan being in the lead after yesterday. Dan was in first place, the number one spot, the most weight of the tournament, that is rare for us and it felt so good. He got to do interviews, was mentioned everywhere, the recognition and confidence it gives you is like nothing else. We have received over 20 emails from fans following us, wishing us luck, the phone was ringing off the hook, and it felt very good.
This afternoon I packed up and moved to the launch ramp. At 1:00 my phone rang and it was Dan, he informed me, we are not fishing tomorrow. My feelings on this………… it’s OK. I am extremely proud of him and his performance here. He was in tenth place after the first day and first place after the second. He did a great job, and we got another check. That now makes it four out of the last five. Now it’s on to Detroit for the FLW at Lake St. Clair!