Life On Tour
April 24, Practice, Potomac River, Maryland
Dan writes:
By 7 a.m. we were launched and running up the river towards D.C. On the way I pointed out the lighthouse to Annie, where we had caught ’em yesterday. I was trying to drive the boat and cover my eyes at the same time. It’s like this: whenever I find fish on a particular spot, I get real paranoid about seeing other boats anywhere near that spot during the rest of the practice period. Of course, this is a community hole and the locals even fish from the bank right off of that point, but if there is someone else fishing there right now, I don’t even want to know about it. We had to zip by the spot with my hand in front of my face so I could tell myself that no one else had found those fish.
So we went on up the river and stopped on the east side, within sight of the Woodrow Wilson bridge but still south of the city. For two days in a row now we’ve caught fish early in the morning, and then done very little for the rest of the day. For that reason, I wanted to be on what I hoped was a fishy area during prime time. Because of yesterday’s success on a rocky point, near the river channel and with current washing over the area, I chose to start on another point today, at the mouth of a large grassy bay. We started perhaps a quarter mile apart. Craig worked in one direction, I worked the other, towards each other. By the time we met we had both had a few bites on the jig, but nothing we could get the hook into. We were both working the grassline (milfoil) in four to five feet of water, on the edge of the channel drop. Craig continued down the outside of the grass, while I moved in towards the bank and started fishing shallower. This was the key.
In one pass down the next three or four hundred yards I caught three good, solid fish before I stopped jerking on them. I shook off the three or four others, but simply couldn’t take the jig away from a couple more before they stuck themselves. By the time I caught up with Craig again I was excited! I now had two spots within sight of each other where fish, big fish, were tearing up that Terminator jig.
Craig in the meantime had still failed to catch any on his jig, and had switched to a Carolina rig. He was getting bit and catching smaller fish, with an occasional keeper. Annie, in the back of my boat, had not had a bite at all throwing a spinnerbait and a Rattletrap. I decided then and there to put all my other rods away and throw nothing but the jig for the rest of the day.
We continued to move north, passing under the bridge and fishing a number of places up the western (Virginia) side of the river. At the Pentagon we turned around and headed back down the Maryland side. Whether it was the tide, or the time of day, or whatever, for the third day in a row we failed to catch more than a couple of short fish throughout the remainder of the day.
By the time the partner pairings meeting began that evening, I was both nervous and excited. Excited because I had two spots to run to that I knew held quality fish, and nervous because of the draw format of this tournament. If I failed to convince my partner for tomorrow to go to my fish in the morning, that could be disaster. As it turned out, I drew out with a local fellow. Most often this is a good draw if you’re not catching them in practice, a bad draw if you are. This fellow is not only a local, but also a full-time guide in Florida for half of the year. Uh-oh. I’ve really got some selling to do here.
We met and shook hands, and moved outside to discuss our plans. His name was Jim Towns, and as I was afraid, he wanted to fish south – forty miles from my fish. He had not even practiced up north, and had absolutely nothing to go to up that way. To top it off, remember how I said the other day that the fish were on fire down south a couple of weeks ago and a tournament was won with a big bag of fish? Guess who won it: Jim did, with six fish, twenty seven pounds! In what turns out to be perhaps the most significant event of the entire tournament for me, I somehow convinced Jim to ride in my boat and fish my fish tomorrow morning. We had both said our piece, and were standing side-by-side in that uncomfortable silence, when you’re waiting for your partner to either continue the argument, or suggest a coin toss, or (hopefully) give in, when he turned to me and said “I haven’t ever done this before, and it’s against my better judgment, but I will ride in your boat tomorrow and we’ll go fish your fish.”
(Still, a week later now, do not know how this happened. The more I think about it though, the more I realize that Jim’s decision, however arrived at, was absolutely critical to my ultimate success in the following days. Thanks again, Jim.)