The Quest for the Cup

[pooch]

The Quest for the Cup - Blog Entry Oct 3, 2010

 

This past weekend, I competed in the 4th annual Canadian Bass Anglers Federation (CBAF) Fed Cup. The Fed Cup is much different than most tournaments, as it is team based, with the Trophy going to the club with the highest combined two-day weigh from their top six boats. Our club may be small in numbers but we planned on taking home the cup this year.

 

The federation clubs range from Ottawa all the way to Waterloo and this year seven teams qualified and 150 anglers descended upon the town of Belleville and the Bay of Quinte for this annual tradition.

 

Day one of this two day event went exactly according to plan, a new occurrence for me this year. I was paired up with our club president Chris Water for the day, and we had a fantastic outing catching 19.74 pounds of smallmouth bass. We placed third after day one only half a pound off the day one leader JP DeRose. More importantly our team was in second place, just six pounds behind the Simcoe Bass Anglers.

 

Day One Smallies (H. Chow)

 

 

On day two nothing went according to plan for me and Jay Bendall (my partner for day two). Due to small craft wind warnings much of “the Lake” (Lake Ontario) was deemed off limits and only the north shore including Amherst Island and 5 miles off it was in play. This tough call was made by tournament director JP DeRose and I’m sure it saved a few of us anglers from putting ourselves in harms way. After an hour boat ride Jay and I got to our first spot on the downwind side of Amherst Island and quickly netted a small keeper on my first drop of the day. Knowing that a five fish limit of small bass would not help us, I decided we had to make the painful three mile journey to a spot on the upwind side of the island which would be a very challenging and rough location to fish. In prefish we got a couple of really good smallies off this second spot, so I had lots of confidence we could net a big bag there. About ten minutes into our first drift and my partner was beginning to show signs of succumbing to motion sickness. I have seen this scenario play out before and I knew Jay was in for a tough battle. He managed to hold on for an excruciating 30 more minutes before giving me the “I can’t take it anymore” sign; a decision I do not blame on him as I think his eyes were going to pop out of his head he was so sick. An hour into the boat ride back to Belleville, Jay decides he’s feeling well enough that we can try to continue fishing and we attempt to squeak out a winning bag on “the Bay” with the remaining few hours left. Finally after fishing for a couple hours with nothing to show for our efforts, we start to figure out a pattern as Jay lands two nice largemouth bass within five minutes of each other off a shallow rock/weed shoreline. As he puts the second largie into the live well I ask him what time it is and he says 2:44. That gave us only fifteen minutes to get back to check-in. I fire up the main motor and race back to check-in at 70+ mph. We get to check-in with only a minute to spare and thus ended our day with a disappointing 6.44 pound day two limit for a combined two day total of 26.2 pounds and 35th place overall.

 

At the weigh-in I learn that the rest of the Kawartha Lakes team has had another good day on the bay and that our team might have a chance at the Fed Cup this year. As the individual awards are handed out, Kawartha Lakes Fishing Club hauls in an impressive seven, including first place for Rich “KVD” Jenkins as overall top boater of the weekend. Suspense builds as CBAF President Rick Weatherill reads out the winning team weights. In third place congratulations goes to Golden Horseshoe Bass Anglers with a team weight of 344.8 pounds (applause!). And second place congratulations goes too…

 

…Kawartha Lakes Fishing Club (groan!), with a team weight of 354.7 pounds only twelve pounds behind the Simcoe Bass Anglers who won with an impressive 367.4 pound team weight (applause!).

 

Some quick mental math and I realize that had I weighed in close to my previous day’s weight I would have won the individual award, but more importantly our team would have won the Fed Cup (admittedly a difficult task to accomplish on a wind blown Lake Ontario which impacted all the teams especially Simcoe).

 

Congratulations to the Simcoe Bass Anglers with an impressive showing this year. And congratulations to all the members of the CBAF and especially the Kawartha Lakes Fishing Club for putting in some remarkable individual performances on a body of water as vast and as difficult as the Bay of Quinte.

 

Special thanks to all the federation members and volunteers for putting in numerous hours of preparation and hard work again this year. I know all the members of the Kawartha Lakes Fishing Club look forward to this event with much anticipation and without all the behind the scenes work, none of it would be possible. Way to go Rick and gang!

 

Tight lines,

Andrew

 

What worked?

Lure – Green/Smoke Strike Zone Slammer

Depths – 35+ feet of rock adjacent to deep water drop offs

Rods – 6’ 10” Shimano Cumulus rod medium-light power, extra fast action

Reels – Shimano Stradic CI4 2500 6.0:1 gear ratio

Line – 20 pound Phantom Red Power Pro braided fishing line

 

Weather Conditions:

Cloudy with sunny periods Saturday, Mostly overcast Sunday

Winds – northeast 10-15 km/h Saturday, northeast 20 km/h gusting to 40 km/h Sunday

Surface water temperatures – 58 to 61 Fahrenheit

Air temperatures – a high of 14 Celsius Saturday and 12 Celsius Sunday

 

@http://twitter.com/RedsFishin

[Harrison]

Great job bud! Good call on JP's part.

 

I learnt the hard way too, always have gravol on the boat when your the boater on big water.

[pooch]

You are correct Phil, I will not leave shore with out it!

 

I am also going to buy some Dramamine, Sea Bands and some sort of inhaler I heard about.

[charlesn]

I am also going to buy some Dramamine, Sea Bands and some sort of inhaler I heard about.

 

I picked up some liquid that you dab behind the ear. It's supposed to be effective even after the seasickness begins. Dramamine/Gravol is okay at preventing the full-onset - but is pretty useless once the burps have begun. The sea bands and the ginger gravol are useless.

 

I have heard that the behind the counter drug store patches that you put on your neck work the best. They are for 48-72 hours at a time I believe.

 

Charles