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Thanks Bob

I might have found more, but I went home early because I missed Tammy and the five-year-old twins, Hunter and Tanner back home in Oklahoma.

When Classic time came, two practice days were scheduled immediately prior to the competition. Then along came Bob, the hurricane. Bob caused the cancellation of the first scheduled practice day and left the competitors only a single day to sort out fishing options.

I spent the morning of practice working out the wood pattern in a big creek that I felt had the most potential. The tide was already rising when the day began and the resulting catch rate was pretty dismal.

The majority of the day had already escaped too quickly and I found I did not have adequate time to run the 20 minutes to reach the major grass beds in the Susquehanna, so I chose to stop and fish a small grass bed in the Elk River. I had observed this great looking area during my pre-fish period but had no strikes there. It was on my route back to Baltimore, so I stopped to at least check out the potential of A grass bed, not THE grass bed, but at least it was grass. Pretty grass too.

The result was a bass about 3 pounds on my first cast to the grass clumps. I gave a similar spinnerbait to my press partner and he caught a fish that weighed 2-15 on almost his first cast too. I know how much it weighed because in those days the press guys had a big bass competition during the practice day and this bass won the $500 that day. Press anglers fishing during Classic Practice? That’s changed a lot nowadays.

That little stop was the key to my winning the event and I owe it all, well maybe not ALL, to hurricane BOB. I ended up catching virtually all my winning bass from that one little grass bed and the adjacent riprap.

If you take notice of any significant, memorable event in your life, you will undoubtedly have made several decisions that led to the event. Some of these decisions may have been beyond your control, but still they led to the outcome. As I think back to the Baltimore Classic, I am reminded of many decisions that put me in the right place and time to win. I can take credit for making the decisions, but I have to thank BOB for making the right choice more obvious.

So Thanks, BOB!

Since I am headed back to the Chesapeake for the Northern Open next week, I wonder if I can expect another Hurricane. Probably not, I just hope to make a similarly good decision, or several of them.

If anybody has a similarly remarkable chain of events that produced a wonderful outcome, I would like to hear about it.