Well, I’m heading into Day three at the Legends tournament, which is a Six hole format. It will be really different to have to move from hole to hole on a short time clock, but I’m really excited about the next two (hopefully) days of the Legends tournament.
Click on the audio button below to listen to my thoughts going into Day Three.
Pretty darn happy with my weigh-in on Day Two as you can see here:
Here is a good picture of the launch area for the Legends tournament, with the power plant cooling tower in the background:
I’m feeling pretty good right now. Just finished the final round of the Empire Chase on Lake Erie, and I wound up in sixth place. I’m happy with another top 12 finish. I started the day in tenth place, got a bag of just over 20 pounds and wound up sixth.
Edwin Evers won. Nobody could catch him. I thought there might be some luck involved in this one, because most of us were generally fishing the same way. But Edwin led every day, and that does not sound much like luck.
Lake Erie is a fantastic place to fish, one of the great smallmouth fisheries in the country. Lots of two- to four-pound fish. Really, there’s probably not another place in the country like it for those kind of fish.
On Sunday, just like the first two days, I caught my fish in about 25 feet of water. Same strategy. And they just kept coming.
Now it’s on to Syracuse and Lake Oneida for a major tournament. If you looked at this blog, you heard me whining about being sick last week. Well, I feel better, but now I’m just plain tired. I’m doing this blog while driving from Buffalo to Syracuse, where it will be up again early Monday morning to start getting ready for another tournament.
It’s a good thing, but I am tired.
Here is are some photos from the tournament:
The 12 Elite Anglers heading out of Buffalo on Sunday
Talking to a reporter before the Sunday launch (above) and signing autographs (below)
Well, this wasn’t what I hoped for, but I feel the same way I did yesterday.
I gave it my best shot, and I knew when the wind picked up I was going to have get a few breaks. I didn’t get the breaks and I didn’t make anything happen myself, so I’m out of this one.
Oh well, there’s another tournament coming up in a few weeks… Clarks Hill.
It’s Sunday morning and I’m just sitting around planning the rest of the day, trying to figure out whether I’m going to be able to fly out of here today. Instead of fishing, I’m spending this morning returning the phone calls that piled up on me during the week.
It’s difficult to run a business and compete on the Elite Series tour. I hope to get to the point where the tour is my full-time business. That way I could take about three or four weeks and go to Lake Amistad or out here to California and learn how to fish with these swimbaits.
But I’ll tell you this. It was a great tournament. And what a lake. I’m looking forward to coming back.
Well, I thought it was going to be a real good day. And I guess it would have been a good day if I’d been fishing on any other lake in any other tournament.
I caught a little over 17 pounds and that put me at 68-9 for the tournament. That would probably lead any other tournament we have this year. But not this one. I finished at 26th place.
The thing about it is I’m not that disappointed.
The people having success out here are fishing swimbaits. Those are big ole’ giant baits, about 12 inches long - just a big, nasty jumbo bait. They’re designed for fishing lakes out west.
When you reel in the swimbaits they look a dying fish. You can catch some big, big fish on those baits if you know how to use them. But I’ve never had a lot of luck with them. I just haven’t spent enough time on these lakes to figure out whether I’d feel comfortable using them.
It’s really only in the west where these things work. They were good at Amistad and out here in California. You throw those swimbaits back at some of the lakes we fish in the south and the east, it’ll scare the fish to death.
I was talking to Skeet Reece, and he said he threw the swimbaits all day Tuesday and they didn’t bite. But look what he did today. He had more than 35 pounds.
I was hoping we’d have good conditions for sight fishing, which is what I do well. But it didn’t happen. We had great conditions the first two days, and today the wind picked up and made the water choppy and I just couldn’t see as well I needed to. It was weird. It was coming from a different direction, like from the northeast.
I went to one spot where I was pretty sure I could get some big bites, and the wind, like all of a sudden, picked up. So I anchored my boat and just there, waiting for it to die down. But it never did.
To be honestly, I wasn’t unhappy with the way I fished. I probably caught 20 fish during the day, but catching a whole bunch of 3-pounders just won’t get it in this tournament.
Rayj0101 at Yardbarker said, “Only in a sport such as fishing could a Boyd Duckett win anything, and indeed he did.” Well, I’m not sure whether he’s referring to my name or my upbringing, but as a good southern gentleman, I’m going to go to assume that’s his way of paying a compliment. So, thank you… I appreciate the support!
It’s Sunday morning and I’m just sitting around planning the rest of the day, trying to figure out whether I’m going to be able to fly out of here today. Instead of fishing, I’m spending this morning returning the phone calls that piled up on me during the week.