Finaly after purchasing a boat a month and half ago Im able to take it out for my first tournament today. Ive bought a few lures off the flea market forum that Im getting excited to use but mostly just being able to fish out of the front of my own boat for a change is going to be nice. After hard efforts wich entails, new trim motor, new starter solenoid, a wiring issue wich i paid the local marina to figure out, new gas lines, installing the trolling motor, installing and building a front flipping deck, putting in new seats, rewiring the trailer lights, its just been a total mess but today its all my hard work (with the help of a couple friends) should pay off. I live in illinois and the temp has been pretty warm and the weather has been pretty stable, therefore im hoping for a little overcast and a slight breeze. I know im asking for a lot but i just want to catch fish. Im taking my dad out for the buddy tournament wich is going to be nice me and him havent fished together since i was young well except ice fishing but thats different. Im going to start off with the black cavitron buzzbait to try to get that topwater bite going early in the morning. Following up with that there is alot of fry and shad stacked up in the coves so im going to move into there with a white spinnerbait and if that doesnt work i have a flippen bitsy bug with a double rattle and super chunk jr waiting to pull the trigger on some fish. always have the lipless xcalibur on the line to cover some deeper water and always a texas rig beaver. Im also going to try a shakey head worm across some flats by the islands hopefully trying to get a big smally but well see hopefully this strategy works wish me luck. jim

Good Luck to you and your Dad!

Good Luck to you and your Dad!

Shakey head??? Where did you come up with that?

i wish you all the best. good luck friend hopefully you finish in the money... what are the buyins and payouts?

well ended up having some boat trouble but figured out the problem and didnt finish in the money but we did catch one nice one that weighed 2.7 wich is a pretty decent fish for our lake. and nil basser i think you know where i got that idea lol (jim crowley) maybe?

Keep plugging away at it. Eventualy you'll be in the money. Took my son and I 4 years to get in the money, and most of that time was learning the body of water we fish and trying different techniques. We are in year 6 of tourney fishing and are ranked 5th out of 50. If you and your pops continue to be partners, first and foremost, keep it fun. When we fun/prefish it's just that. When we tourney fish, the friendly father son competition is over. We are partners. We work as a team, but it's my boat. I don't mean to sound like an a** but I'm the captain. The same goes when I fish with my father in my boat, and when I'm in his boat he's captain. Second, work out a system. The net is always in a mutualy accessible place. I have one livewell in the back of the boat, which he is in charge of. If I bring one in, he nets it and removes the hook asap. I continue to fish, he bumps it and puts it in the well or back in the lake. If he catches one, I net it and he will do the rest. If one of us misses a hookset the other is casting back to the spot. We are always aware of what the other is using and will use different baits until we can develop a pattern. And so on. There are a few guys I fish with that seem to change partners yearly because they don't fish well together.

Good luck and many happt tournaments to you and your dad.