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Harsh lessons and why I love tournament fishing.  Jon Jackson and I fished the FAN LBJ tournament on Saturday.  I was up at 3:30,  coffee was made,  boat was sparkling,  game plan in place,  and rods ready.  Drove to Burnet County park,  put the plug in,  went to test the lights –  no bow light.  Checking the dash all of the switches were dead.  Not a fuse or anything simple,  the dash is failing.  The stern light is on all the time  so I had this.   I got my big Maglight and tie wrapped an Academy towel over the lens with the red and green in the beam, then tie wrapped it to the trolling motor.  Drove across to McNair Park and checked in.  We went to the back of the pack and cut off the Redneck bow light,  number 49 to take off.  

We went to our starting water and immediately started catching 13" fish.  After working it hard with no keepers  we went to our second stop with similar results.  It was 11:00 and we had no keepers,  time to regroup.  My very supportive wife made us some incredible brisket and grilled onion sandwiches so we ate, had some gatorade and figured a new game plan.  We went to a completely different part of the lake and  put our heads down and fished.  Jon caught the first keeper off of a dock.  The next dock over I caught a 3 pounder; how fast things change!  From there we went back to our starting water.  The skies parted and the sun came out; and on the first cast I set the hook on a fish with shoulders…6.74 lbs, game on!  The excitement was on too and I was thinking we can do this!  

I picked up the same rod and cast 20' over,  reeled up the slack,  felt some weight and set the hook.  I felt no movement followed by a head shake.  I started reeling and as fast as it felt great it went the other direction when the line broke…rookie mistake!  I did'nt re-tie.  We ended up 3 places out of the money by less than half of a pound.  Had fourth big bass and 11.20 lbs with 3 fish.  Lesson: stay frosty.  Worked on the boat this morning and we have lights for this weekend.  Congratulations to the teams in and out of the money.  DG