Outsmarted the tailgator

[cassidyta]

Here is the situation. IN my last two tournaments I was prefishing the same day as another guy in the club. While we seldom in the same spots he always beat me to my spots on tournament day.
Well last week we once again ran into each other prefishing. The only thing was that I noticed the large binoculars on his seat. Throughout the day I would catch a glance of him scoping out my location. I was going to confront him, but decided to try a different approach.

I went to a spot that I figured would be bad. 10 foot of water. No structure, no slope nor vegitation. I tied on a 10" worm with a 1.5 oz flipping weight and proceeded to sit on this spot for two solid hours. Every now and then I would swing for the fences on a phantom hookset. ( I used my light rod to exagerate the rod bend).

Well yesterday he shot straight for that spot and tossed a large bait like crazy. I moved around the structure and picked up a couple of quality fish. I don't think he ever left that spot.

I ended up with a 3rd place finish. My stalker blanked. It was great to see the confused look on his face at the weigh in.
I might tell him eventually, but not just yet.

[MississippiBoy]

Man, that's awesome. It's amazing to me what some people will do to win. I'd never even think about spying on somebody to find a good location. That's not competing, it's borderline cheating. Good for you.

[bcklash]

That's the Va. redneck coming out of ya Cass. I'm proud of ya. I bet the look on his face was something like this . BBWWWAAAAAA

[bassinbob]

That is great. Hope he gets the message. He's just to dam@ lazy to work for his own fish.

[nofearengineer]

I can't really say what he was doing was "cheating", but yeah, it sure feels wrong. In the big time tournaments, the playing field is pretty level. Nobody's going to get beat to their spot by a guy with a faster boat (though I guess it might happen occasionally). This is the one thing that really concerns me about trying a small tournament or two; that there are always a couple guys with ripping boats who can get where they want before anyone else can. Then it becomes a boat race, rather than a test of fishing ability (or even dumb luck ).

[thekevster]

Great story lol and great thinking in the future he better think twice about relying on you for fishing spots or he may find himself disappointed once again at the weigh in.

[cassidyta]

Originally Posted by bcklash

That's the Va. redneck coming out of ya Cass. I'm proud of ya. I bet the look on his face was something like this . BBWWWAAAAAA

If it was the VA redneck in me, I would have left a mine on the spot.

I agree with NoFear that it isn't cheating. I get beat to spots rather often. But three times by the same guy in a row was getting frustrating.

[bassthumb32]

i do that too its pretty amazing what people will do to win my cousin caught a team of guys cheating too. pretty shady where i fish i guess.

[bamabassman]

ya did the RIGHT thang cass. fool the ol b-----d! start lookng fer him EVERY tourny, if he keeps on following ya around.......do it agin! take a few extra rods and leave em on yer boat deck rigged with something oyu wouldn't even THINK aobut using. after a couple of trips, he'll learn he has been caught and stop.

[MIbasser]

That guy was using the "bent pole GPS" method....

As for getting beat to a spot, that happend to me in our last tournment. A guy in a faster boat beat us to the "wall" that we both were fishing (we were only running about 63ish MPH). It's about 30' long and holds some fish. Out of the all the miles of shoreline we were trying to fish the same little area. Go figure.

[XIntel007]

Are you sure you were never a CI Marine?

I guy I fish with often fishes a Christian based national tournament trail (use your imagination). He and two other guys split a hotel room one trip. All of them were married. One of the guys had the nerve to bring a woman back to the room so my fishing buddy and his back seater went out to the third guys rig and spooled out about 10 feet of line from all of his bait casters, cut the line and reeled it back in. Apparently he left the tournament early that day and never returned. Not the nicest thing to do I know but given the circumstances it was funny.

[TN_Bassin]

Man. That's an all too familiar story with tourney's these days. Even on practice days it gets annoying especially somewhere like KY lake. Last time I was up there practicing I left a bouy marker at a spot i had gps'd just so I could get the boat back in position easier and when i came back there's a punk sitting right on top of my marker.