Tournament Mayhem

[pacmanrocks]

Ok guys I fished my first tourney today for the first time and I'm very disappointed. The first thing that went wrong is the weather. It was cold all day and never let up. The second thing that went wrong is my boater. Since I'm a co-angler I got stuck with a boater who decides he wants to spend 5 hours within a little spot that measures about 100 yards (all day long). I couldn't figure out why he wanted to fish this year when it wasn't even a hot spot on the lake. His only reply is that we wouldn't catch fish anywhere else. I knew there were a lot better spots to be at to catch fish yet he denied the opportunity even when we failed for 6 hours out of the 8 for the tournament. Makes no sense right? Then he decides he wants to take us to his area with huge current and little structure that has never been known to be a bass area on the lake. Finally with an hour left after being skunked he wanted to know if I wanted to fish a certain spot (considering this tourney requires the co-angler a 50-50 time frame to fish his own areas). I didn't even get to fish the front of the boat and this guy tried as hard as he could to make sure that I had no opportunity to catch a fish (he would manuever the boat to where I had no choice but to fish behind the motor where he already fished for about two minutes). The funny thing is that he got skunked and I caught one. Talk about a total letdown. Not only was it a waste of money but it was almost as if this guy deliberately fished this way so that we wouldn't catch nothing while his club buddy was racking up the fish. After one tournament I've already made my conclusion that the only way you are going to be satisfied is if you have your own boat and you fish where you want to fish. This guy also broke one of my pools during the outing so in the end I snubbed him on gas money since we fished 3 little spots in an 8 hour tournament. I'm not satisfied and tempted to even try to do another tourney if this is the kind of boater I'm going to get. I can catch more fish from the shore within one hour than this guy could all day on the boat (and this guy has fished this club for years). While the best guys were fishing the spots where I wanted to fish all day, they can back with fish.