Lucky Enuff's Oswego Pro Am Adventure

[Fishtails]

I teamed up with Clark (aka Waterlogged) and our two friends Smitty and Dave and entered my first Pro Am as team Lucky Enuff. What a blast!! Except for one dumb a$$ mistake on my part (resulting in a Coast Guard tow...details to follow), it was a really awesome time. I'm really glad I decided to enter and we're already planing on two for next year.

We pre-fished 3 days and found the fish to be scattered all over. We caught fish strait out of the harbor, to the west, and to the east. I've never fished Oswego before, I'll be a regular from here on out.

We decided to start the Pro Am by fishing our waypoints to the west of the harbor. We had done decent in pre-fish, but never really slammed them. Mostly just a steady pick. All that changed on day one of the tourn.

No sooner we set up @ the 6am start, rods started firing. I can't speak for Clark, but looking back I don't think I was expecting the fast paced action we encountered right off the bat. It was a little crazy for a group of guys who never really fished together before, and nothing in Pre-fish prepared us for the rods to be popping at the pace they were. It was semi madness fot the first two hours and caused us to make some mental mistakes that in turn caused us to drop a lot of fish. In pre-fish I think we boated all but one fish, going something like 13 for 14.

On Saturday, the first day of the Pro Am we started the first 2 hours or so going 3 for 9 Three of the kings we dropped were on copper. We also lost a steelhead at the back of the boat due to a liittle team indecision as to weather we should boat it or not once we realized it was legal size....the fish decided for us and swam off :shock:

We should have boxed out by 8am, but that's fishing I guess. Instead, we only had three in the box and then the fishing slowed a bit. We were over 250 fow so while in search mode we went to 350 fow and hit a steelhead that we lost at the boat.

No sooner that fish swam off laughing at us the starboard engine we were trolling with shut off without warning :shock: :shock: We all just looked at each other like WTF ???? I've only owned the boat for 3 months so I'm still getting to know it. I've come to learn that all the electronics run off the port side motor's battery. Since we were not running it much, we unknowingly drained the port battery and since the two sides trickle together the electronics started drawing off the starboard battery. We also learned (the hard way) that a slightly loose alt. belt was keeping the battery from charging at slow trolling speeds. The result was 2 dead batteries and two motors that we couldn't start :x We tried to put them together in series but the port battery was totally drained. I had two spares....but they were in my truck :roll: :roll:

Since everyone was busy fishing the tourn, we couldn't get anyone out to give us a jump. We totally understood, and we bobbed along for a couple hours until the Coast Guard finally came out to pull us in ( thanks in large part to my wife ) What a process for a boat that only needed a jump start :roll: It took a couple hours from the time they headed out untill we got back to port, but we made it into port with less than 10 minutes to spare and we got to the wiegh-in station with our 3 fish in time so I guess we really were Lucky Enuff.

It was pretty cool watching the Coast Guard, but it was total overkill and it was obvious we became a training mission. They were a friendly group of guys. I did learn on my inspection that all 9 flares I had aboard expired so I guess I'll be getting a bill for that :x

Two freshly charged batteries (and two spares) and we were back in action for day two. We just couldn't get a program going on day two and ended the day 4 for 6.

We ended up in 18th or 19th out of 29 am teams so for all we endured and the loss of half a fishing day, I guess we did ok. It sure was fun and we are going to enter 2 Pro/Am's next year.

It was nice meeting such a great group of people, including several from this board like Rich D, Nemesis, Mark (Reeljerks), The Yankee Troller team and others. We'll be fishing the Little Salmon River Challenge on the 28th and I hope to meet more of you there.

I'd also like to thank all who take their time to put these events together. What a huge undertaking! Thanks for all the effort!!!!

Rod K,

Team Lucky Enuff

[Rich D]

Rod,

It was a pleasure to meet you and your team, it sure was a sloppy day on Saturday. It was nice to see you made it in before the time, I have to agree about the training exercise for the CG. I will see you in Mexico next weekend, keep up the good work, it will come together.

Rich