In the Boat With...
Tournament: MLF BFL
April 18th, 2021
Table Rock Lake
Angler: Frank Leone (co-angler division) - 44th place - 6 pounds, 14 ounces - $75.00
Practice: No practice for this one. I woke up on Thursday morning after a night of electrofishing and was surfing MLFs website and seen that they were having a double derby this weekend on Table Rock. Since my new Phoenix is not in yet, I got a wild hair and decided to enter Sunday's tournament as a co-angler. I found out at 8:00 PM Saturday evening that I was in. I hightailed it up to Harrison and got the last room at the Super 8... Lucky me! Anyway I talked to my boater Zach and he said he was around fish... I was pumped.
Tournament: I met Zach at the Rabid Roberts... Or maybe it was Rapid Roberts in Kimberling City. We loaded up my gear in his truck and headed to his boat slip. When I got there I was not surprised to see he had a Triton. 3rd Derby this year and 3rd ride in a Triton, LOL. Anyway, when our number was called, Zach shot his rig to his starting location. It didn't take long for me to figure out that I was going to be out of my comfort zone for this one. Zach's fish were deep and seemed to require a "finesse" approach. I knew the "egg beater" was going to get some work today. My day started out pretty decent, as I was able to boat a decent Largemouth early on a neko-rig. Not long after that, I added a good Smallmouth. It was early and I was cooking with gas.... Well, for no reason in particular I hit a long dry spell. During my dry spell, Zach was schooling me on deep finesse tactics and he had himself a solid bag of Smallmouth and Spots. Finally, late in the day, I was able to get the trifecta with a solid spotted dog on the neko. After seeing the results from Saturday, I knew I'd be close to a check....
Keeper count:
4" Big Bite Baits Cane Stick (neko- rigged): 3 keepers - Denali Attax 7' M Spinning Rod; 15
pound SX1 Braid with 7 pound Sniper FC Leader
Final Thoughts: A beautiful day in the Ozarks. Had a blast fishing with Zach, learned some Table Rock finesse tricks, and cashed a small check to boot!
See ya' on the flip side... side....
Frank