Percy Priest 9-11-10

What a day!  This was the last tournament of the year for the F3 Bass Club. Somehow my clocks got out of sync. I meant to get up at 4:10 am and instead got up and dressed a t 3:10 am. Tough start as Sam and David had a blowout on their trailer on the way to launch. Needed a jack and a wrench. Noah was able to stop and help them. We launched at 6 am. My partner was Steve Becker. We started in Bryant Grove not a long way from the ramp. I caught  a 17. 5 " Smallmouth on a Red Eye Shad fairly quick. We both caught some short fish. After a while we moved to another place, fished a point then moved into Savage Branch. I caught a 13" again on red eye shad. Steve had a 13" and a 15"  as we had moved back into the long cove beside Hobson Pike. His success was on a purple U-Tail worm.

While fishing back there I caught a nice 12-13" crappie. As I was lifting it into the boat, he shook hard and rocketed the red eye shad toward me embedding one of the trebles deep into my left thumb. I knew the technique widely published of taking a string in the bend of the hook, pressing in front of the barb and jerking  the hook out. Steve said I don't believe I can do that. I said I don't believe I can do that either. Steve called his wife who looked up the closest walk-in med center. Found one in La Vergne about 7 miles away. I drove us back to the ramp and Steve drove us to the Med center. The hook was quickly dispatched with the only pain being the Novocain shot to deaden the thumb. Very nice ladies treated me.

We got back to the ramp at 12:30. Weigh in time was 1 pm but pulling out was Rob. Now Rob is usually fishing to the last 30 seconds of time. As he was being pulled out he held up his hand and pointed to it. We thought he was pointing at his watch but it was a Bandit lure embedded in HIS hand. Fortunately, he pushed the barb through and Noah, again to the rescue, clipped the barb and removed the hook.

What a day! The tournament was won by Sam, with Noah second and me third. Sam had a 4 lb lm, Noah had an 18.5 smallmouth and I had a 17.5 smallmouth. It turned out to be a nice day on the water but the bizarre happenings made it most unusual.