I Finally Made It Home!

Thats right and it took a Chevy to get it done! Dont ever mention FORD and/or Diesel to me again. All I can say is GOOD LUCK if you have one! Heres the story and its a long one. Arrived in Thomson GA on Saturday morning after 14-16 hours of driving. It was only 950 miles. By the way, 3 tanks of diesel at 3.40 a gallon and my friends Suburban was doing just as good or better on fuel economy. Practiced began Sun morning and the ramp situation was horrible at Clarks Hill. The first ramp we put in at was in Keg Creek. It was a one laner and there were about 25 boats in line when we arrived. Steep is not the word for this ramp. Swore I would never put in there again. Even if I had to drive to South Carolina to put in. First area I started practice was way up Little River just past the one of the main highways that crossed the lake. Lots a large humps were there. Looked similar to some things that I fish at Toledo Bend. Only difference was these humps had rocks on them, but there was still grass growing out with a edge at 6-7 feet. Fished some of that stuff for a couple hours with nothing. Couldnt figure why other than the fish were either deeper or they were in the back of the creeks. Left there and went another 5 miles to a point where a major creek intersected Little River. Caught one about 3-4 pounds in the first 10 minutes. Ended up catching about 15 fish that day in that area with the best 5 weighing about 10 lbs or so. Next day drove fairly close to a ramp up the river where I had caught fish the day before. Pretty foggy that morning and didnt do much at daylight. However, by the end of the day had caught another 20 fish with the best 5 weighing about 10 lbs again. Im thinking the whole time that Im in trouble. Not catching any quality fish and therefore I keep going to these main lake humps where I think theres a chance to get on something good there. However, nothing and cant even catch numbers there. The last day of practice I decide again to go to this one area to fish and see if I can catch them in a different manner…………rattle traps, cranks, jerk baits, top water. Everything I had been catch were on a wacky worm fished fairly slow around the edge of the grass. Well the Chug Bug was on time. End up catching on about 5 lbs with the best five weighing about 14-15 lbs. Im now thinking that I have something working and have a chance to do something to at least make a check. Anyway, go to registration and find out that the minimum length is 12 inches and not 14. So I think to myself…………this is going to be one of those tournaments that everyone is going to weigh a limit. I still think though that its going to take 12 lbs a day to win and about 10 lbs a day to make a decent check. 1st day of competition – catch a limit in about 2 hours and end up with 10.5 lbs or so. Didnt think much about it until I got to the weigh in and 10-11 lbs was leading. Im also in the last flight and cant believe what is happening. I had caught about 10 keepers and even my amateur had his 3 fish that weighed about 6-7 lbs. Anyway, was in 3rd place after day 1 and then the pressure was on to maintain and improve. 2nd day of competition – cold front comes in at daylight and has about 15 mph WNW winds. Took me 30 minutes to get to where I was fishing. Caught 3 keepers in about 15 minutes and the wind continuously got worse. By the end of the day, the winds were blowing a good 25-30 mph. Casting a small worm was getting next to impossible, but hung in there with it. Ended up catching about 7-8 keepers and only had one about 3 lbs. Knowing how rough my home lakes can get, I decide to give my self about 45 minutes to get to weigh in. Get out in the main lake and theres waves about 4 or so. I look down and have about 15 minutes to get to weigh in and think, Im going with them now. Im fixing to have to make a turn and go against them and I just might be late. So I push it a little harder and end up taking two pretty good waves over the bow. Nothing serious and kept on trucking. I make the turn and I guess this arm is at a little different angle and its not bad at all. End up making it to wiegh in with time to spare. Weighed 7.5 lbs and drop to 6th place. Not as good as I would have liked, but not bad considering the wind and only a couple of pounds off the lead. 3rd day – knew that if I caught a limit I would fish the final day, be guaranteed of a check, and if I caught my usual one decent fish would stay in contention to win the thing. What a struggle. Caught two 12 inchers fairly quick and then didnt catch another until around noon. With 4 fish in the well at 1:00 I needed to do something different. I thought to my self…………………I can catch a 12 incher on the main lake if I fish it right. Sure enough, caught one about 4 lbs at 1:45 PM on the one the spots and manage to eek out another 7.5 lb sack. Drop another spot to 7th place. 4th day – behind by roughly 4-5 lbs I knew it would take a small miracle to win. I decided to lay up and go to the same area where I was catching most of my keepers. After 5-6 days of continuously catching fish from 5-6 points Im hoping that I can get a small limit and go from there. Boy do I struggle. Catch 3 small keepers in 4 hours and I can see myself falling out of the top 10. I decide to go back out to main lake where I had caught the 4 lber on day 3. Pull up to this one grass bed and catch what I thought was 3 fairly good fish in about 15 minutes. Im thinking now that Im back in the top 5 and may push for the lead if some fall on their face. Get to the weigh in and theres some pretty good sacks showing up, but I know at least the leader doesnt have much and a couple of guys who were ahead of me didnt have much. So I think I have a shot at may 2nd or 3rd. Bear in mind that I think I have around 9 lbs in my sack. Weigh in and only have 7.5 lbs again. Manage to take 5th place and win 9K including contingency money. My buddy ends of finishing 10th and therefore the trip is worth it to the both of us. Well this is where the fun really begins. We start home around 7PM Saturday night and we decide to drive until we get sleepy. We cross into Alabama about 10:30 – 11 PM and decide to stop at a Rest Area for a few hours of sleep. I wake up and its 3 AM. So I tell my buddy lets go. He wants to get 30 more minutes of sleep for the final run. Anyway, I crank my Ford diesel to warm the truck up and it sits there and idles pretty rough. It lines out a little after it warms up and I warm the cab of the truck up. I didnt think much about it so I kill it and start reading something and listening to the radio. 30 minutes later when its time to go, I restart the truck and the same thing. Im thinking……………Its OK, it will run fine when it gets warmed up. I put it in gear and it wants to die. Get it cranked again, but it wont stay started and its blowing smoking everywhere. Now I know Im in trouble. Get it on the freeway and it wont do over 50 mph. I think maybe I got some bad diesel. It limps another 5 miles or so and I put about 10 gallons in it and some additive. It starts running better and the “Check Engine” light goes off. Get it on the freeway and it seems that it running better with a little hesitation here and there. Get about 10 miles and it starts doing the same thing except worse. Gets so bad that I cant keep it started and it wont run over 20 mph. I stop in a town called Oxford Alabama and pull into a parking lot of some business. Scramble around to find someone and ask for a mechanic. Not much luck on Sunday morning at 5-6 AM. Then I start looking for a rent car. No luck. I find a mechanic, but he wont do anything until Monday. I get a motel room and we at least get my boat to the room for security reasons. I tell my buddy to hit the road that I will wait at least until I find out the problem with the truck. Get the truck at the shop around 10 AM and the wrecker driver says you wont go on a few runs with me since you dont have anything to do. I tell him OK so I spend a couple of hours watching him do some BS work and listening to some BS stories. Get back to the room and dont hear anything on the truck until 9 PM. It appears there was a fitting on the high pressure oil hose that had blown out was causing my problems. He tells me he going to have to re-tap the threads and it shouldnt be that big of deal unless he had to buy a new oil pump ($1200). Im good with that! I just want to get home! Tuesday comes and I call the mechanic at 11:00 AM. He tells me hes about done and I should be on the road shortly. At 3 PM I get the truck, only costs $450 and everything appears to be fine. Get on the road at 4 PM and Im on my way to Baytown. I decide to stop in Meridian, MS. and get something to eat. Its now about 7 PM. When I get out the truck I look at the boat and it has a little oil on the sides and I only hope that its residue from the previous malfunction. I decide to blow it off then and would check the oil when I got diesel. I eat and then get back on the road. Knowing that I need to check that oil level I decide to stop and get diesel………………………Only 5 quarts low! Its panic time again. Im in the middle of no where Mississippi. Long story short, I call the ole Tideman and tell him the story. He lets me stay at his place for the night. The only thing that I now think is Im getting rid of this “JUNK” truck before Im really stuck. So I go to two dealers and one gives me a fair price on trade and one gives me a better trade. I end up with a Chevy Z71 at 6 PM. Get on the road around 7 or so and get home at 2:30 AM this morning. I have a good tournament check and now have a truck that doesnt require to burn crap fuel for $3.30 – $3.40 a gallon. So if you have aspirations about wanting to be a professional angler or think these guys have it made, then you need to think again. Stress, stress, stress, and some more stress. Ikes job is safe with me. Thanks to all who offered support while I was down and out!