WOUNDED WARRIOR TOURNAMENT

What an awesome week! I got to spend two days straight blastin' 'em with my parents and then today I had the opportunity to take a soldier, Tyler Schaffer, fishing in the Wounded Warrior Tournament out of Paris Landing on KY Lake.  Tyler was 21 years old and awarded a Purple Heart when he and his team were hit by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.  He was a great guy and though he does do some recreational fishing, this was his first time on a big lake in a bass tournament.  He wasn't familiar with baitcasting reels so I rigged him up a couple of ABU Garcia Veritas spinning rods with a shaky head and a 5xd crankbait.  Our first stop was loaded with fish and we caught at least 50 keepers out of the school.  Tyler was matching me fish for fish and even caught two on one cast which he'd never done before and he was pretty stoked over that.  After an hour of catching 2 to 3lb fish, I asked Tyler if he wanted to keep catching a bunch of fish or if he wanted to try and win and without hesitation, he replied "Let's win this thing"!  I told him we would have to fish a little differently to target bigger bass and it wouldn't be as fast and furious as it had started out.  I made a run to a deep water school and scanned the area with my Humminbird.  I saw a small group of fish and immediately fired a Sexy Spoon into them.  I had two swipe at it but miss and then on my third rip a 5lber engulfed the spoon!  I netted the fish and culled one of our 3lbers.  We fished for awhile longer but couldn't trigger any more bites so I made a move.  I ran through several schools and we each caught a few 2 to 3lb fish but none that would help.  When I reached my most southern school I didn't see them on my electronics.  I hated to run that far and not even make a cast so I decided to make a few throws for the heck of it.  As soon as my 6XD hit the water, I didn't make three turns of the reel handle and a 4.75lber choked it.  We could only weigh in 3 fish in this tournament and I had a feeling we needed another fish in the 4 to 5lb class to have a shot at the win.  It was only a 6 hour tournament and time was running out.  I ran back north of Paris Bridge to a place where I've caught some key fish in the past and they were stacked.  We caught 'em on every cast for the last 30 minutes and I hung at least ten 3 to 3.5lbers on the balance beam but none would cull our smallest fish which weighed 3lbs 9oz.  We ended up weighing in 12.88lbs and finished 2^nd just a little more than a half pound shy of the win.
I wanted to win this thing badly but to have a guy like Tyler say on stage that he'd had the best time he'd ever had in his life was worth more than any win in any bass tournament ever could be.  For those that didn't get involved with this event this year, you really need to check it out next year, it was a great experience. 


I've posted a link to a Channel 2 News clip and interview with my partner below.


www.wkrn.com/category/175880/video-landing-page?clipId=7305055&topVideoCatNo=128407&autoSt