I was fishing a BASS Northern Open on Lake Champlain in New York in 2010. My practice days on the lake were tough to say the least. I decided to fish the underwater humps and ledges in an area called the Inland Sea. With the heavy winds it was hard to hold my spot with the trolling motor running on high all day. On my way back from the Inland Sea I decided to fish the Gut which is a section connecting to larger bodies of water. The winds were less and the fishing was amazing. I found large milfoil weed beds with scattered hard rock bottoms, which I caught a mixed bag of largemouths and smallmouths. The fish were smashing my square bill crank bait which I carefully guided through the milfoil weed beds. My best fish was a smallmouth which took a Robo Worm Aaron's Magic drop shotted on a 1/8 ounce weight. The fish weighed close to seven pounds....the largest smallmouth I had ever caught. I was convinced this is where I wanted to start my tournament day.
Tournament day found the winds had passed and we launched out and I ran straight out to my honey hole. My Co-Angler and I both limited out within an hour of fast paced fishing. Our best fish going four pounds. We had a good bag but not to win the tournament so I decided to stay in the Gut and fish it hard the whole day. So we pressed on culling our bag ounce by ounce. Never leave fish to find fish. The day ended and we were set to leave happy with our first day of the tournament bag of fish. We buckled our life vests and I turned the key and nothing. I jumped up and opened the compartment on the boat to look around at the batteries. Everything was connected but the pumps on the live wells drained my starting battery. I had no jumper cables in the boat because it was a new boat and I had not fully rigged it yet. I got my fishing net out and took my fishing towel and tied it to the net. I told the Co-Angler to get out the anchor and rope and set it out to stop us from drifting. I wanted to save the battery power I had on my trolling batteries just in case and not run the trolling motor. I told the Co-Angler to relax and keep his life vest on and buckled. We didn't need another issue at this point. I heard the motors of some other boats coming towards the Gut entrance and started waving my net from the front deck of my boat. As the boats were coming through the Gut they saw us on started our way. The boats motored up and it was Kota Kiriyama the Elite Bassmaster. He said right away..."your battery is dead?" I said yes. He told me he didn't have jumper cables either. Then we heard another boat coming. It was the Hooters sponsored Bassmaster who I never got his name. He gave us the jumper cables and Kota jumped my boat. The boat motor turned over and Kota said see you at the dock Jersey....which he called me because I lived in NJ and so did Kota for a time and we all knew him. We skipped our way over two to three foot seas but made it back with thirty seconds left to check in. As my boat passed the check in it stalled out but turned over again. I looked at my Co-Angler and he said great tournament and it was the most exciting day of fishing he had ever had in his life. I thanked him for all his help and his great netting skills.
The take away of the story is simple....always make sure you have all the gear and extras needed in case of an emergency. Always have an anchor and anchor line. If you run a boat carry jumper cables. I later purchased a Tournament Saver Pro, which gives me a button on the console I can push to jump my battery from the trolling batteries without jumper cables. Keep your life vest on when something happens. You just don't want anymore issues or something worse to go wrong. Oh yeah, lastly, have fun fishing and don't panic if something goes wrong. Stop and think it out then take action. We both finished in the top 30 with our mixed bag of fish. It was a tournament I will never forget.