Crawfish 'n Crawgators-PHOTO IN the fish we DIDN'T weigh

Fourchon, Louisiana

Crawfish to Crawgators----
Don’t’ get no better than that……


This will not be short, but keep in mind, I am leaving out A LOT of stuff,
Lets just concentrate on the fishing aspect first, and sea where it goes.

Pro Event,
we are in the back of the pack in the pro’s,
so just plan on winning it,
points will prob not do us that much good, but cash will.
Day one awoke at 2 am with a high fever,
apparently loads of folks showed up there earlier in the week with a virus, and I somehow ran myself down enough to catch it,
re:new Orleans a few days before????,
I tossed and turned with fever and naseau till 4 am, then fell asleep on the bear, literally, on the bear.
But it helped me sleep, for the remaining hour,
yeah, I was delirous, for the remaining hour,
but I got on the boat, quietly and tried to will it out of me.
I rallied at check out, as we had 5 foot blow up big bird balloons for our good buddy Big Bird, (CK Blanton, chris, buddy, electronical genious! man of many names!)
crancked up the sesame street live cd, and tossed big bird t shirts, and swim rings
(for safety of course)
to them, and we all danced around the boat to the sesame street theme with our giant big bird balloons-very funny,
very, very funny!
as we all put up our stuff to go check out, we bumped up towards another boat and it was Team Donzi,
our friends
Dan Upton,
master of the boat building business,
Jack Woods,
the master of winning kingfishing,
and
Cammo,
the master of having a good time.
They laughed at our antics, and Cammo walked up to the bow of the boat, and blew me a kiss and did the ceremonial king fish wave to our team, the
‘catch a good one, and have fun’
wave,
and I bowed my head to him, as he smiled his big ‘ole smile.

We ran a long way, and stopped to catch bait, I participated for a dozen or so blue runners, then as I struggled with them I struggled with the fever,
Fever attacking the extreme heat and humidity,
I tried to shake it off, but then the beautiful shiney sun turned black with sparkles and broke into a million swirling pieces,
as I started to faint, my boys set me down, got me water and told me to take a time out.


I flushed water, Gatorade,aand Tylenol all morning, and fought fish when I could,
but nothing like some big fish to make you feel better. Finally about 1 pm my fever broke, tnd the heat chills subsided,
though still weak I was feeling so much better,
and gladly,
we then got into some really big kings and monster wahoo.
We found a spot where kings were diving out of the water like Jiffy Pop-it was way cool.
We had caught a 40ish fish, and were just still trying for one a little bigger, and enjoying the effort, it was a pretty scene.

With 30 minutes left in our day, we suddenly
saw and heard the water explode,
as a super big king skied up out of the water, missed the bait, but as he flew sideways we saw every inch of him,
wow,
he looked big,
but its hard to tell, they all look pretty big when they surprisingly sail through the air,
so Mike perfectly and calmly fed back the bait to him again, and then
WHAM,
he came up again, this time in the opposite horizontal direction,
this time getting the second hook perfectly lodged in his mouth,
but not to his knowledge, he retreated back in the water,
and
CA BOOM
came out for a third time, this time, heading straight at us,
blistering out of the water like a bullet,
bait flying in the air inches from his mouth, as he swallowed it,
but he was so big and long, and so high up in the air,
and so determined to eat that bait fish,
that he was heading airborne straight for our transom,
as we watched, his tail wagged twice, back and forth,
like he was propelling himself through
the wind like he would in the water,
super duper cool,
and he was even cooler as he hit the deck and slid into the fish bag, and

THEN,

he did not fit,

how pretty is that!

his entire tail had to be zipped around,
He was skinny, but the longest fish we have ever boated,
We high fived and made the long run home,
But not without incident,
We ran into oil pressure problems,
as the seas had gotton big, and we were more than a little bouncy
and almost 900 horsepower powered though the 5 foot gulf slop,

By the time we go to the weigh in line, we were down two flippers (engines) with 10 minutes to spare, we made it but-ARG!

Yes,
51.81 pounds,
2nd place after day one,
Right on.
Only boat ahead-crawgator, local cagun oil fishin’ guru
-the dali lama of loiusiania-this guy is GOOD!

But we can, and will, take him out.
Rule number 74-never take second place!

But also weighed in, between the euphoria and the sadness,
Great fish-bad day,
but a bunch worse for a lot.
As we found out a dear friend, and a friend to many dear friends,
A person who has just smiled and waved,
That would be Cammo on Team Donzi boat,
Left the rest of us and took a journey,

And we will see him, and feel him,
In fishing infinity.

Long story short, not really……

Scottie B worked on boat till after midnight,,
He and we,

Crossed our fingers and set out first thing in the am.
Could feel the win,
Felt 1000 % better,
Had slept for 4 hours,
Felt refreshed and flu-relieved.
The only remaining fever,
was the fever of the win!
It was Time,
To Finish what We Started.

As we diverted our competition,
We lost another flipper,
ARG,
We could not travel such a way, in such a remote area,
With anything less than 100%,
We had to get home safely,
And Captain Safety,
Said,
No go,
If we lose the other weak engine,
We won’t get home till next week,
We were gonna play it safe,
Limp around,
And find and fish or chalk up another to bad luck.
Not that it had been good so far, ‘cept for one big fish.

Still determined,
We kept on strong,
Discouraged, but determined.
We caught little fish,
And kept moving and jumping rigs,
And trying to find that ONE fish we needed.

By the time we got to the end of the day, we were back at 1 ½ flippers,
Blew one engine out completely,
And showed up at another somber weigh in.
We scored a 36 ish,
Not the 48 we needed to take the prize hone,
But based on our handicapps, and the bite was slower day two (thank fish gods!)
We were not hurt as much as we could have been.

Won 5th and a bunch of others.
Chelsea, thanks for the monkey bank that I said I would
fill with winnings this week.
Did I forget to mention at weigh in day two,
The boys decided to tell Captain Happy that they wrecked the truck last night,
His truck,

Not the best timing, but it had to be done.

Not that HE had not done the same thing earlier in the week on the way to the tournament,

‘I’ve a very good driver, I get to drive in the driveway on Sundays’

Well,
It took the heat off ME for a minute or a day.

But, as always,
I missed my friends,
Especially the Chases’ who had planned on fishing this event with us,
And my other friends,
But as I hugged, laughed, and cheered,
With many of my other friends,
And made a few more,
go figure,

I remembered one of my favorite songs,

Don’t worry,not gonna sing it,
love y’all too much for that!
But read it, and feel it.

‘TAKE A LITTLE TIME,
FOR SUNSHINE,
TAKE A WHOLE LOTTA TIME FOR LOVE,

TAKE TIME TO THANK,
HEAVEN UP ABOVE,

TAKE YOUR LIFE,
AS IT WILL COME,
CUZ BOY IT WILL BE GONE SOON,

TAKE A LITTLE TIME
FOR HOWLIN’ AT THE MOON! “

Sam Bush

So probably the longest,
and most boring post,
but know how much you all mean to me-

Peace, love, and fishing.
susanK