I don't know if anyone else experienced the absolute joy of fishing this past saturday in the Midwest and South regions of the country (notice I'm being sarcastic). There was a small tournament on Old Hickory. We blasted off at 7am and by 7:45am it started to rain, and by rain I mean cats and dogs. I started the day with my rain suit on and never took it off. The winds were howling at 20-30mph+ all day long in the thunderstorm. It was thundering and ocassionally lightning. You pretty much had to fish within 5min of the boat ramp to be safe in case you had to get off the water fast. Several people who didn't have fish left half way through. In fact, the tournament started with around 30 boats and by the time weigh-in rolled around, there were only 10-12 boats remaining. I had a couple keepers so I decided to stick it out. Somehow in all that wind and rain I managed to catch 25-30fish but only had 2 keepers (very frustrating). It took only 10lbs to win and I had 4lbs and finished 7th. The day was just awful. At some points during the day, waves were washing up and splashing into my boat, and I stayed off the main river and up in the creek! My bilge pump was off and on pretty much all day. It was bad. If you got the wind to your back, you could go down a back faster than if you had the trolling motor on 100%. You had to put the trolling motor on a bout 40% and hit it backwards in order to go slow enough to fish! I know they say that fishing in storms usually makes the fish go crazy (and I've personally seen this happen) but it sure didn't Saturday. The shallow Old Hickory turned instanty into chocolate milk (especially since the water color wasn't that great to start out with). You pretty much had to fish with a heavy jig, spinnerbait, or crankbait in order to feel your lure in the water. All I can say is I'm glad it's over and I hope my next tournament's weather forecast is much better than Saturday's weather.

josh we pretty much had the same experience up here in the north country sunday..except for th fact that it never rained hard ust all day....and of course we were just fishing...that being said we have a season up here and catch and release season started saturday. we happen catch a few fish not a lot of fish my son and my self ended up catching 12 all largemouth...i happen to catch this one one a dt 10 rapalla in baby bass....on the digitals went 5-1/2...