Tough few days on Rainy

Home from a long two weeks on Rainy Lake with lots of pictures and stories. 

The reason I was there was to fish the Fort Frances Canadian Championship with Jeremy Bester.  

I will tell you more about day one and two in a future story but for now here is how it ended.   

Going into the final day of competition Jeremy and I were in 106 place.  Knowing that they only invite back the top 90 we were a little behind the 8 ball heading out that morning.  If we wanted to make the cut and get invited back for next year we would need a huge bag.  We had 16 spots to make up and all of the guys ahead of us had been catching good fish.  We asked ourselves that morning when leaving the hotel "how in the world are we going to catch a big bag ?"  At that point it dawned upon me that in practice we found lots of nice fish in the area we had been fishing over the first two days and they didn't go so wouldn't you think that eventually they would have to bite there.  

Jeremy and I headed back to the same area on day three that we had fished both day one and day two with hopes of the fish turning it around for us.  Boated a few small ones in the morning and continued to plug away and by mid day the fish we there and they were feeding.  The top water bite that was dead for five days finally came alive and brought us our three biggest fish of the day.  

We scored a nice limit through out the day and felt pretty good about our chances.  We got back to the marina and heard lots of talk about guys not really doing so well and I started to believe we may be able to pull off a come back and make the cut.  Our five fish limit weighed 13.88pds and was strong enough to move us into 71 place with guys yet to weigh.  Watching the rest of the weigh-in we just prayed that we had done enough to give ourselves a chance for next year and when all the dust settled we finished in 82 place and got an invite back for next year. 

Rainy Lake always seems to amaze me.  This year was a huge learning experience.  I can also say that I have never been so frustrated fishing in my entire life.  Everyday of the tournament we saw numerous three and four pound fish that would not bite.  I know the feeling of leaving it all on the lake.  Jeremy and I gave it our all and never went in feeling like we short changed ourselves.  Until next year, fare well Fort Frances, and the toughest smallmouth in the world to catch.