Go Tight by Lou Caruso

I have been dealing with some personal demons this year and have had a hard time getting myself motivated to fish. On top of that I have not done well when getting out to fish.  A while back Zeno had done a blog column on a catch and release contest run by our own Dave Anderson. http://www.gotight.net/index.html  I believe in conservation and only take the occasional fish for the family and in-laws. I read up on the contest and liked the way Dave set it up. So I contacted a friend who is also very conservation minded and asked if he would be interested in joining. His response was “sure lets give it a shot”. We paid the entry fee and signed up. Then I looked at all the heavy hitters that signed up and said “what the hell did I get us into?” The Surfcasters Classic is comprised of 15 weekend contests throughout spring and summer leading up to a playoff in the fall.

I found myself with renewed vigor looking forward to the contest. With high anticipation we set a game plan. First weekend out we managed to take 5^th place (no thanks to me with a 16” & 18” fish), but that was just enough to even get us some bonus points. You just never know.

Anyway, here we are in week 2, and I have a chance to head out east and maybe get in on a bite and get some early points. A friend was taking the trip out and asked if I wanted to go. I never miss the chance to fish with the master bucktailer so off we went. We were heading out for a day bite. The lure of choice would be bucktails.

I would finally be putting the Fiberstar Montauk Maurder to the test. (I’ll have a review in a few weeks after some more testing.)  Here it is with a feisty 12 pound bass. I let a friend try the rod. First cast and he’s into this fish..

The next weekend contest started Thursday morning… We get out there and I start banging fish. I’m like a little kid giggling, taking pictures and releasing fish. After a while I’m actually culling with larger fish. Now mind you the fish are only up to 26″ but were on the board and we have all weekend to cull. I end up with 7 fish to enter into the contest. On the way home I call my partner to let him know the good news. We can get out there the rest of the weekend and hunt large. At that point we were really stoked….About a half hour later I realize, I never put the official place card in any of the pictures as required !!!!! None of the fish counted and we struck out the rest of the weekend… What an ass I am !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We would have got our butts kicked anyway. Those guys up north are doing a bang up job on some really good fish right now….Hopefully, we get a shot soon … Heard the bigguns were in Jersey last week so who knows.

There is still time so sign up and get in on the action. Go to the website and check it out.