Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a limit of 5 fish over 12"

Earlier this year, Shanna and I decided to sign up for a Jack and Jill bass fishing tournament (husband and wife) with Klaus and Mary-Catherine. Today was the big day at Lake Owyhee, with a mind-numbing 4am start at Klaus's house. We had stayed the night at Grandma Linda's, so we just got up and left, and she baby-sat for the day.

We originally planned to take our boat because it sleeps better than the Bullet (M-C is known for snoozing, regardless of the situation at hand), which is important because this was supposed to be fun,...right? But I was concerned that the Lowe was too slow to run all the way up the lake if we needed to, so we ended up with the Bullet anyway. M-C still snoozed!

There were about 45 boats in the tournament. The basic premise is that each couple has from 5:45a to 2:00p to catch 5 fish over 12". If you catch more than 5 keeper fish, you start culling the little ones and keep the biggest ones. Turns out that we didn't have to worry about that minor technicality.... At 2:00, the boats return to a weigh-in and your total fish weight is your score, plus a seperate award for the biggest single fish of the day.

We had a great time trying to stir up some action, with the boys constantly changing lures, and the ladies patiently fishing their favorite color of lizard. But by 9a, we (Shanna and I) only had 2 little keepers so the tension began to mount and the high speed driving from spot to spot commenced. The goggles/mask are standard issue to keep your eyes from drying out and the bugs out of your teeth.

At 10a, Shanna nailed a nice 2 lb keeper to suddenly triple our weight total and then just after noon Klaus put the Jimmy Houston on a 2.5 pounder and things were looking up. Unfortunately, these were the last two keepers of the day as we were unable to find a spot that could produce more than one decent fish at a time.

At the weigh-in, it looked like about half of the couples had a similar day to ours (we ended up 33rd out of 52), with 10 even weighing nothing at all. We weighed only 3.46 lbs total, which is pathetic considering the amount of time we had and the acres we covered, but that's the way things go. The rest of couples had a solid day with 8 - 11 lb bags, and the top three weighing 12 - 19 lbs total. The big fish went to a gal that hooked a fat 6.4 pounder.

All-in-all we had an excellent time with good friends, hot sun and tough water. Maybe next time we'll get that sweet spot figured out and get those livewells packed!