My wife Robyn and I teamed up for an open tournament Saturday out of the Small Boat Harbor hosted by Niagara Frontier Bassmasters. It was expected to be a beautiful day with little to no wind and reasonably warm temperatures.

The 19 boats blasted off at 7:00 am and off to our first spot we went. I went basically to where Fred and I left them biting the previous week. The water was quite muddy due to recent heavy rains and visability was about 1 to 2 feet (usually 20+ feet this time of year)

After about an hour wife wife got the first bite, a nice chunky 4 plus pound smallie. A decent start. Over the next few hours she continued to get bites, landing several of them, osing a few and missing many bites. Me, on the other hand, never got my FIRST BITE (!!!) until 11:30 that morning!! I switched back and forth between the spoon and tube, but realized over time that the tube was going to be a better choice. For the next couple hours we drifted a couple of small ridges that rose out of 28-30 feet and topped off at 23 feet or so. Fish started out on the downwind side of the ridge earlier, then they seemed to be on top, then by the end of the day the better ones were on the windy side. At 1:00 we probably had about 6 1/2 to 7 pounds in the livewell.

The west wind started to pick up for the last hour or so, and this brought in some even muddier water. Lake Erie was as I have never seen it before. Brown, just plain brown!! As far as we coule see in all directions. Excuse the pun, but it was quite erie. I got one more in the boat that went over 4 pounds. Now we felt like we could respectably weigh in our fish. We probably had 9 pounds or so at that point for our best two. I jokingly said (like I always do) that we need some last minute heroics!!

With about 15 minutes of fishing time left, Robyn put a nice smallie in the boat. Up until this time, her personal best was a 4.9 caught last year. She asked if I thought this one was over 5. I said "maybe?" cause I really wasn't sure. I got away from weighing fish on the water a couple years ago. All we need is our best fish, and the balance beam doesn't lie!! Speaking of which, ofthe two that were in the livewell, my 4 plus pounder was the one to be culled. Robyn had both of our weigh-in fish.

At the weigh-in it was apparent that Erie was still as stingy as it has been. Most struggled to get fish, and those that were caught were still smaller than "normal". I was guessing our weight at about 9 or 9 1/2 pounds. Robyn's "maybe a 5 pounder" actually ended up her new personal best at 5.82 pounds, and very nearly the lunker of the tournament. Our total weight was 10.34 and was good enough for 3rd a place check. Winners were still less than 11 pounds as well.