Feb. 19, 2010

Needless to say, having my boat blow up on the first trip up the river wasn’t in my Bassmaster Classic gameplan. But that’s what happened today.

I’m trying to keep perspective and understand that worse things could happen than this, but it’s frustrating to say the least. I came into this tournament hoping to win another Classic. The reality is that there are two more days of fishing, and you never know what might happen. I could whack them tomorrow and get back in the picture, then catch a couple of giants on Sunday and maybe a miracle will happen.

But the other reality is that today I caught one fish that weighed a little more than a pound. The other reality is that some guys caught them good and will probably keep catching them — and one of those guys that caught them was Kevin VanDam. KVD doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, so I wouldn’t expect him to have a bad day on Saturday or Sunday.

Here’s what happened to me.

I was running a new Mercury engine, and I’d used it through my practice days. But this morning, right off the bat I ran it hard for 30 miles in the cold. I really pushed the engine, and it was just too much for the conditions.

The lesson for all of us is that you’ve got to make sure an engine’s good and broken in. I put too much pressure on it and paid for it.

After the engine blew, I did the only thing I could do. I idled and cast for awhile as I tried to find out whether I’d be able to get the boat to a place somebody could get the engine rebuilt in a reasonable amount of time. I wanted to get some fishing in. Eventually, we determined that wasn’t going to happen.

There were some spectator boats out there with me. Everybody around me offered to let use their boat for the rest of the day, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate those gestures. But it so happened that my brother Errol was one of the spectator boats, and he insisted that, if the rules would allow it, I should take his.

So we called BASS to determine if this was within the rules. BASS discussed it and said that it was indeed ok for me to finish the day fishing out of Errol’s boat.

With that ruling, we transferred my gear into his boat, and I determined that the only way I could have a save any part of the day was to go the shore and try work flipping bites for the rest of my time on the water.

But the bites just weren’t there.

For all I know, I might have ended the day with one fish anyway. I’d like to think I would have done better, but who knows?

Oh, well. As they say, tomorrow is another day.