Fishing clubs usually hold closed tournaments; that is, they are not open to the public. Each angler fishes for his individual five-fish limit.

There are also open tournaments, when both anglers combine their catch for one limit.

Clubs usually hold “opens” to raise money for operating funds or to support special projects.

It was mid-July when the Keuka Valley Bass Anglers had an open scheduled on Keuka Lake. Paul and I talked about it at work and agreed to join forces. I’ve fished Keuka often and have my favorite areas where I felt certain we could catch fish and compete with the big boys. Also, there was my “confidence” bait: a four-inch black/chartreuse finesse worm fished on a slider hook. It has produced well for me many times on Keuka.

The tournament started and we headed down the lake. The larger boats, with their bigger motors, passed us by. However, as I say, “It’s not how fast you get there, but what you do when you get there.”

It took us about ten minutes to get to my first spot. I start here a lot and some of the guys refer to it as “Fred’s Spot.” It’s down the lake on the right side where a boathouse protruded over the water. They recently tore it down. I had to find another landmark to locate the spot.

Paul decided to start with a crankbait, a plastic lure with a front bill and two treble hooks. Of course, I started with my confidence bait, the finesse worm.

As often happens, the fish that day were interested in the worm and I started to pull them in. When fishing an open as a team, and you have a fish on the line, your partner has to jump into action to net the fish and bring it in the boat. Well, the fish were enjoying that finesse worm so much that Paul was kept busy with the net. He finally said, “Why don’t you stop fishing for a while, let me catch some, and you can be the net man.”

We were both catching fish, throwing them in the livewell, and not keeping track of how many we had. Finally we realized they were getting crowded in there and we better stop catching and cull them. To make the count and cull out the smaller ones we had to remove them from the livewell to check their weight.

Picture this: There were fish on culling hooks, fish in the net, fish on the floor, fish in the livewell. And I was holding fish to weigh.

Paul turned around to help and tripped. Where did he land? Right on his crank bait, the one with the two treble hooks. He let out a loud yelp and I heard the crunch of the lure and rod as his bottom slid on top of them along the deck. He stood up slowly with rod, reel, and lure hanging from his backside. There was a painful look on his face. The hooks had gone through his pants and stuck right in his butt, where he couldn’t see to remove them.

“Hurry up help me get these hooks out, I don’t want to move around and embed them further,” he said, as he bent over among the fish, with his rear in the air.
I carefully checked out this delicate situation and said, “You will have to loosen your belt so I can take a look”.

He scanned the area and carefully, loosened his pants.

“You are in luck; the hooks didn’t penetrate deep enough to go past the barb.” With a surgeon’s skill, I removed the hooks and handed him the lure. He held it in his hand, looked at it, and mumbled what sounded like some kind of a blessing over it.

After the delicate surgery was over and Paul recovered, we culled out the smaller fish,keeping our five-fish limit, and continued to fish. We were still catching fish, but now we were culling as we went. Paul was being careful where he laid his lures.

The tournament ended; we headed to the weigh-in. My passenger, sitting lightly, suggested that I take it easy on the rough waves. We had caught a lot of fish but the large ones had eluded us. Our total weight was not good enough to place and end in the money. I had a good time, though, and I know Paul will remember this day.

We caught a lot of fish . . . butt.

The Lunker is a member of the Tioga County Bass Anglers (www.tiogacountybassanglers.com). Contact him at lunker@mountainhome.com