Well the long awaited trip to Eufaula finally arrived! The Pensacola Hawg Hunters traveled to Lake Eufaula, Alabama for their two day September tournament. Of course that means many of us prefished on Friday and some prefished as early as Thursday. For those of you who read my article last month know that I was paired with Rich. Well, you know the phrase "bad luck comes in pairs" well, you guessed it. Rich and I were paired again this month! What luck! Now those of you who are following the standings know how important fishing has become for Rich as he is closing in on the top six spots.
We will get to why that is important in a second.

Well Lake Eufaula is a large, and in places a very deep lake.
We did our regular scouting of the Internet, friends, and fellow fisherman to get an idea of what the fish were biting on at this particular time. Everyone told us the same thing, FISH DEEP ON STRUCTURE! The advise sounded good, but, finding deep water on structure was another story, we found plenty of deep water, but.... We tried deep water, we tried shallow water, we tried beating the banks and we fished points and coves. We did catch several nice fish in the coves, shallow. Unfortunately, 14 inch fish anywhere else is a great fish, but not on Eufaula. It has a 16 inch size limit. :-(

It was a very frustrating weekend for Rich, as he was not having any luck catching even short fish, let alone a keeper. Quickly Rich's battle cry became "If we're going to stand a chance of catching a keeper fish we are going to have to fish __________" You fill in the blank because it was anywhere except where we were fishing at that particular moment. My personal opinion is that Lake Eufaula has experienced the same type of problem Lake Seminole did a couple of years ago but everyone is keeping it quiet. You would think that with a 16 inch size limit you would catch a zillion small fish. This was not the case. I have been to Lake Eufaula twice, once it was somewhere around 13 degrees and this trip. I'll think about it real hard next time I see it on the tournament trail, (times up).

As usual we had some anglers prevail and bring fish to the scale. Congratulations should go out to Jim Bolliter for his fish that weighed 5.2 pounds on Saturday. First place honors went to John Buck with 3 fish totaling 7.20 pounds. Second place to Neil Springstead with 3 fish at 6.65 pounds, and Third went to Brian Metcalf with 2 fish at 6.30 pounds. CONGRATULATIONS!

A SIDE NOTE:
"I WANT ONE OF THESE"?

I always thought that I would want one of these... it checks the oil, air, gas, tires, lubrication, maintenance, and makes sure the insurance payments are made on the tow vehicle. It makes sure the batteries in the boat are in good condition and charged, if not, it replaces them. It keeps the live well pumps working, trolling motor in good repair, trolling motor blades in good shape, depth finders up and running. If anything happens to the boat or motor, it will get them repaired as quickly as possible for the next tournament. This is so efficient that after a tournament, especially a wet one, where everything on and in the boat gets soaked, it will remove everything to dry, including Ice Chests full of empties! Of course, it will gas and oil and lube and charge and replace everything that is needed prior to the next outing!
Its great! I want one of these....

A BOAT OWNER