One summer when I was in high school, I drove past a car dealership and there was an old bass boat parked on the end.

I pulled in to look at it and the owner came out to talk to me about it. After a few minutes, he grabbed a set of rabbit ears so I could see the outboard run. It started up fine and all the electronics worked, so I came back with a check for the boat a few days later.

For the remainder of that summer, I would fish whenever I had days off. I got to know Little Lake, also known as Cayuta Lake, like the back of my hand.

The following year my friend and I decided to enter a bass tournament early in the summer on Waneta and Lamoka Lakes (they are connected by a canal, so you decide which lake to fish when you launch). On the way there, a leaf spring on my trailer blew and popped the tire that side. By the time we got the spare tire put on and launched the boat, we missed the start of the tournament and there were boats at all the good spots.

We caught a limit of bass, but they were all small. When we got to the weigh in, we knew we would not make it in the top three, so we didn’t bother having our fish weighed. Luckily, my grandfather had a cottage on Waneta Lake so we docked my boat there after the tournament so I could get the trailer repaired without the boat on it.

When August rolled around, there was a tournament on Little Lake, and we decided we wanted to give it a try after our dismal day on Waneta/Lamoka. So, on the morning of the tournament, I met my friend at the launch, loaded his stuff into my boat, and launched my boat. As we hung out, waiting for the official start of the tournament we discussed some strategy for the day and debated whether to try joining in the “rush” to the far end of the lake. I looked back at my friend from the front of the boat and thought he looked like he was sitting a foot lower than me. I looked down and saw a huge pool of water at the back of the boat and quickly realized that I forgot to put the plug in the boat before I launched it! We got the plug put it and turned on the bilge pump to get the water out. Due to the water in the boat, we decided that making the run to the other end of the lake was out of the question. So as everyone else took off, we hung around the launch and worked our way over towards a weedbed that we had planned to hit at some point in the day. This weedbed had a secret spot that we had discovered earlier that summer, where there was something sunk in the middle of the weedbed and it seemed to always hold a few bass. However, most other anglers who saw us on that spot did not know what lures we were using so they would not catch fish if they went there after we moved off.

As the morning went on, we fished up and down the weedbed a few times and landed a few decent bass. After catching two fish close to each other, my friend wanted to leave and come back but I insisted on a few more casts. On the third cast, my rod bent over, and I reeled in another bass. We motored around to a few other spots throughout the day and managed to have a limit of bass in the live well before noon. Luckily, we were able to pick up a few more fish and were able to cull out a few of our smaller fish in the live well.

As we went to the launch at the end of the tournament, we both estimated our total weight to be under 10 pounds for all five bass. However, when we put our bag on the scale, we were pleasantly surprised to hear them say 11 pounds 8 ounces. At the time, that put us into second place with a handful of teams left to weigh in. It was a nerve-wracking couple of minutes as teams would get out of their boats and walk up to get weighed. One team that came up had just a couple ounces more than we did, so we were bumped to third place. With one team left, I started to get nervous that we would get bumped out of the money but when they got to the launch, they said they had nothing to weigh in, which meant we were staying in third place! Our prize money ended up being a little more than double the entry fee, so we made money on the day, with my friend giving me a few extra dollars out of his half of the money to pay for gas.

So even though my summer started on a rough note, by the end of it I was able to turn it around and have some success.