Terrible Tournament Stories

[CCGinMN]

This is a humorous thread that is dedicated to tournament mishaps, errors, and just plain-old bad luck.  If you need to whine, complain, or just get something off your chest, this is the time and place.  I want to hear your stories on why took last place in the tournament and what caused it.  I'll go first:

A few weeks ago, our fishing league had a Wed. tournament from 7am - 2pm on Sullivan/Platte (was changed from Mille Lacs due to high winds).  I took last place honors.  Around 18 of us stayed at McQuoids the night before.  Because I can't party like the kids anymore, I went to bed at around 1am.  When I woke up the following morning, I was treated to the following:

• I couldn't find my fishing partner.  Oh well, he has my cell # and will call me when he wakes up.
• My truck/boat was boxed in by a different vehicle.  Found the owner, got the truck moved, only running 1/2 hour late, no worries.
• In the wee hours of morning, some of the guys in our league thought it would be funny to climb into my boat and add over 200 waypoints to my gps, all on Sullivan Lake.  This was actually pretty funny when I turned on my gps. Erasing them will be a winter project.
• Partner calls me from the public landing at 1pm.  He fished for a total of 45 minutes and didn't catch a fish. 

Despite the curve balls thrown at me and my last place finish, it was still a good day fishing :).

[CCGinMN]

Nobody has any funny "fail" stories?!?  Ok then, I'll go again on behalf of one of my buddies.  We are sitting on Ottertail Lake casting jig/shiners for walleyes.  Little does he know, but I peeled 10 yards off of his real, cut the line, pulled another ten yards off, then cut it again.  Then i reeled each section back up, making it look as good as new.  He went to make his first cast and the jig plus ten yards of line went flying out into the abyss.  He gave us a scowl, sat down and tied another jig on, and made another cast.  Of course the same thing happened again.  He threw his rod down and just sat their pouting for about 20 minutes.  I really liked that one...

[BTL]

The first 4 bass tournaments I ever fished were fails.

 

#1 was a small boat tournament in early Spring. It was windy with cold, dirty water. I caught one fish all day, just under 5lbs. We didn't place high enough for a check, but I was leading for the lunker pot until the last boat weighed in with a fish that was 2 ounces heavier.

#2 Never even happened. It was a club tournament at a lake 4 hours away. We drove down and pre-fished for 2 days in absolutely gorgeous weather. The morning of the tournament we woke up to sleet, snow, 30mph winds, and my partner had come down with the flu. The tournament was canceled right after we got on the water, which was the right move considering the horrible conditions. Between travel, boat gas, lodging, and food expenses that non-tournament ended up costing a lot.

#3 was an Angler's Choice tournament my buddy and I signed up for with no idea what to expect. We caught fish all day long, but they were all the wrong species. Catfish, perch, shad, bluegill, carp, and I even hooked into a very large striped bass. The largemouth however were MIA and we weighed in nothing.

#4 was another small boat tournament. We had never fished the lake before (pre-fishing was not allowed in the week before the tournament) but I did a ton of research and thought we would be ok. It was a beautiful morning until about 10 minutes before blast off when a cold front came in. Suddenly it was windy and cold. The water, which according to my research was supposed to be crystal clear, was chocolate milk. Were were totally unprepared and ended up getting tossed around in the wind all day, catching nothing. There were 30 boats in that tourney and only 3 of them weighed in a fish.