Big Creek Ice Tournament-2013

January 27th marked the date for this event.  It was a partner tournament, and once again I teamed up with Mark Anderson from Pleasant Hill.  We were in the same event two years ago and place 6 out of about 30 teams.  We were hoping to do better this year, and we sure did.
Things were quite busy for me the weekend before the tournament, and when I did get to the lake to check things out, my auger rope recoil broke before I could even drill one hole.  Pre-fishing for me was not in the cards. 
Mark spent several hours on the lake checking known areas, and areas that are not common to most folks.  He found several areas that were holding good bluegills and crappies, we were optimistic before the event. 

We made it to our fist spot and we immediately started filling our buckets with gills and crappies.  The final weigh-in had each team weigh their best 5 bluegills and their best 5 crappies.  We knew we needed some good sized fish of both varieties.
The second spot was a total bust, a few small gills and we were off to spot number three.
We upgraded a few crappies and a gill or two in this area, and we were feeling good about he fish we had to weigh-in.  One more stop a little closer to the weigh-in would close out our day.  We caught some fish there, but nothing to upgrade our 10 fish.

When the scales were closed Mark and I ended up in 2nd place for the event, we both were happy and glad that our teamwork, and willingness to move to several areas to get those fish we needed.  We fished areas that were almost 40 feet deep, and areas that were as shallow as 6 feet to catch our total weight, which was 6.20 pounds for 10 fish.  A great weight for any lake in the state of Iowa.  A great day fishing, and top placing...it is hard to beat that.