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It was the second qualifier of the year on Wilson Lake. The weather forcast does not look good for the weekend. It was calling for cold rain all weekend. On the way out, we had to stop at Salina to get some jeans for the boys. I was checking facebook, and noticed that the High School tournament was delayed due to high winds. When we showed up at the ramp, the High School tournament was cancelled. It was around noon, and the weather had gotten better.  It still was a little windy. We decided to prefished till 5pm when it was supposed to start raining again. I heard the bite was on by a couple of High School teams. We caught a couple of fish here and there, but nothing solid. All the fish were caught on spinnerbaits. I did have one huge smallmouth on, probably around 6 pounds. I rushed it at the boat and lost it. After another hour of fishing and catching a keeper smallmouth, we decided to call it a day.

Tournament Day was wet and cold. It rained all night and a small thunderstorm passed in the morning giving us a small delay. Right after the storm passed, a fog moved in. There were only five teams that showed up for the event. Finally around 8:30 am, we started the tournament. The plan was to start where Nick had a good largemouth come up on his topwater plug. Of course, they could not get a bite. We moved to a bank that had grass and stickups. It was protected from the wind and was a little warmer. Both boys were throwing spinnerbaits. Kyle had a nice keeper hit him right next to the boat. After landing the bass, the boys were very excited to catch a keeper in the first hour of the tournament. Then, Nick had a big fish break him off right next to the boat. There was really not much he could do when it hit so close to the boat. After catching three non-keepers, we decided to move to the area I lost the big smallmouth during pre-fishing. The wind was really blowing in on the spots. After fishing for a hour with only one striped bass to show,  the twins and I decided to go back to where we began. It didn’t take long for the twins to hook up with a couple of non-keepers. Loosing that fish next to the boat was starting to hurt more. With two hours to go, we moved down to the shallow point were some stripers were pushing bait. Kyle hooked up with a bass next to a patch of grass. He was saying it was not a keeper, but it would turn out to be their second keeper. Then two casts later, he hooked up again, but it was a short. I decided that we should just cover water for the last hour. We moved to a shallow pocket that had some stickup in 7 feet of water. Nick was throwing out around the stickup with a spinnerbait. When the rod loaded up, I really thought he was snagged. Then the line took off to the left, and he was yelling “It’s a big one!” It never jumped.  It just swam right up to the boat into the net. I was so proud of Nick to fish all day and to never quit after losing the fish earlier. I still felt like they needed another fish with only 25 minutes to go. I noticed a laydown offshore just under the surface. Nick threw his spinnerbait right next to the laydown. One crank and he was hooked up, but the fish swam right under the laydown breaking Nick off again. Not sure if it was a keeper. With 5 minutes to go, we needed to head to the weigh-in. As the kids got off the water, we heard that there were only two other teams with fish. We were the only team with three keepers. So, I felt like they had a chance. The three fish weighted in at 8.20 lbs for 1st place. The boys kept their promise; they were going to win the tournament on my birthday. I was so proud of my boys and the rest of the teams by toughing it out in the cold, wet rain.