Saturday was the kickoff to the 2010 Keystone Buddy Buddy Circuit. The tournament was held at Lake Arthur and is the first of seven qualifying events. For myself, Saturday was the first tournament I fished this year and I had moderate expectations.

After practicing Friday and having decent results and finding what I thought was a good pattern, I felt that I would surely be able to break the top 20 and collect a check. Little did I know that Sunday would be a day of missed opportunities and frustration.

Dad and I decided that this year we were going to be in the second flight because the afternoon bite had been better for us. That being said we sat and waited hoping that our first spot would be open. I have one spot on the lake that is good for a smallmouth bass everytime I go there in the spring. They hit the same lure every time as well. The bad news is that typically I can only catch 1. Today would be no different. We pulled up to the spot and I made 4 casts with a suspending bait and hooked up. The fish pulled drag, but it came unbuttoned before I could get a look at it. Although I believe that the fish fought like a walleye you can never be sure. On my very next cast I hooked up again and this time it was my keeper smallmouth! 15 minutes into the event and we have 1 keeper.

Next, it was time to start the milk run of spots. On our 4th stop we pulled up to a laydown that I have a history with and it was like clockwork. I caught a dink on the first cast and about 3 casts later our second keeper of the day. This time it was a largemouth bass. A few casts later I caught another dink. Now we were feeling very good about our chances because we had 2 keepers before 10:00am. We run several more spots and get bit twice but without hooks ups. So we go back to the laydown where I caught the keeper. I flipped in set the hook and snap! I broke my line. My first true rookie mistake of the day. At the time I was a little upset with myself, but I was able to shake it off because I wasn’t sure how big it was.

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon jumping around spot to spot fish in Porter’s Cove, Old 422, and main lake spots. Dad and I managed to catch a bunch of dinks over this time, but now things are weighing on my mind. We decided to head back to the smallie area for another go, but we had no luck. We decided that we were going to try several laydowns and try to get lucky. We caught another dink and heading down a bank that we did not practice I get solid bite. I slammed the hookset and my rod double. A split second later my line broke for the second time of the day. This time I was more than upset because I had several nicks in my line and hadn’t retied the line in over an hour. I had no one to blame but myself for the subpar performance.

We ended up finishing in 29th place with 2 bass that weighed 3.53lbs. Even though that isn’t an aweful performance considering there were 111 boats I am extremely disappointed with myself. Loosing 3 fish in one day cost us a good deal of weighed and a good check. This is yet another learning experience that I hope to right as the year moves on.