B.G.Y.M. Beaver Lake Tournament July 27, 2013 by Joe Maione

The July B.G.Y.M. event had a schedule change because of high water on the Licking river. The event got moved to Beaver Lake and Taylor and I decided to camp there for the weekend which would allow us to pre-fish and spend some quality father/daughter time together. We loaded up the yaks and camper on Friday morning and hit the road. By 3:30 we had the camp site set up and had a late lunch. We hit the water to practice from 4-8pm and Taylor couldn't figure them out and I didn't do too much better but brought a half dozen smaller fish in the Frontier. We headed back to camp and grilled out some burgers and relaxed around the campfire roasting marshmallows. It was a really fun night!

Tournament day... registration at 5am. On the water a daylight in a light rain. Taylor is now fishing most tournaments from her own kayak and she three to the boat with in the first hour.. but unfortunately they all flipped off the hook as she is still learning to get fish in the boat all by herself. One was a really nice 15-16" fish. She soon got the hang of it an had a limit by lunch time all on her white grub. I only had one fish in the boat on a drop shot by about 2:00pm and finished out my limit in the last hour using the same grub Taylor was wearing me out on. It was definitely one of my more frustrating tournaments and the first one this year were I truly struggled to put fish in the Frontier. Taylor caught fish with regularity all day long but just couldn't find the big ones. She did lose another really nice 16+ inch fish on a jump toward the end. Taylor ended up beating me and finished in the top 20 and winning the youth division.

Anthony Thompson finished first with a 3 fish limit going 48.5". Second place went to T.J. Strong with 47.5" and Bob Brown rounded out the top 3 with a 43.25" total. Even with the rainy morning and the change of venue there were still around 30 members showed up to fish this stop. A fun time was had by all and I am looking forward to the next event I will get to fish in August. I have to miss the next event for my anniversary and I wish everyone luck.

Although I had one of my worst tournament performances in a very long time it was a great time! I really enjoyed camping two nights with my daughter and she absolutely loved the whole experience of tournament fishing along with camping. Definitely something we plan to do again!