Saturday March 7 AZ Mule Deer Org crappie tournament. You pay entrance for tournament per person, not per boat. Fee is $75 for tournament (total weight max 10 crappie). Add in $25 for big fish option and $10 for goon fish it's $110 per person ouch. On the water 5:45am all dark and in line with the set of 98 bass fishing boats for the other tournament. Never been part of that experience it was pretty cool. Absolutely no messing around at the ramp to dock I didn't have my lights ready or front strap undone took 30 seconds instead of 5 oh well.
I'm not sure maybe 10 or so boats in the crappie tournament, 28 total entrants. Wind in the forecast didn't pickup until noon. Fished on my boat vertical trolling Larry cousinlll my back seat we caught 3 fish on our boat. I think everyone was surprised at the low numbers we saw pictures prior in the week of dozen crappie each time but not sure if that was 4 fishermen in that boat or what. We all headed up stream and fished above the trees. The only 3 we caught were next to some area with trees above the surface.
Tournament results:
First- Randy Blachley 9.40 6 fish.
Second- Eddie Acevas 8.45 7 fish
Third- Harley Ash 7.10 5 fish
Fourth-Matt Rokusek 4.20 3 fish
Fifth-Jim Cook 4.10 3 fish
Side note: the 2nd place was a kid not sure looked under 16 thought that was cool. And I think it was another kid on a different boat had his basket of crappie on the side of the boat including a 2.57 lb big fish. He forgot to bring in basket on trip back to dock when they got back.... no fish :-( Sad sad I'm sure we've all had that story before.
Afterwards, I spoke with AZ Mule Deer and AZGFD and both wanted to team up with us to get some sort of kids' crappie fishing event sometime. I'm discussing with them possible options and will post on the site if we get any good ideas to make something happen.
Camping was nice as well. Don't get C40 though, I was downwind from fish cleaning station and the crapper.
