As the final bell rang Friday afternoon, Bryson and I made
the journey down to the greater Hunt Valley area in Maryland. After meeting Doug later that night, who
arrived around 2:00 that afternoon to practice for the competition, we embarked on a fairly interesting evening.
After a wonderful dinner at a Hibachi Steak House, we carried on indulging on the
luxuries of the Far East, more specifically Japanese candy. When the eventful
evening was all but the next morning, the three of us decided to treat ourselves to a long, restful slumber.
Waking up
with a little over an hour of sleep, Doug, Bryson, and I ventured to the
stream. We were attending the competition at
the Gunpowder River, hosted by our teammate Jason, and for the most part we had mixed
feelin
I for one
was pumped and super hyped at the prospect of catching my first fish in a
competition, despite my attempts in my previous two competitions. The seasoned US Youth Team members were so and so about the comp, and were just looking to
catch fish and have a good time. I am sure our new team member Rob was hoping
for a good finish to highlight his second comp.
However our perception and
aspirations for this competition fell way short. The shortcomings were not the
fault of the host; in fact this comp was ran extremely well. Yet there were what seemed to be limited numbers of fish, with very few to be had. That did not stop Bryson and Doug from catching
two of the three fish scored the whole day. Bryson’s 14cm fish secured a third
place finish for him, and Doug’s 24cm fish landed him second place. I would
love to say I placed first, but once again I was skunked. Three comps an no
fish, seems like a set back to most, but it only incites me to work harder.
However I do find solace in the fact I double blanked along with eight other
competitors, including Rob. None the less, we all had a good time.
Our lack of
trout on Saturday forced us to fish on Sunday, and our efforts were much more
successful on one of our favorite stretches. All in all a good weekend, filled
with a number of funny situations, lack of sleep, and a song called Fire and Ice.
Tightlines everyone - Alex Rundella
No comments:
Post a Comment