It was the weekend following Labor Day every year at Steve’s Resort in Lake Benton, MN. I had been to this specific tournament a few times with my dad. It had been running for years, and by this time it had turned into more of a father-son tournament with people from all over the area.

The year was 1997; I was seventeen and already had quite a few years fishing under my belt. The tournament had three classes; walleye, pan fish, and northern. Dad and I were in it for the Walleye (of course). Shotgun start at 8am Saturday morning we all sped off on our boats to our favorite spot. It started out as a nice morning… but unfortunately it turned windy, cold and rainy by noon. We fished until we could no longer feel our fingertips, went back to warm up, and then back out for more. Not a single fish was caught on Saturday.

Sunday morning we went back out on the lake… same weather, I was still frozen from the day before, not to mention my clothes were still a little damp. FINALLY a little luck… I caught about a 1-1/2lb walleye. That fish helped me warm up for about 45-50 seconds! We trolled for what seemed like hours, spotting fish on the hummingbird but not catching squat. Around 11:00am we trolled near another team and asked them how they did. They said they had their limit, and the biggest one was around 5lbs… we were baffled and continued changing lures as much as possible to find what they were biting on. I was frozen stiff and asked my dad if we could go in on several occasions. He said “give it another half hour, I know there’s fish down there, if we could just catch a couple we can go in.” Another five minutes passed and BAMM… I got slammed with a great hit. I fought the fish for what seemed like hours (more than likely a couple minutes) and dad finally netted my 8lb 12oz walleye.

I warmed up quickly after that, and although we found out what they were biting on, didn’t catch anything else before we came in for the end of the tournament.

At the ‘awards ceremony’ we asked the other team how much they really had… the one guy said “we didn’t have squat… that teaches me to lie”

We won the tournament with 2 walleyes, but I’d have to say that’s my greatest memory of any fishing trip with my dad!

( Average: 3.00 out of 5)
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This post was submitted by Nick.