"Give A Guy A Break" - PLEASE

[Wayne Riley]

How is this story.........Fished a 2 day Classic on the weekend for Bass Anglers of Ottawa. Day 1 - ran a whole 500 yards to our first spot and caught 2 keepers in 10 minutes. Time to run to the next spot - got up on plane and 10 seconds later lower unit on outboard explodes (blows a hole right through the casing - pinion gear failure). Here we are in the middle of the lake and no outboard. I have a spot 400 yards away - and by electric power only and 20 minutes later arrive. Spend whole day their battling windy water (where else could we go?) Catch our limit weighing in at 16.62 lbs including a 6.35 and 6.0 lbs largemouth. Had to get towed back to weighin sight and arrive 30 minutes early. Win Big fish for the day and are in 4th place after day 1 (2 lbs behind leaders). A fellow competitor (who is in 3rd after day 1 has brought 2 boats and graciously lends us his boat for day 2 (the one he used for day 1). 3 hours into day 2 this boats engine fails and again am forced to fish on electric for the remaining 5 hours. Had to get towed back to weighin site. We end up in 11th place and guess who wins the Classic........you guessed it the person who lent us his boat. What would have happened if his partner would have given us his boat and they fished out of the boat I was loaned (the one they used on day 1) and the motor quit on them? We calculated we lost 6 hours of fishing time out of a total of 17 for the 2 days. To have 2 engines fail from 2 different boats in 2 days.......what are the odds? Am I lucky or what? The joke at the end of the tournament was not to let me touch ANYBODY'S MOTOR OR BOAT!

My thanks to Tony DeBoer for lending me his boat the second day to allow me to at least have a shot at winning. Thanks Tony!

Wayne Riley