I’ve fished exactly one tournament in my life. It was August 28, 2015. Zac and I met at 6 that morning so that we could get down to Branson, load up the jetboat, and make it to Lilley’s Landing in time for the 8 o’clock rules meeting. It was cold and rainy, the clouds making it feel more like October than August. I backed the truck down the ramp and Zac pulled the boat into the courtesy doc. We set up the fly rods, loaded the cooler, and went to take off to Lilley’s Landing. The only problem was the boat didn’t start that time.
“Sometimes it has these problems when it’s cool out,” Zac said fidgeting with the ignition. I checked my watch anxiously, calculating if we’d make the rules meeting on time. After some quick work, Zac got the boat going and we motored on down Lake Taneycomo. It was 8:05 and we saw the mass of fisherman up at Lilley’s shop, so I sprinted up as soon as the boat was docked. I made it just in time to hear Phil Lilley ask if anyone had questions. It’s a fishing tournament, how many rules could there be? I kept my hand down and walked back down to the dock with the others.
“Whoa, fly rods?” One of the other fisherman asked as he walked past. We were the only fly fisherman in the whole tournament, but it was trout fishing on Lake Taneycomo in Branson, Missouri. We knew no other way to do it and we wanted to prove fly fishing was just as effective.
As we left the dock, one of the judges asked, “Up or down?” We looked at each other, not sure, but we wanted to fish up by the dam.
“Up,” Zac said as he pushed the boat’s throttle down.
The rain let up as we approached the dam. We wondered why we were one of only two boats that went upstream instead of down, but we figured the others just didn’t have the proper boats to make it through more shallow water.
Right away we were rewarded with big fish. I cast to the shoreline, hovering a Fat Albert hopper pattern over a tree just under the water’s surface. The face of a big brown emerged, sauntering up to my hopper. He turned away, disinterested. I twitched the line slightly, causing the hopper to do a slight dance. Within seconds, the brown roared back, not to be taunted by a measly hopper. He hammered the fly and I quickly landed a nice 17” brown, which we had to release. Browns in that area must be 20” to keep. Zac expertly manned the trolling motor while also casting his hopper to the shoreline, rewarded with an 18 and 20 inch fish almost back to back.
When the rain came back and the dry fly bite slowed, we switched to streamers. Zac loaded up a simple marabou jig and hooked into the first brown trout of his life, unfortunately not a keeper. After soaking us to the bone, the rain retreated once more. I offered to take care of the trolling motor so Zac could have a break. Now, I’m no expert on those, so it was rough going at first. The first time I tried to adjust the boat sent Zac down to the deck, almost off the boat. Right as he landed I saw his hopper disappear. “Set the hook!”
He tried, but from his belly he had little support. He had a short fight but due to a bad hookset from an even worse navigator, the fish got off, and it would have been fish of the day. We ended up with a livewell full of fish we were extremely confident with. A couple of 20s, an 18, and several 15-17 inches.
We got back to the dock for a weigh in and we confidently loaded the bag with our fish. As we walked to the weigh station I heard someone say, “Looks like a lot of slot fish in there,” and something in my stomach dropped. I had no idea why he thought that needed said, but it sounded bad.
Our fish total was good enough for second place, only being beat out by a boat that got an 8 pound brown that pushed them over us by a few ounces. Whispers about the fly fishing boat popped up immediately as we sat and ate the provided lunch. There was a weird vibe in the air. As we finished our lunch, Phil Lilley himself pulled us to the side. “Hey, uh,” he said, not wanted to say what came next. “I noticed your boat was set to go upstream and you had a few fish under 20” in the bag. Now, I don’t think that you did anything intentionally, I know you missed the rules meeting. But I have to disqualify you.” We both understood. It was our fault for missing the rules and not asking questions. We shook hands with him and headed back to the boat to head home as we knew we wouldn’t be getting an award that day. As we walked to the dock, there were several fisherman giving us a smug look like they had just defeated us for the world championships. I’m not sure they knew we missed the meeting and I’m sure they thought we cheated intentionally. Even though we legitimately had no idea we broke the rules, we still felt bad for some reason.
Moral of the story: ALWAYS make it to the rules meeting.
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