Months ago I signed up to be a Marshal at the Oneida Lake Elite Series event, and originally I was wait-listed. About a month ago I received a call that a spot opened up, and feeling that I was due for a vacation I jumped at the chance. I was only able to attend the first two days of the competition, but I figured it would be a great experience. And was it ever.
I kept a very detailed notebook of the entire weekend, and rather than recount all the minutiae (the introductory meetings, getting my first glimpse of Alton Jones and the other Elite guys, the thrill of launching the first day in the dark of 6 am), I'll keep things to the fishing. I was paired with John Murray my first day, who was 24th in the AOY standings prior to the event, putting him in a position to qualify for the Classic. He wasn't the friendliest guy at our first meeting on Wednesday, but I figured he was on edge about the event. So we took off, 65 mph at 6 am on Thursday, and came in to a hump somewhere in what I guessed was "the middle" of the lake. He pulled out a spinning rod rigged with a drop shot, and on the second cast caught his first fish of the day. I remember that when he hooked it I said "Are you kidding?" He didn't say a word, played the fish for a while, landed it and put in the well. He hooked and lost fish on his thrid and fourth casts, and within an hour he had a limit. This was exactly what I had hoped to see--bass fishing's best doing their best right before my eyes.
Unfortunately, that first hour would be the day's most eventful. After boating the limit we went "up" the lake (I didn't know where we were), where John pitched a jig for much of the day. It seemed to be a large, grassy flat occupied by a number of other guys (including, I think, KVD, for an hour or so). Other than that there were no distinguishing features to the area, though John motored from one side to the other many times throughout the day. He was able to boat a few largemouth, though none seemed to help his overall weight. After a trip up the Erie Canal, to lock 23 (as far as they were allowed to go), we came in for the day, and John weighed in 10lbs 8 oz, which, last time I saw, put him, unfortunately, next to last, just above Zell Rowland, who came in with a little over 9lbs.
As for what I learned from the first day, I can easily say that while John may not be the household name for a professional angler he was as patient, diligent, and thorough an angler as I've ever seen. His day essentially consisted of 8-10 hours of pitching grass, over and over and over again. He didn't pause, except to weigh and cull his fish (which he did with a culling beam, which seemed cumbersome to me), and during the half hour it took us to travel up the canal (which was a no-wake zone) he seemed anxious. Surely, he's not a conversational guy; yet his demonstration of focus was something else. And it seemed like 9 of 10 times his lure entered the water without any noise or splash. Like nearly everyone else on the water he had trouble finding anything more than a 2 pound fish. That would end up being much of the story of the tournament, as the second day would find a number of anglers struggling, including one poised to make the post-season, with a select few able to find fish large enough to keep them in the top 5.
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