Fishing

You might want to do some clicking finger stretches before clicking all of these pictures.

This is the commotion that woke me up this morning before sunup. The boat launching ramp was full of fisherfolk from top to bottom. And they were all making happy noises that indicated whoever they were, they were glad to be here.

Due to me having a sudden stroke...... of laziness, I have decided to forgo writing a blog post today and totally depend on pictures to keep everyone entertained.

Thinking it might be a normal Sunday crowd of fishermen I paid a little more attention and noticed all the boats were very nice with big, powerful, motors on them. And they all knew how to get their boats off the trailer in a matter of minutes without it turning into an embarrassing spectacle, like it often did back in Florida when I was launching boats.

All of those observations added up to one thing that would explain all of this...A FISHING TOURNAMENT!

That were boats nestled against the shore. Boats hovering in the water. And boats next to the Marina, all waiting for the go signal. Apparently it has been determined that all of them leaving at once is a bad idea, possibly for safety reasons, so names are called out on a loudspeaker and you can leave when your name is called out. I don't know how they determine who gets called out first and last but it seems to work and everything is orderly.

Apparently the time to go is based on when the sun breaks the horizon. I guess that officially represents  daybreak as far as the tournament is concerned.

As their names are called out the boats slowly leave one at a time. And since there near the marina there required to make "no wake" until their past some markers indicating they can go full throttle. And that's always the rule for every boat leaving any Marina not just for tournaments at the Elephant.

Big exhaust pipes looking cool sticking up in the air? Nope, there a type of anchor. A push of the button, and long poles go down and stick into the bottom which keeps the boat from moving around while you're fishing.

Once clear of the marina markers it's full throttle all the way. Most tournaments only allow these Bass boats to have a 250 hp engine, which will limit them to about 75 miles an hour which is pretty scary in a boat, considering some of the things that may be in front of you such as a floating log, a swimmer, or an alligator.... But alligators aren't that big of a problem at Elephant Butte, at least that's what I'm told. Some bass boats are capable of carrying a 350 hp engine which will get them up to around 100 mph, which is pretty dangerous for anyone running around on a lake.

A tournament boat leaving the area at high speed. That tiny little boat next to the bass boat is a pedal-boat, the one guy in it is pedaling it across the Lake and for some reason decided to cross over right in front of where the tournament boats are leaving the marina at top speed. Probably not the wisest thing to do because now the wakes from all those boats is pushing him toward all those big tires that function as a breakwater. He was okay but he sure got rocked around a lot.

This isn't a very big boat, but it's got a big motor. Speed is everything to these guys... And gals. The quicker they can get to their favorite fishing hole the more fishing time they have, and more fishing time means more fish. Except when I'm fishing and then the time spent fishing is no relation whatsoever to the amount of fish caught.

This is the game warden. He was right in the marina with all the tournament boats, and now he's heading out in the same direction they're going. I'm assuming they all have a fishing license, if not that would be a serious faux pas for a professional fishermen.

In a matter of seconds these high-speed boats are out of the marina and whizzing across the Lake.

And not to worry, these tournament fishermen are required to have live wells in their boats to put the fish they catch in. These live wells keep the fish alive so they can all be released after their weighed at the end of the tournament.

They've all got some super secret special places they want to fish to win this tournament so fortunately they all don't have to fish in the same spot. This lake is pretty big, and definitely a whole lot bigger than when I was here six months ago.