Forrest Wood Open
Lake Champlain, Plattsburgh, NY
June 23-26, 2004
By: Bob Popp
What an awesome site to hold the Forrest Wood Open, the bass packed Lake Champlain on the New York-Vermont border. With 200 Pros and 200 Co-Anglers these bass could not stand a chance.
This was my first FLW event and can honestly this was an outstanding event win or loose it made no difference FLW knows how to put on a tournament to say the least.
When I went to the pre-tournament meeting and looked around and saw all of the great bass anglers like, Rick Clunn, Larry Nixon, George Cochran to name just a few I realized that my dream of fishing on a professional tournament trail had come true.
On day one I was paired with Lee Bailey Jr from Amston, CT.
Lee is really a true Professional and a credit to the sport of bass fishing. You was a great partner to draw. Lee had located bedding smallmouth a long ways from Mooney Bay the official tournament site. We both struggled for a few hours than Lee caught on fire and before you know it he had a limit, at the time I had one bass in the livewell. To give you an example of what a True Professional Lee is, he actually stopped fishing for over an hour to coach me on fishing for the bedding bass. One thing to remember when fishing as a Co-Angler in one of these events you have to be extremely versatile. You do what you have to do not necessarily what you want to do but these guys will go out of their way to make sure you have a fair shot at catching fish.
On day two I was paired with Skippy Pro Jason Kilpatrick from Satsuma, Alabama. Jason was fishing for largemouths at the northern end of Lake Champlain. We were flipping jigs and tubes way back into the reeds in about 2-3 feet of water.
About half way through the day we started back south to fish for smallmouths closer to marina since they were calling for windy conditions. Well Lake Champlain looked like an ocean as we went south and then we unfortunately took a wave over the front of the boat. The big motor ended up stalling but the trolling motor worked and was able to get back to Mooney Bay Marina to finish our day. Jason ended up finishing 10th overall in the tournament and was a true professional with everything we had happen to us this day. I hope to someday get paired with Jason in a future tournament he was a great partner.
Looking back on this week spent on Lake Champlain it will remain in mind for a very time and cannot wait to fish another FLW Tournament.
Bob and Jason Kilpatrick, Day Two Weigh In
