Entry 96-3

Mark Davis' Worst Tournaments

Thank Goodness For Ice Bags

Editor's Note: Thirty-nine-year-old Mark Davis, who has fished in numerous Classics, has won Angler of the Year three times and has won the Bassmaster Classic in 1995. Davis ranked third on the BASS circuit in 2003 and recently won $100,000 in March, 2004 at the B.A.S.S. Table Rock Lake Tournament in Arkansas. Davis, a quiet, gentle man, competes fiercely once a tournament starts. This week Davis will tell us about some of his worst tournament experiences.

Davis: I was fishing on Lake Martin, in Alabama, in a December tournament. The weather in Alabama at this time of the year was usually not really cold. We may have 30-, 40- or even 50-degree weather, but in this tournament, a cold rain blew onto the lake. As the rain came down, the temperature began to drop, and the rain turned into snow, which wouldn't have been a problem, because I had good rain gear. However, the boots I had on began to leak. My feet got wet, and they got so cold I could hardly feel my toes. My feet were hurting so bad from the cold weather that I gave up and went home.

I began to wonder what I could do to keep my feet from freezing. I remembered I had some long, plastic bags that you put ice in, in my boat. I had on wool socks, so I sat in the bottom of the boat, pulled my boots off and put those plastic ice bags over my socks and then put my boots back on. With the bags between my socks and my boots, my feet started to get warm. So I thought I was doing pretty good. I had solved the problem of frozen feet, and I decided to continue to fish.

A few minutes later, I hooked about a 6- or a 7-pound bass on a crankbait. As I'm fighting him to the boat, I thought, "Well, my day has turned around for the good. I have a big bass on the line. I'm still in the ranks for winning this tournament." But the bass dove and got hung around something. I tried to pull the bass up, and I could feel him pull the line back. The bass felt like he was around some kind of rope or line, so I looked over at the bank and saw an old, abandoned trotline tied to a tree. I figured the bass had wrapped himself around the trotline.

So, I disengaged my reel, kept my thumb on the spool so I could let out my line as I needed to, and used my trolling motor at the bow of the boat to get over to the tree where the trotline was tied. I got hold of the trotline and start following it out to deep water while I'm reeling and keeping tension on my line. When I got the trotline up, I saw this 6- or 7-pound bass wrapped around it. My lure was still in his mouth, but as I reached to lift the fish, he jerked hard and tore off the hooks. I thought, "My goodness! My feet are nearly frozen, and I've lost a really big bass to a trotline. What else will happen?"

Next: Double-Propped

Contents:

• Part 1: The Real Pain-in-the-Neck Tournament
• Part 2: The Tournament I Got Nailed
• Part 3: Thank Goodness For Ice Bags
• Part 4: Double-Propped
• Part 5: The Baseball Bat Lure