HBC Under The Lights[/b]


The HBC night shoot was held on Saturday, August 16, 2008 and the water and weather conditions were optimum for a great shoot. Or were they? Once again, we had a factor that negatively affected the shoot- fog. The fog was ruthless, which made seeing the fish extremely hard. Those who made it up the Tippy shot some fish, but the majority of the fish were shot down river on the Wabash. Those of us that stayed close or went up the Wabash found the fish were few and far between and the fog made it hard to see the fish that were there. Jarett and I lost our prop about an hour into it, so we had to use the trolling motor the whole night—slowly, very slow. We had 15 teams show up and had two from Ohio and two from the Illinois club (thanks for coming guys). We had some food, talked strategy, raffled off some stuff, then set off at 8 ish.
I’m not sure when boats started coming in, but little by little teams gave in to the relentless fog. By 5 a.m. when we came in several teams had left, so I started the check-in. We had three teams that didn’t check in and one team was late because they ran out of gas. Sorry Nate, you had a lot of categories won. After totaling the numbers checked in by the 11 teams, we had a total of 170 fish (team 7 had over 50 fish, but were DQ’d). First place and $120 went to team 8 consisting of Nate Raimondo, Ray Holohan, and Harold Wanner for their 45 fish. Sorry if I mess up the names, it’s hard to read people’s writing. 2nd place won Andy Creighton and Josh Middleton of team 15 $100. These guys just missed sweeping the 2008 HBC titles! 3rd place was taken by locals Randy Smith, Chad Alting, and Lynn Davis of team 12 for their 24 fish winning them $70. Brandon Aldridge, Steve Schrader, and Joe Urbanski of team 2 received $60 for their 14 fish and 4th place finish. The $50 5th place award went to team 9 consisting of Erik Stark, Tyler Stark, and Jason Smith for their 13 fish.
All the big fish awards paid out $50. The Big Whitey (grass carp) went to Eric Stark of team 9 for his 17.8 pounder. This also won him the Big Fish side pot of $165. Not a fish that would normally touch the winning fish, but it worked in those conditions! I’m sure Starky is please with it! Big Carp (common, bighead, silver) went to Nate Raimondo of team 8 for his 16.2 pound common. Big Buffalo went to Jim Werner Sr. of team 3 for his 15.6 pounder. Big Gar went to Ray Holohan of team 8 for his HUMONGOUS 3.1 lb. long nose. Have I mentioned it was a weird night……And last, but not least, Big Dogfish went to Kent Zimpfer of team 5 for his 7.1 pounder. Well I’m still a little “off” from the weird night of shooting so I’ll wrap it up. Thanks to everyone that participated and sponsored us- Thanks to Jeff and Cindy at AMS for their continued support. Thanks to Steve Schrader for the use of his launch and facilities again. Thanks to Jarett Houston Fish Removal Inc. for his excellent job in the disposal (what a great company). Thanks also goes out to Ed and everyone at the Bowfishing Association of Illinois for the prizes they donated and the camaraderie they have show to the HBC this year. Have a great time in your future shooting and I hope to see all of you at the HBC next year on June 20, 2009 for some Blood, Guts, and Carp Eggs!

Congrats Dustin, It sounds like you had another good shoot even with the tough conditions. I'm hoping the timing will work out better for us next year. We were just getting started sleeping off the effects of shootingthe Rough Fish Round-up. You must have been counting fish before we woke up from that.

Well, you said it Dustin we had it won but made a mistake or two that we will never make again. Runnining out of gas has to be the most embarrassing one, wont happen again ordering another 12 gallon tank this week. The river dropped 9 to 12 inches during the shoot as well making it hard to get back up stream with nearly 400 pounds of fishin the boat. We stopped shooting at 3:40 am and started back up stream to the check in. We couldnt get the boat over 10 mph! Cant run in 12-18 unless i got it on plane so needless to say im buyin 2 new props as well. We had a great time as always and are considering a few different propulsion options on the natural born killa for next season. But enough about last week, last nite we killed 44 fish many over 10 pounds mostly buffs and silvers,and a couple huge commons. Took a man with us for his first bowfishing expierence, he did great! Shot a lot of fish for a newbie, a huge buff, a nice gar that was an awesome shot, and drilled two airborne silvers! Plus many near misses on the flying ones. I was impressed. He is a BASS fisherman and said this was the best thing he has ever done. He was asking about buying my "spare" rig. Got a feelin he may trade that glass boat for an aluminum one nxt season.
Thanks for putting on the HBC tournamrnts Dustin, its a thankless job, but I appreciate you doin it. I am talking with a large outdoor chain for a points series next year and they seem receptive at present so I should have it worked out bythe first of the year to announce what exactly will happen. Untill nxt time