Elite Series Waddington, NY & Coles Creek State Park

We left VT on Saturday 7/25 and travelled to Coles Creek State Park for a week plus of camping and attending events of the Bass Elite Series Fishing Tournament on the St Lawrence River. Waddington, NY was the launch point for the event.

Our home for the week - notice the No Vacancy sign

Site 109 was ours for the 10 day stay and I have to say, for a guess, we picked a good one. Our friends from Cayuga, Don  & Debbie from Newark, NY were right across the street from us.....

Our site, looking towards Don & Debbie's rig and the St Lawrence River

Our site

Don relaxing from a tough morning of fishing

Mary, Debbie, and Molly relaxing in the shade

We had some interesting views from this scenic area......

A view of Section A - where we were camped. This from the area near the main entrance

A beautiful St Lawrence Sunset

Ocean going Freighters were a common site

A view from the Point back towards our campsite

I was a frequent visitor to Rick Clunn's campsite.

On Saturday night, we got an absolutely wicked thunderstorm and downpour. Even had some hail. When it was all done we had a number of small lakes around the area......

A beautiful rainbow(2) followed the storm

The real purpose of the trip was to meet up with some old friends from Cayuga- Don & Debbie and to attend the events of the Elite Series Bass Tournament in Waddington.

Started off the week with my brother-in-law Carl and a little fishing. We launched at Chippewa Bay and encountered a number of the event competitors rigs parked there.....

Britt Myers(North Carolina) rig

Boyd Duckett from Alabama

We saw some nice sites while fishing, including this one.....

Singer Castle

And then it was time for the tournament. Don and I ventured down first morning to watch the boat launch. We got there around 5 AM for the 6:15 launch of 106 boats.

Chad Pipkens and Nate Wellman

Mark Mendendez

Clifford Pirch from AZ

KVD coming in

KVD rig

The G Man

Big Mama

Edwin Evers

Rick Clunn being interviewed before the launch

Weighing started at 3:15 each day and the crowds seem to grow each day. Last years final day crowd of 34,000 was a bass tournament record.

Day 2 was kind of special. At the end of the day, only the top 50 made it to fish on day 3. That meant 57 anglers went home. One of the ones that made it was my friend, Rick Clunn. I definitely had to make a trip over to his campsite to congratulate him. He was pretty pumped, telling me about catching smallmouth on a spinnerbait and showing me what they did to his spinnerbait. I told him how happy I was for him and wished him luck on day 3.

The morning of day 3 I ventured down at 5:00 AM to catch the action before launch and was fortunate to talk to a couple of the anglers before they launched. One was Josh Bertrand from AZ who at the time was among the leaders. The other was Dean Rojas, also from AZ. An interesting aside, I spoke to one of the officials who was working with the Marshalls(the ones that ride with each competitor) about BassTrak and how it worked. He had a box full of cell phones. One was given to each marshall with the competitor assigned to the phone. With that phone, the marshall would report each catch to BassTrak Central. The phone would provide GPS information for location information. Kind of interesting and something that I think I would like to consider- maybe for Cayuga next year. Anyways, here are some pics from day 3 launch and weighing:

Fred Roubanis launch, day 3

Morizu Shimizu with his Marshall

Ike greeting his Marshall and getting ready for launch

You could not help but notice Skeet Reese's rig - an F650 Ford.

Ike showing off some of his 22LB plus catch this day

One of these was a smallie - 5-9

Rick Clunn and Dave Mercer - Day 3

Competitors coming in after day 3 on the water

Day 3 weighing for Rick Clunn

Rick Clunn had another consistent day on day 3, but it was not enough to make it to the final 12. All in all a good tournament for him. Later that night, when I visited him at his site, he mentioned that his wife was coming in on monday and the two of them were going to spend some time in the area before heading down to Alex Bay for a few days.

Another thing popped up on Saturday that we had to deal with. Mary suspected that Molly had a urinary tract infection, something that she had been warned about with Molly's condition. We were lucky that it was saturday and not monday, because we don't know what we would have done.

Day 4 came way too soon. With a large crowd anticipated for the final weighing, we got there early to get a good seat/location. Good thing we did. While waiting, I decided to kill some time by taking advantage of free boat ride in a Skeeter Bass Boat. And what a ride that was. If I ever have another Bass Boat, it will be a Skeeter. While waiting, had a visit and pic opportunity with Chris Zaldain from California

The final 12 anglers went out and my last pick in the Fantasy Fishing League, Josh Bertrand, had his worst day of the tournament. Oh well. Tournament was won by Edwin Evers from Oklahoma. He definitely had a good tournament and beat out Alton Jones from Texas by about 4 lbs.

Early the morning of the 4th day, I was wandering up to the point with a fishing rod in one hand and tackle bag in the other when Rick Clunn came jogging by from the direction I was heading. When he got close, I pointed to the rod and said I had this addiction that needed a fix every now and then. He laughed and slapped me on the back as he jogged by. I will not forget that. Made my day. A little about Mr Clunn. He is from Ava, MO. He is my age(Old), and he still fishes the entire Elite Series tournament schedule. He travels alone and pretty much does everything himself. He has won 4 Bassmaster Classics, plus who knows how many other fishing tournaments. In short, he is a legend. I refer to him as the Babe Ruth of fishing. And now you know how honored and special I felt to have the opportunity to interact with him.

On sunday night after the tournament was over, it was back to the campsite to start picking up and loading up for the trip home. But not before a nice camp fire(to use up all the free wood I got from 2 different neighbors) and a visit from Don & Debbie. By dark, we had all the visiting done, the area picked up, our stuff loaded, and we were ready to go. We had also had a little beer/wine.

Monday morning we hooked up and were off- to the dump station. And at 6:45 had it all to ourselves.

With that done, we hit the road just before 7:00 AM. Sad day leaving a campground that we thoroughly enjoyed.

One last view up to Section A where we had spent the last week

Instead of the Rt 37 to Rt 11 to Rt 2 to I89 to I91 trip, we elected to take the trip through the Adirondacks which eventually put us down in the area of Lake George, where we found Rt 4. This took us to Rutland and then to Rt 103 and eventually to I91. We got home around 1 or 1:30. The trip was definitely scenic and was about 20 miles shorter than the way up, but time wise it was a little longer.  When we got back to our place, it was to quickly get unhitched, unloaded and ready for Molly's vet appointment, which Mary had made by email in a request on Sunday. A 3:00 appointment with the Vet in Newfane to check on Molly's urinary tract infection was confirmed as we drove home. The diagnosis was also confirmed and antibiotics prescribed. Hoping for the best now.

We most definitely enjoyed this trip and would highly recommend Coles Creek State Park to anyone. It was that good. Now we can look forward to 3 things:

• Next year at Cayuga and visiting with the Millers again(and then Coles Creek the following year.)
• Next week in Bangor, Me and the Escapees Region 3 group
• Finishing up on the sale of our house