New Boat - Ranger Z520 - Agust 10th

Well the day finally came to make the drive to Lake Havasu to pickup the new ride, 2012 Ranger Z520 with Mercury 250 Pro XS. I was stoked and couldn't think of anyone better to go with me to get it than my step-dad, who started me out in tournament fishing. The 3.5 hour ride there was nerve wrecking but a blast, Fred's new Ram MegaCab Dually is incredible. I had seen the boat in pictures but it looked even better in person. Justin had the boat completely detailed for me and wanted to take it out on the lake to explain all the new options and show me the all the fun extras in it.
We launched the boat and I didn't realize it was throttle run, have always had a Hot Foot, it scared me at first when hit it but got used to it pretty quickly. We cruised around the lake for an hour or so and he showed me different areas and how to find them on side scan etc plus gave me some awesome fishing advise that he's learned along the way.
Once back we had a few snags with needing longer wiring for the trailer to the plug but Justin offered to help and even paid for lunch. He helped the entire time and I am happy to have been able to purchase his boat, he is a standup guy and I couldn't be happier with the purchase. The boat has tons more room in the front and insane storage and all the new options I was missing on my other Ranger.
Boat Specs:
2012 Ranger Z520
2012 Mercury 250 Pro XS
2012 Ranger Trailer
Humminbird 1198c and Humminbird 998c

Total Bass Addicts Summer Night Series - August 8th - Saguaro Lake

August 8th marked the season finale of the TBA Summer Night Series and the last qualifying tournament for the year end championship. My partner and I qualified via doing the required number of tournaments and decided to go use this as a prefish for the championship in two weeks. There were 36 boats for this tournament, the majority of which we knew were fishing 3 main areas.
We launched and decided to make a run toward the river to fish a reef near the channel edge. We planned to throw crankbaits and topwater but after about 30 minutes that plan changed. We made an adjustment to go smaller which instantly produced 3 fish, all caught on dropshots of the drop. We did keep mixing it up and finally caught the 4th keeper on a crankbait. Once the action slowed we made the move back to areas we had previously fished but none produced any keepers. We decided to run to the main lake to hit same stretch hoping to catch another big fish. Within minutes we caught our fifth keeper and over the next hour we kept culling up but couldn't get the big bite. With about an hour left we made a run back to the river to see if could get the big bite we were looking for. We caught one in a few casts but didn't help us any. We had about 30 minutes left and were going to return to our main area and crank through it but on the ride back, had boat issues - one that I feared was worse than it was - had a sensor going out and my alarms were just warning me of it. We weren't sure what it was at the time so we idled and trolled back which caused us to be late, therefore a DQ. We didn't have enough to win the tournament but we had between 13 and 14lbs, which would have been 13th place.
The season finale was bittersweet, it was the last tournament in my 2004 Ranger, and it was only time never made it back to weigh-in on time. I am going to miss that boat when it sells but the new Ranger and its warranty will allow me to fish a little more stress-free. I can't wait for the season finale and the new season to start.