Chapter 17 - The Storm Pattern
The protest hearing lasted until nearly midnight.
Caleb sat beside his mother in a conference room wearing a shirt two sizes too large and looking terrified.
A tournament attorney asked, “Did you tell Mr. Carter where fish were located?”
Caleb swallowed. “I told him I caught one by the dock.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“What kind?”
“A bass.”
“How big?”
“Maybe a pound.”
Ryan leaned toward Eli. “This is ridiculous.”
Eli whispered, “Let them finish being ridiculous.”
The attorney asked, “Did Mr. Carter ask you for fishing information?”
“No, sir.”
“What did he ask?”
Caleb thought.
“He asked if my math homework was done.”
Even the officials laughed.
The protest was dismissed.
The kidnapping-related phone call was also cleared because tournament rules allowed emergency communication unrelated to competition, and device logs confirmed no fishing information had been exchanged.
By the time Eli slept, thunder was rolling over Blackwater.
Day three banned forward-facing sonar entirely.
Rain hammered the launch ramp.
Wind blew twenty miles per hour from the northwest.
Most anglers planned to seek protected coves.
Eli smiled when he saw whitecaps.
Ryan did not.
“That smile means I’m going to hate today.”
“You’re learning patterns.”
They ran eight miles into rough water.
The storm had broken up baitfish schools and pushed oxygenated water across shallow points. Eli began with a spinnerbait but caught only one fish.
He switched to a bladed jig.
Nothing.
Ryan frowned. “They should be active.”
“Should is expensive.”
Eli picked up a shallow crankbait and started working rock transitions.
One bite.
Small.
By 10 a.m., he was losing ground.
Marcus led the event with a strong early limit.
Ryan checked the weather graph. “Wind changes southwest in an hour.”
Eli stared at the shoreline.
“Pressure already rising.”
“What does that tell you?”
“Not enough.”
He ran into a creek pocket protected from the main wind.
Ryan looked surprised. “I thought we wanted wind.”
“We wanted what wind did before it changed.”
Leaves and floating debris had piled along one bank. Small shad flickered beneath them.
Eli tied on a weightless soft jerkbait and used his Reverse Wind Walk—a name Ryan had mocked until understanding the idea. Instead of casting with the present breeze, Eli targeted places where the previous wind had concentrated food. Fish often remained after surface conditions changed, especially if cover still held bait.
First cast produced a three-pounder.
Second produced another.
“Past wind,” Ryan said.
“Water remembers longer than air.”
Eli skipped the soft bait beneath an overhanging branch using the Three-Ripple Cast.
One touch.
Two.
Three.
The lure slid into darkness.
His line jumped.
Four pounds.
By noon he had seventeen pounds.
Then the outboard alarm sounded.
Ryan looked at the gauges.
“Fuel pressure.”
The engine died.
Wind pushed them toward a rocky bank.
Ryan dropped the trolling motor and fought to keep the boat off shore.
Eli opened the rear compartment.
The fuel line had been sliced halfway through and wrapped with black tape. Vibration had finally opened the cut.
“That didn’t happen by accident,” Ryan said.
“No.”
Tournament safety sent a service boat. Repairs cost them almost ninety minutes.
Officials opened an investigation.
Eli dropped from projected second to seventh while sitting helplessly beside a marina dock.
Ryan paced.
“Victor did this.”
“Maybe.”
“Stop saying maybe.”
“Evidence first.”
“You sound like a detective now.”
“No. Fisherman.” Eli held up the damaged hose. “Same rule. Feel the weight.”
When they returned to competition, only two hours remained.
Eli needed one major upgrade.
He went somewhere Ryan did not expect: a shallow mud flat less than four feet deep.
“In this wind?”
“Water warmed all morning before the storm shifted. Mud holds heat. Bait moved in.”
He tied on a lipless crankbait.
The lure cast like a bullet across the wind. Eli let it sink until it touched sparse grass, then ripped it free.
Cast after cast.
Nothing.
Forty minutes remained.
Ryan said, “We need to move.”
Eli shook his head.
Twenty-five minutes.
Nothing.
“Eli.”
“Wait.”
“For what?”
“Birds.”
Ryan stared at him.
Then three gulls dipped near the flat.
Shad erupted.
Eli cast directly beyond the disturbance.
His lipless crankbait ripped through grass.
The rod loaded violently.
The fish surged sideways, then jumped.
Six pounds at least.
“Big one!” Ryan shouted.
Eli kept the rod low and used side pressure to turn the fish away from the trolling motor.
It surged again.
The hooks held.
Ryan netted it.
Six pounds, seven ounces.
At weigh-in, Eli moved to second overall, only eleven ounces behind Marcus.
Marcus met him behind the stage.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I’m not giving you anything.”
Eli smiled. “You haven’t yet.”
Marcus grinned. “Good.”
Then a state investigator approached.
“We found fingerprints on the tape around your fuel line.”
Ryan straightened. “Whose?”
“Doyle Mercer’s.”
Eli’s face hardened.
The investigator continued, “And Frank Delaney is conscious. He gave a statement.”
Victor Kane’s name was in it thirty-seven times.
During the storm’s strongest hour, Eli tested the matted grass Ryan had mentioned. He rigged a compact creature bait behind a heavy tungsten weight and punched it through two thick canopies. The bait fell cleanly beneath the mat, where bass often use shade and overhead cover as shelter.
Nothing.
On the third mat, one small fish bit.
Eli released it and put the rod down.
Ryan asked, “You’re abandoning punching after one fish?”
“One undersized fish in three mats is not a pattern. It’s a rumor.”
He tried a hollow-body frog across thinner vegetation instead, walking it over holes and pausing at edges. One bass rolled beneath it without committing.
“Missed him,” Ryan said.
“No. He missed me.”
Eli followed with a weightless stick worm into the same opening and caught the fish seconds later.
“Follow-up bait,” Ryan said.
“Exactly. A topwater refusal can show location. Don’t get offended by a missed strike. Use it.”
May you like
That fish did not help his tournament weight, but the lesson stayed with Ryan: even failure could become data if ego did not waste it.
Then the fuel alarm sounded, and theory gave way to survival.
