Hunter Baughman: Greers Ferry

The Bassmaster Weekend Series at Greers Ferry will be a tourny I will never forget. Well...I would like to forget the actual fishing part of it, but the storms that pushed through Arkansas the night before will make it rather hard to forget.
From a fishing aspect, I had been to the lake probably 8 times in 3 weeks. I never got on the winning bite, but was very consistent in catching 9-11lbs, which on this lake will usually draw a decent check. I felt confident enough that I fished a buddy tournament on the lake last weekend and finished 3rd, not bad for running new water all day. I could tell throughout last week that my bite was slowly dying even though I was still catching my 10lbs. By Friday, the day before the derby, my bite had completely died and I did not catch a keeper. I knew going into Saturday that it would be tough especially with the storms moving through Friday night. Saturday rolled around and I struggled and ended the day with 2 fish for 40th place. What is up with me this year?? Always have good practices, but on derby day I can't make it happen...
Back to the storms. By meeting time Friday night there were tornadoes beginning to touch down in Arkansas. When the tournament director read the rules and partner pairings it sounded more like an auctioneer. After it was over we went back to the hotel as the storms were beginning to hit our area. We watched one tornado move through on the other side of the lake and hit Clinton. Shortly after that there was one headed for us and several of us huddled in one of the rooms at the hotel. We heard a knock on the door and they told us to take cover in a local church. So with tornado sirens going off all around about 10 of us got in vehicles and set off to find the church. When we arrived they took us to the lowest floor where there were already several people riding out the storms. We stayed there for probably 2 hours and finally got the all clear and went back to out rooms for a short night of sleep before derby day.
Overall I had fun but am very disappointed in my finish. There were 6 tornadoes that touched down in Arkansas Friday night and 3 fatalities. We should all be very thankful to be unharmed and my thoughts go out to the families of those fatalities. I would also like to thank West Side Baptist Church of Greers Ferry for letting us take shelter with you.
I will check in again in a couple of weeks with the results from the BFL on Greers Ferry.