Our second tournament of the year was the South Haven Steelheaders Pro/Am held in South Haven, Michigan.  This tournament is one of the smallest on the trail but is a great stopping point on the way from St Joseph to Grand Haven and is a fun event to be a part of.  We spent the week at the Southside Municipal Marina right on the river which presented a nice location but a challenging place to try to sleep as the surge from the waves working down the channel were rocking the boat hard.

Day One:  We again had favorable seas for the first day of a tournament which allowed the competitors to run wherever they wanted which for Team EO was 15+ miles offshore stopping in 180+ FOW.  We worked an area which had been very productive for prefishing yielding great mixed catches, however as is often the case the fished had moved to a new location and fishing became unproductive in that water.  Fortunately for many of the competitors this was the case so we ended the day in the middle of the pack with a chance to move up into the Top 10.

Day Two: Winds and waves was the order for the second day of fishing as bumpy conditions tuned to big rollers as we moved out.  We went to our B spot in 140 FOW on day two to try to hook up on some bigger fish including Lake Trout which was working great.  However the tournament committee decided to call the tournament after 3 hours of fishing because of the 8' + waves, a decision that we did not support.  We were fishing the troughs taking the large waves on the beam and were narrowing down a spot that was producing fish on a regular basis.

Days like Day Two are why you run a boat like the Tiara 3600 Open something that can still perform regardless of conditions.  We ended up in 15th place out of 32 with the shortened day and again finished in the top half of the field for our second tournament.