Short Story: ChatGPT won us the Tournament

For context- this is a local annual tournament run by my old wrestling coach. Had about 30 people and 10 boats (3 person teams). Smaller turn out this year as there was a storm in the forecast.

So this was myself (on the right), someone absolutely obsessed with kayak bass fishing. My brother (center) who is a doctor and will be finishing residency in two weeks. And our Dad (left), a man’s man who was raised in Canada on a farm.

My brother never caught a bass his entire life so the plan was just to get out there and have fun. Also, with this being a local tournament, there’s not the same rules as the bigger trails (can use live bait, 3 fish limit, etc.). Also, the bass are measured by length, not weight.

We launch the boat. Cloudy, light rain, and low 60s all day. We first got to a spot that we’ve had some success in the past. Land some smaller bass, a ton of pickerel, but got a decent 14 inch LMB to get us on the board. We stick in this area for some time, I’ll call it the “middle” of the lake. Caught some others around 12 inches, nothing that will get the win but it was fun to get fish in the boat, and my brother was having a blast.

My dads in the back captaining the 16’ Jon boat, my brother in the middle with his bobber and shiners, and I’m standing up front ripping jerk bait the entire day (if you’ve read my earlier posts, I literally can’t put down the jerk bait- it’s been slamming fish all spring).

We decide to make a move, and make a run to the most northern part of the lake and try to pick apart some coves. We barely see any life here other than a tiny pickerel I caught. After about an hour and absolutely nothing, we are feeling that mid tournament slump. We have to make a change.

This is the biggest turn in the day. The doctor on the boat whips out his phone, goes on ChatGPT (edit: turns out it was “Grok”) and starts asking AI some questions. After reading some guidance from the artificial intelligence, my brother with all the confidence in the world tells us we need to go to the most southern part of this lake. Just about the farthest spot from where we were currently.

We set down all the poles and get ready to make the run. We’ve got a 15hp motor for the Jon boat so she’s no slouch. We make it to the southern coves and get to work. No less than 10min later, my dad lands a 16.5 incher, the biggest of our day so far.

This was all the confidence we needed. With about 2 hours left we spend the rest of the day beating the banks of the southern coves.

With 10 minutes left, we had a 3 fish limit at about 45 inches. Didn’t really think we were at all in contention. We pull up to a lay down for our last ditch efforts.

5 minutes left and my brother and I both get stuck in a branch of the lay down. Our dad packs it up thinking we’re all done, my brother gets his hook from the tree and puts his rod down for the day, I get my jerkbait unhooked from a branch and make some final casts.

It’s about 1:28 and tournament ends at 1:30. I’m making some last ditch efforts, although expecting almost nothing given the amount of noise we just made retrieving our lures out of the lay down. I was thinking we completely blew up the spot but I was still casting, while my brother and Dad were ready to get back to launch.

I’m giving some big twitches to my jerk bait and then the old familiar feeling of tension after a twitch. I lean back the pole, start reeling, and I feel the head shakes. It’s game time. I look at my brother and tell him to get the net. It’s literally 1:29 at this point. We get the fish in the net, I dive right in risking all my fingers around the treble hooks, unhooked the fish, got him on the board for a picture. We get the picture. 15.5 inches. Time stamped 1:30. We did it. Pictures had to be 1:30 or earlier. 1:31 and it wouldn’t have counted. This fish took us from 3 fish limit at 45 inches, to now at 47. This was respectable given the lake (and this is in Massachusetts). But still I wasn’t sure if we would even be top three.

We get back to launch and hear some rumblings that today was a really tough day on the water. One team has only one fish. Our eyes start to widen as now we’re thinking we might have a chance. Everyone heads to a local restaurant as we wait for the final tally.

The second place team came in with 46, and we take the win with 47 inches. We couldn’t have asked for a better day.

God bless and tight lines!