This was posted on the Chattanooga Fishing Forum
I just had to share this with you. I will be leaving tomorrow for our first WBT stop at Neely-Henry. So the last few days have been pretty hectic trying to get things caught up here at home while preparing for a tournament.

Last night I was doing some work on the computer while my hubby went to pick up our son from a meeting. I realized it was getting late and they still weren't home.


So I checked in through a text message and found out they would be home soon. I noticed when they got home that there were a few too many trips in and out the front door. I finally asked if everything was okay and got no answer. So I asked again.

This time my hubby came walking through the door with a rod in his hand. I still didn't think anything of it. He walked over to me and presented it to me with a big grin. Upon inspection, I quickly realized it was a new rod but not just any new rod. It is a rod made by a very special someone on the Chattanooga Fishing Forum.

That's right. I received my first genuine Fat Albert fishing rod! It was an early gift from Largemouth for our 25th wedding anniversary (August 11th). He wanted me to have it for this season.

These two very special gentlemen made this humble and undeserving lady angler feel pretty special. So I say thank you to both of them -- to Al for his hard work and friendship and to Donald for a wonderful marriage!

(and a later post) Just a note to share how nice this new rod is.

Absolutely wonderful. I caught many keepers with it during practice and four of my five on Thursday were caught with this rod. It has a great feel and I can truly say it is the best fishing rod I have ever had. Whatever is working most whenever I'm fishing is what will be tied on this rod. As for my overall tournament, I'll say I'm disappointed with the final outcome but not so much with my actual fishing. I did have a bait that was catching keepers all week. I had a great practice bringing keepers to the boat except for the day that they sucked the water out of the "pond".

I was able to catch a limit on Thursday but nothing on Friday. Location/direction was everything in this tx and I had no control over that from the back of the boat. All I can say is that I worked as hard as I could to catch fish Friday but to no avail. I did all I could do and I'm okay with that.