Since being notified that I made the US team for this year’s Worlds I knew I needed to step up my game to be competitive with all the other great divers that would be attending. I don’t have the experience like some of the other divers and knew I wouldn’t be able to get as good as them over night so I needed something else to give me a leg up. My plan was to get my cardio up to allow me to do as many dives as possible without getting tired. I put myself on a strict regimen that consisted of: Hot yoga 1-2 times a week min, Mountain biking a min of 2 times a week, Breath hold exercises 4 times a week, and a clean diet. These activities were in addition to my already consistent 6 day a week weightlifting/cardio routine.
We arrived in Arkansas a week before the competition. Scouting wasn’t the best. I was having some sinus issues plus he visibility and type of conditions are not what I’m used to. Where we dive in Nevada we can have 40′ visibility so going to murky water where you can’t see the bottom before you dive makes everything a bit trying. For the gamefish day we found 3 locations where the catfish and walleye consistently were holding up. We were not too worried about striper because our hired gun of a captain is a master at getting big striper in Beaver Lake. Although he did mention in 30-60days from the competition day is when there are bigger numbers of large striper within the boundaries of the tournament. For the rough fish day we found two areas where every time we took a drop we saw multiple carp and drum so we exited those areas immediately to not disturb the fish.
Tournament Day1(Game Fish)The strategy was to limit out on striper, catfish ,drum and walleye. We didn’t care about the size we just wanted to get our limits. The small 1-3lb walleye were still in the spots that we scouted. It quickly got my limit on walleye but the cats were nowhere to be found. We must have seen over 15 cats scouting but nothing on the tournament day. We decided to hit one more area where we saw a group of catfish while scouting. As I dove down through some murk I landed on a rocky area with good viz in about only 18′ of water. I looked right then I looked left. On my left I saw a monster Drum that was facing away from me and had no clue I was there. I shot and stoned him, poor guy had no idea what hit him. I handed the fish over to our capitan(Dusty Yarbrough) and my Dad(our Deckhand) then went back to look for more fish. I took a few more drops then heard Dusty and my Dad yell at me to say they weighed my drum and at 23.5lbs I now had the new world record beating the old record that was held by Wes Stewart at about 19lbs(The official weight came in at 22lbs at the end of the day). After that we decided to get a striper in some deeper areas we knew they were hanging at. We should have waited a little longer to attempt some deeper dives for striper because I couldn’t stop smiling during my breathup. I was so stoked about the drum that I’m sure my heart was racing. I ended up nabbing only a 7 pound striper, a far cry from the 20 pounds I was shooting for to get 20pt max. At this point I was maxed out on my walleye, drum and striper. We spent the rest of the day looking for catfish and one more drum/walleye for my dive partner Courtney Esprecion to get his limit but just couldn’t find them.
After day one I was in the number 4 spot in the Men’s division as an individual. The new World Record Drum helped my score immensely.
Tournament Day2(Rough Fish)The plan for today was to get at least 30 Carp and Drum a piece but I was really shooting for 40+. As we waited for 7am to come we noticed other divers pulling into our #2 and #3 spots. We slid into our #1 spot and started hunting. We were a hour into the day and I only had 2 carp but we were in a very large area so I was hopeful that the fish were still around but just pushed into other spots. My 3rd fish of the day turned out to be a very large Gar. I took a dive and hit the bottom at about 20′ next to multiple dead trees. I stayed down for about 1:30 not seeing anything. Right when I was about to head to the surface I just saw teeth out of the corner of my eye. The gar was so close I had to pull my gun back and pointed the spear directly on its head. When I shot, the spear went right through his gill plate only leaving the line just behind his head. That fish went ballistic. I quickly recalled in the safety meeting they said not to grab it by the mouth but in my mind that was the only logical place to grab it. Those teeth were sharp! I hollered at the boat to come grab it because I couldn’t get my knife into its head. The fish was so tangled I figured it would be easier to just offload it to Dusty and my Dad. That thing was still all over the place so Dusty shouted out(with his very pronounced Arkansa accent) “You wanna keep this skull? If not, I’m going to beat it in the head with this wrench!” which was all of a sudden in his hand. “Do your thing man” I said then went back to looking for carp. I took a few more drops just not seeing anything at all. On all of our scouting days we were seeing the rough fish between 17-23′. I decided to do a couple more deeper dives to see if they were at a different depth. I started doing a few dives at 30-35′ just below the thermocline. I still wasn’t seeing anything. Then on one dive I saw a carp swimming right towards me. As I was about to take the shot I saw stripes, a 20 pound striper swam in front of me. I couldn’t resist and stoned him. As I started to surface with the fish dangling down at the end of my shaft, what looked to be an even larger striper swam between my fins. It was pretty wild! With game fish not counting for the day’s points, my head went to “I hope I don’t lose by 1pt for taking out this bad boy and also where were you yesterday! “The rest of the day was extremely disappointing. I was honestly diving the best I ever had. I was having great breatholds and felt extremely calm but just wasn’t seeing the fish. The couple areas we saw fish in the scout just weren’t turning up any fish. My Dad and Dusty were watching a lot of other dive boats cruzing all over. Their thoughts were that other people were moving because they weren’t seeing much either. We decided that instead of traveling long distances to other parts of the lake where we had seen only some rough fish, we would just stay somewhat close to where we were, get as much time in the water and make every fish count. That turned out to be the correct call. When the day was tallied up I ended up in 2nd place in the Men’s Division. I was beyond stoked. It wasn’t the funnest diving with the dark murky water. In fact it kind of sucked sometimes but I had an absolutely fantastic time! My whole family made the trip out to Arkansas and that just made everything 10 times better. My kids loved seeing all the fish. Beaver Lake was beautiful. I can’t wait to get back out there.
Matt Suiter
