Joey Payeur
Satisfaction guaranteed? Not in Troy Norman and Jay Samsal’s fishing world.
The tandem completed an 11-year odyssey to reach the top of the heap at the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship last year for the first time.
Anyone thinking they will be resting on their laurels is in for an unpleasant surprise.
“You never go in it to finish second,” stressed Norman, a Fort Frances resident who teamed up with his Kenora angling friend to earn first place last year and will look to become just the fourth team in the FFCBC’s 23-year history to successfully defend its title.
“You hope to win it,” he added. “But there’s a lot of good anglers in the field who have been doing this tournament for a long time and it’s tough to come out on top.
“Every year, you learn from your successes but you learn more from your mistakes,” Norman reasoned.
“We’ve learned enough to hopefully get us in a position to be in the top 10 [come Day 3].
“But some years, it’s not going to go the way you want it,” he conceded.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on Rainy Lake [in the past] and we hope we can come out on top again.”
Norman and Samsal know about both ends of the tournament leaderboard–having finished dead last in their initial attempt in 2006 in being the only team out of 137 who recorded weights to not break the 10-pound mark combined in the three-day event with just 7.11.
Last year was the opposite end of the spectrum, when they strung together three solid days on the water for a winning weight of 53.42 pounds.
“There’s all sorts of different tournaments out there and the one-day tourneys are fun,” said Norman, who along with Samsal nabbed the biggest fish on Day 2 last year to fuel their push to the summit.
“But three-day events like the FFCBC really showcase the anglers that can adjust day-to-day, and you need three good days to win it no matter what,” he stressed.
Norman and Samsal haven’t experienced the tournament life much this year, having only fished in a pair of events in Wisconsin in May, though they finished a respectable fourth and eighth, respectively.
The lack of competitive time centres around Norman’s year-long project of building a new house at his residence on River Road.
But not being in the boat with Samsal as much as usual at this point of the season isn’t adding any worry lines to Norman’s face.
“The week before the tournament is the most important time to be out there as everything changes day-to-day, never mind week-to-week,” he remarked.
“We’ll get a solid four to five days of pre-fishing in,” added Norman, who said supposed secrets that get revealed in pre-fishing can turn out to be nothing but vicious rumours when it’s go time at the tournament.
“I don’t know how many times where we think we’ve got it going good for ourselves and then everything changes, and the best pre-fishing team can end up in the worst position and the worst pre-fishing team ends up the best.
“You have to understand when to leave your spot and when to stay,” he noted.
Norman didn’t hesitate when asked who he was most concerned about taking their spot as kings of the FFCBC hill.
That would be the duo of Mark Raveling (Longville, Mn.) and Mike Luhman (Deer Park, Wis.)–the team Norman and Samsal nosed out by a mere .87 pounds for the win last year.
“Luhman and Raveling are beasts out there on Rainy Lake,” Norman said about the 2012 FFCBC champs who have an astonishing 10 top-10 finishes in their time in the tournament.
“If they’re not first, they’re second and if they’re not second, they probably weren’t fishing the tournament.”
Another team that has Norman’s attention is the all-time FFCBC leader in wins: five-time titleists Joe Thrun (Annandale, Mn.) and Jim Moynagh (Carver, Mn.), who would have been six-time champions had they had even an average day for them on Day 1 last year.
Their mark of 11.86 pounds that left them well back in the pack was followed by the biggest bag of the tournament (and the only bag to bust through the 20-pound barrier) at 20.7 en route to an eventual third-place finish–their best finish as a team since their last win back in 2009.
“Thank goodness for their 11-pound bag,” chuckled Norman, who also pointed to Keewatin’s Jeff “Gussy” Gustafson and John Peterson of Bemidji, Mn. (the 2013 and 2014 champs), along with Minnesota brothers Steve and Scott Sandberg (2015), as other potential threats to their crown.
“Jim and Joe are the prime example of five-time champions,” Norman said. “They bounce back as if they were not stung at all.
“They’re those type of guys who keep it together and grind it out and come back.”
Norman envisions joining Samsal as the last pair standing at the end of this year’s event, but said there’s a bigger picture involved.
“Just to be able to be competitively fishing on Rainy Lake and not at work is nice,” he remarked.
“I’m fishing together with someone who’s been a buddy of mine since we were both able to hold a fishing rod, so it’s great,” he added.
“But if we come out on top again, it will be even better.”
