Hello from Ukraine

[Banker]

3 more days till we depart from our 12 day stay in Ukraine. Those of you following on Facebook probably already know how USA faired ...for those of you who don't ...here is the skinny version of a very long and interesting road.  We arrived to Ukraine looking out of the windows of our prop jet at all the lakes no longer holding ice and doubting that their could ever be a WIFC XIII. Upon landing we were greeted by a interpreter and a very nice family with a very inappropriately sized can to drive 16 guys and all our luggage 3 hrs south from Lviv to Ternipol ....we made it work with some guys holding suitcases stacked in the aisle ways with thier heads....this is kinda how every detail....which I will leave out of this post ...went from here on out. I give it to Ukraine for their resilience as they did not let Mother Nature stop them from having the 13th annual World Ice Fishing competition. The end result of this never quit mentality though was a constant change of plans ....literally nothing that was planned for before arriving in Ukraine happened as planned but it all.got done with USA and other teams missing many days of much needed prefishing...the end results Belarus won Gold Lithuania Silver Ukraine Bronze and USA was lucky to not have come in last place. We had about the worst showing in team history and are not happy with the results ...we will use the rest of our time here learning from the teams that handed it to us what we can improve on....


Thanks for your continued support despite this miserable representation of our countries athletes who all killed themselves but came up empty handed
Scott

[Ntoiceman36]

 The key to success is a good spotter, without one of those you don't get far, your spotter has to be well prepared and practiced,even if it's just like at a small time dock tournament  to start then move up from there. Good job guys hope you had a good time.

[slabslayer]

Best laid plans.........  All you can do is go fish, sometimes you win, sometimes you get it handed to you. I've been on both sides of that situation. But all we can do is learn from the not so fun days and then it makes the wins even more sweet. Preserve my friend, you'll taste success yet on overseas ice. I know you have put in the time and practice, the results will come!

[holehopper]

Good job Banker,look at what you got to do,and where you got to go,sure winning is nice,but thats fishing,you and the team did the best you could,and thats all anyone could ask for.

[quackpot]

You have to look at the total experience, with everything that went on everyone would be thrown off their game. I think it would be a great experience with other people that enjoy the same sport.