We who fish endure heat and cold, rain and snow and whatever other weather arrives on the days we go to the lakes, with full knowledge that nature is not always in a benevolent mood.

Saturday was one of her bad days.

One hundred anglers and volunteers gathered at Aqua Ohio’s Evans and Pine lakes last Saturday for the 25th Muransky Companies Bass Classic benefiting the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley. It’s an annual date many of us circle on our calendars because the fishing is typically good.

The silver anniversary Bass Classic, however, dawned under an ominous forecast of heavy clouds, bursts of rain and gale winds out of the northwest. Optimists at heart, the angler competitors launched their boats and prepped their gear with high hopes the meteorologists were wrong.

Then the 6:30 a.m. “go” signal was given, and the rain swept in and the wind blew and blew and blew. The tournament, nevertheless, continued under conditions most of us judged to be about as harsh as we had ever experienced. Gusts over 30 miles per hour buffeted the boats and the wind-chill factor dipped into the low 40s. Ghastly weather for the eve of June.

Fishing became almost secondary to trying to stay warm on a day that, by the calendar, should have been sunny and warm. Some teams threw in the towel. But, as always, somebody always figures out how to catch a winning sack of bass.

Those “somebodies” were the teams of Keith Brooks of Hermitage, Pa., and Bob Kopas of Brookfield, and Bill Byers and Scott Cremeans of Columbus. Brooks and Kopas weighed in 19.86 pounds of Evans largemouth. Byers and Cremeans won Pine with 19.64 pounds.

Both winning teams worked hard not only on fishing, but also on pushing past the mental roadblocks set up by difficult weather.

“It was awful,” Byers said a few days after the tournament. “We left heavier clothes back in the truck. I really wished I had my puff jacket, it was that cold.”

With the wind whistling across the mid-section of Pine Lake, Byers and Cremeans nevertheless opted to not hide on the lee side.

We decided to try to take what nature was giving and fished the old-school Lake Erie drift-and-drag,” Byers said. “We let the wind push us along through the alleys of the weed beds, using the trolling motor to course-correct and slow down. The wind was strong enough to push the boat hard, but we would hit the trolling motor to slow us down to under one mile an hour.”

They dragged Texas-rigged soft plastics behind the boat and cranked bladed jigs. Their sack included the tournament’s biggest bass, at just more than six pounds, and lost one that was bigger.

“We caught only seven fish, but they were the right ones,” Byers said.

The win was their fourth in the United Way benefit tournament, following victories in 2010, 2013 and 2017.

Over at Evans Lake, Kopas and Brooks hunkered down and fought the wind to zero in on thoroughly covering specific areas.

“Keith has new batteries, but by 12:30 they were pretty much run down as he steered us through all that mess,” Kopas said, noting the wind velocity increased after a mid-morning shower. “We went where we wanted to go, but we had to deal with that wind. I give Keith credit, I couldn’t have done what he did with boat control. Plus, he left his rainsuit in the truck, so he got soaked.”

Brooks and Kopas cast jigs with trailers and culled through eight bass and numerous northern pike to win the United Way Bass Classic in their 25th try.

“It was a tough day with that weather, but a good day in the end. We didn’t lose a fish, which rarely happens,” Kopas said.

Jack Wollitz has written this column every weekend since 1988. Contact him at jackbbaass@gmail.com.