End of the Year

2009 isn't over yet but my fishing season is. Since I pretty much only fish for bass and don't do any ice fishing at all I won't be fishing for a few months anyway. We were able to make the season a lot longer than usual though with relatively warm temps all the way until December 1st. December 1st was the last day we got out on the water which is the latest I can remember being out in the boat. It was around 45 degrees for a high but the winds were pretty strong so we didn't last long but in about 2 hours of fishing we managed to boat 15 nice smallies by dragging tubes in 25-30 feet of water. 12 of the fish came from one little spot that we just kept making repeated casts to. They really group up big time this time of year so when you find them it can be really good.

2009 ended up being a pretty good year overall for my results. It was much better than 2008 thats for sure. There weren't as many highlights as I would have liked but there weren't very many low points either. We only managed 1 win for the season and that was in our smaller West Central Bassmasters tourny on Norway Lake. The fishing was extremely tough that day but we had a 15 minute flurry where we put basically all our weight for the day in the boat and it was enough to hold on for the win.

In our Big Bass Bonanza season we ended up 3rd in the team of the year standings with finishes of 2nd, 3rd, and 5th in 5 total events. Our other 2 finishes were in the top half of the field as well so it was a very consistant year. I just wish we could have won the tourny that we placed 2nd in. We were only about a quarter pound off the winning weight and we had the fish on to make up that ground but just didn't put them in the boat.

The Minnesota State Bass Federation Tournament of Champions was also another successful one for me as I ended up finishing in 3rd place after taking 2nd place last year. I finally feel like I'm competing the way I want to in this tournament. It took a lot of years to get to the point where I feel like I can compete for a top 12 spot every year and advance to the Divisional tournament. I'm not saying I will be in the top 12 every year, just that I feel I can make a run at it anyways.

Our Bass League results were only what I would consider to be so-so for the year although there were some high points as well. We did manage to tie for team of the year on Wednesday nights but Thursday was a disaster where we only managed to finish 5th. I know 5th doesn't sound that bad but its been a long time since we finished that low in the standings. We really don't put the time in on these lakes like we used to and I think that might have hurt a little bit. The competition also keeps getting stronger every year. In the fall portion of the League schedule we were able to do very well. We finished 2nd in the first 2 events and then won the final 4 events.

The biggest lowlight of the year was definitely my bomb at the Bassmaster Divisionals on Lake Michigan. I only managed to catch 1 fish a day over the 3 day competition and finished very close to the bottom of the pack. This was my worst tournament in several years. I may not win as many tournaments as I would like but I have been able to avoid the really bad tournaments for the most part until this one. One good thing about the trip though was that I caught my 2nd and 3rd biggest smallmouth of my life during practice. They weighed 5.60 lbs and 5.10 lbs on my scale in the boat so that was very exciting.

As I am writing this it is snowing and the lakes are freezing over. This is not my favorite time of the year at all but fortunately the plan is to head to Alabama for the Bassmasters Classic in February. That is less than 3 months from now so my winter will be a lot shorter than most Minnesota bass fishermen have to put up with.

See you on the water in 2010!

West Central Fall Bass League - Long Lake

This past Saturday marked the final event of our Fall Bass League for 2009. The weather was actually very nice for a change with light winds and highs over 50 degrees. However the water temps were in the low 40's and that made for some very tough fishing on a shallow water lake such as Long. Most of the fish in the lake relate to reeds or shallow rocks so when the water gets cold they can be difficult to figure out. Out of the 5 teams fishing only 2 were able to bring a fish to the scales after 5 hours of fishing. 2nd place went to Tim & Grant with 1 fish for 4.85 lbs. 1st place went to my dad & I with 3 fish for 14.22 lbs. My dad also caught the big fish of the day which weighed in at 5.12 lbs. The win made it a clean sweep for us in October with wins in each of the 4 fall leagues held this month.

We started our day flipping reeds with jigs and soft plastics but after several stops in the first hour we had not had a bite. At this point I decided to try something a little different for the lake and I started throwing a Rapala X-Rap on steeper bare banks. I worked the bait with very small twitches and let it pause for as long as I could stand it. After about 5 minutes with the jerkbait I put a nice 4 1/4 lb bass in the boat. We continued to work this pattern for another hour or so but no luck. After catching one so quick I really thought that was going to be the deal but I guess not. After the jerkbait experiment it was back to the reeds for most of the rest of the day. We just kept working good areas as slowly as possible and eventually we ran across a small area of reeds that was holding some fish. My dad caught the first flipping fish on a black/blue craw tube. That one ended up being the big fish of the day. Less than 5 minutes later I missed a fish and then less than 5 minutes after that I had another one bite 4 times before I finally hooked it. I got it almost to the boat but it was just out of reach of the net when it came off. That fish was an easy 5 pounder and I was really worried that we let the win slip away right there. The last fish I caught came from the same area after we had let it rest for awhile. It weighed in at almost 5 lbs and was caught on a black/blue jig. I am kind of disappointed that we were not able to catch our 5 fish limit since we did have the opportunities but I won't complain too much with 3 fish weighing over 14 lbs and the win.

Since this was the last fall league of the year this is probably my last competitive fishing of the year as well. I'm hoping that November will be a lot more pleasant that October and that theres at least another month of fishing before the lakes freeze up but I won't be writing about those trips in the blog. I'll do a 2009 wrap up in several weeks once the boat is put away for the winter.

West Central Fall Bass League - Nest Lake

Saturday October 17th was our 5th fall event this year after last weekend was cancelled due to bad weather. It's been an extremely cold October so far but Saturday's weather was not too bad with only a light breeze and highs near 45 degrees. The slightly warmer weather didn't heat up the fishing though as only 2 teams out of the 6 boats competing were able to bring a five fish limit to the scales. The 2 limits that were weighed were very nice bags though. My dad and I were able to take 1st place with 16.96 lbs and 2nd went to Tim and Grant with 15.01 lbs. My dad also caught the big bass of the day which weighed 4.99 lbs.

Even though we ended up winning we did not have a great day as far as catching a lot of fish. In fact we only boated 5 fish in the 5 hours of fishing time but they happened to be almost all good ones. Our day started extremely slowly and we didn't even have a bite for the first 2 1/2 hours. Then the next 1 1/2 hours is when we boated all of our fish. I guess we got to the right area at the right time because earlier in the day we were fishing a similar pattern with no luck. All 5 of our fish came on a watermelon jig fished on the weed edge in about 6 feet of water. It seemed like the best areas were where the weeds were the thickest.

West Central Fall Bass Leauge Tournament - Big Birch Lake

This past Saturday is what we call the Fall Bass League Tournament. For the tournament there is a higher entry fee and a longer fishing day, otherwise all other league rules apply. We usually get a higher turnout for the Fall Tournament but this year the weather was very cold and rainy which I think kept many teams from showing up. With only 4 boats fishing it was a winner take all event and my dad and I were just able to squeak into 1st place with 11.10 lbs for our 5 fish limit. We edged out the 2nd place team of Brian & Mark who weighed in 10.90 lbs. The big fish for the day weighed in at 2.75 lbs.

With only 4 boats fishing a relatively good sized lake you would think there would be a lot of room to roam but as it turns out we ended up sharing our starting spot with another team in the event. The spot did not turn out to be nearly as good as I expected and after about an hour of fishing each boat only had 1 fish apiece. The fish I caught did end up being our largest of the day at just over 2 1/2 lbs. I caught that fish on my usual watermelon jig. After that we moved around at hit similar areas throughout the day. Our main pattern was keeping the boat in 15-20 feet of water and casting shallower to coontail beds. Our best area turned out to be one that we hadn't even fished in practice but it did fit the pattern and there seemed to be a lot of fish on it. I stuck with the jig most of the day and caught a fair number of fish but my dad threw a watermelon Brush Hog most of the day and that really seemed to be the ticket. He probably ended up outfishing me 2 to 1 from the back of the boat on the Brush Hog. He also ended up weighing probably all of our fish except for the first one I caught. In a team tournament though it doesn't matter who catches them as long as they get in the boat.

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Ripley

In my last post I said that I wanted to finish September strong with a win and yesterday at Lake Ripley that is just what we were able to do. Lake Ripley is not one of our normal league lakes but since we are fishing on Saturdays we are able to travel a little bit farther and add in some lakes we don't usually fish. Ripley can be a tough lake but it is also known to kick out some very big bass which is why we chose it. By all accounts most of the teams caught a lot of fish for the day but there were only 2 really big bags. As I said my dad & I took 1st place with 17.90 lbs for our 5 fish limit. We just edged out Jason & Wayne who weighed in 17.66 lbs. 3rd place went to Tim & Grant who had a limit for 12.33 lbs. I also caught the big bass of the day which was a 5.56 lb beauty.

Ripley is not a large lake and there really are not many options for catching fish. The week before I had gone out and found a number of quality fish in the one area of the lake that had reeds growing. This is where we concentrated our efforts for most of the day. At one point we fished a few docks where I was able to add 1 of our smaller keepers on a black/blue tube. Otherwise all our other keepers and most of the other fish we caught came by flipping black/red flake or black/blue flake Berkley Chigger Craws in the reeds. Since there is only one reed area there were quite a few boats around but there were a few things that seemed to get a few of the bigger bites. One of the keys I feel was leaving the bait in the water for a long time. A lot of times when flipping you make a few jigs and then pitch to the next spot but this time it seemed like leaving the bait in there for up to 30 seconds even got a lot more bites. Another key was getting way back inside the reeds instead of just fishing the edges like most other boats where doing. It also doesn't hurt when you catch a 5 1/2 lb bass just a few minutes after another boat had left an area so a little luck helps too.

West Central Fall Bass League - Diamond Lake

September 19th was our 2nd fall league of the year. Diamond can be a great big fish lake and it can also be one of the toughest lakes around. On that day it showed its bad side with only 3 of the 8 teams fishing able to come in with a 5 fish limit. 1st place went to Ron & Joe yet again with 13.90 lbs. 2nd place was my dad & I with 11.03 lbs. The big fish for the day was a beauty weighing in at 5.26 lbs.

Like I said the fishing was extremely tough on Diamond. We did better than most though and were able to catch 7 small keepers and 2 shorts in our five hours of fishing. All of our fish with the exception of one, which I caught under a tree, came by flipping various soft plastics into the reeds. There weren't any secret spots or magic lures. We just moved around a lot and stayed persistant and were able to catch a fish here and there. I guess the one mistake we made was not going back through the area where I caught the tree fish. I believe the winners were fishing that pattern but I didn't make the right call and we stuck to the reeds for most of the day.

Tomorrow is our next fall league on Lake Ripley. The word is the fishing is extremely tough out there but we have had rain today so maybe that will change the bite. After fishing 4 events so far in September I'm very pleased with the results. There's been 2 3rd place finishes and then 2 2nd place finishes. Lake Ripley is the last event in September so hopefully we can move up and cap off the month with a win.

West Central Fall Bass League - Green Lake

Our regular season nightly leagues are done with for the year but there is still plenty of fishing time left so we continue to run a league throughout the fall. These are held every Saturday with 5 hours of fishing time and a 5 fish limit. Our first of these events was held on September 12th on Green Lake. We chose Green as the first lake because it will be the last time smallmouths can be weighed before they go off limits during the fall. The fishing was relatively tough but there were several nice bags brought in. We had 10 boats fishing so 3 places were paid. 1st place went to Ron & Joe with 15.18 lbs, 2nd was my dad & I with 14.90 lbs and 3rd went to Dean & JD with 13.51 lbs. The big fish for the day was a 3.80 lb smallmouth.

My dad and I caught quite a few fish in the 5 hours of fishing time but many of them were just barely keepers. I don't think I can remember ever catching so many small fish on Green Lake. We were able to put 5 nice ones in the boat though on a variety of techniques. We basically went running and gunning hitting everything from 5 feet deep to 30 feet deep. Of the 5 we weighed 3 came in around 25 feet of water on a watermelon red flake finesse worm on a dropshot. The deep bite seemed very slow but when you got a bite it was a good one over 3 lbs. One of our other fish came on a tube near a middepth milfoil patch. It is just a tiny little patch of weeds in on the edge of a flat but it has been very good to us the last couple of years. This time we caught several fish around it but only one that ended up helping us. The last keeper we weighed came with about 5 minutes of fishing time left. We pulled up to a flat near the ramp that had a mix of rocks and milfoil. My dad was able to catch that 3 pounder on an old school Chug Bug. I was also able to catch a few fish there on a Spook but time ran out before we could get that one last good one to put us into first place.

Minnesota Bass Federation Nation TOC - Lake Pokegama

As most of you know by now I had another great showing at the State Tournament of Champions. After finishing 2nd last year I backed it up with a 3rd place this year. It was a 2 day tournament held September 10-11 with a 5 fish limit each day. My 10 fish over the 2 days weighed in at 29.24 lbs which still trailed the winner by over 5 lbs but I'm not complaining one bit. I've been fishing these state tournaments for a long time now and finally feel like I'm getting a bit of consistancy so it feels pretty good. I'll break down the tournament by day.

Day 1

Day 1 started with heavy fog but little did we now how long the delay would actually last. It ended up being a repeat of Day 2 last year with an over 3 hour fog delay. The first boats didn't start blasting off until after 10 am and since I was in the 3rd flight I didn't blast off until nearly 10:30. Being in the 3rd flight was definately an advantage though since I didn't have to be in until an hour after the 1st flight weighed in. It also worked out very nicely since I caught several of my big fish in that last hour. In these tournaments you are paired with a fisherman from another club in the state and you each keep your own 5 fish limit. Most of the time I feel it's best to work as a team though to maximize each anglers potential. I had a great partner who was catching a lot of fish in practice and I had also found a number of good areas so even with the delay I wasn't too worried about catching a limit. We decided to start on my partner's water since it was very close to the blast off area and we could see that no one had stopped on it. On my very first cast I had a big smallie come up and slash at my Spook but it never hooked up. After that the action was dead. We moved a couple hundred yards to his next area where I was able to pick up a small keeper on a watermelon red flake finesse worm but that was the only fish there. My partner then wanted to go to my water so we headed to what I felt was my best area. There were a couple small weedy humps near the mouth of a bay where I knew some good largemouth were living. I was able to pick up 2 more keepers there on my trusty watermelon jig with one of them being a good solid 3 pounder. The action wasn't nearly as fast as I was expecting though and we ended up leaving with only 3 keepers apiece. After that we ran some more of his water. All of his spots were basically the same thing. They were sharp drops where we kept the boat in 20-30 feet of water and casted up onto the break. The first one we hit I was able to put a 3 lb smallie in the boat on an olive colored X-Rap. We then ran a few more similar areas including one of his "backup" little fish spots but they were all completely void of fish. By this time it was getting later in the day and we were both short of our limits. Since none of his stuff was working we headed to another one of my areas which was a dropoff and inside corner on a large flat. Right away I started catching small keeper largemouth on my texas rigged finesse worm and had my limit. We continued down the edge and I ended up catching an unexpected bonus fish. I thought it was a largemouth area but I put another smallie in the boat that was close to 3 lbs on my finesse worm. That fish also had 8-10 other big smallies following it but we weren't able to trigger any of them. By this point we had about an hour and a half left to fish and I was feeling really good with 3 fish in the 3 lb range and 2 other solid keepers but my partner didn't have his limit yet and was getting worried. We decided to head to a spot that it turns out we had both found in practice. I knew there were some big fish there but I didn't know how many there turned out to be. I really wanted a limit before heading there because I just didn't what I could catch. It turns out that I had misjudged the area slightly and it was holding a number of big catchable fish. The area was a flat that tapered to a point with sharp drops on both sides. Again we kept the boat in about 20-30 feet of water and cast up on top of the flat. I ended up catching 2 more smallies on the X-Rap that were both over 3 lbs. One of those was around 3 1/2 lbs and actually came on my very last cast of the day. That's 2 years in a row now that I have done that in the state tournament. Those last 2 big fish pushed my limit for the day to 15.87 lbs and my partner had a solid 12 lbs. After day 1 I was sitting in 2nd place about 2 lbs behind the leader.

Day 2

Day 2 started partly cloudy so there would be no fog delay and a full 8 hours of fishing time. It was predicted to stay cloudy and windy most of the day so I wasn't sure what that would do to the fish. They seemed to bite pretty good the day before when it was calm and sunny and smallies generally seem to like the sun so I didn't know what would happen. Since I was in contention for the win my partner for the day pretty much gave me free reign to do what I wanted for pretty much the whole day. I think it was kind of a no brainer decision but I decided to start on the same spot I ended the 1st day. Almost immediately I caught a 3 lb smallie on the X-Rap and figured it was on but after almost 2 hours I was only able to put 1 more small fish in the boat. After that we went to the flat where I had found my bonus smallmouth since there were a lot of fish following it that we didn't catch the previous day. That area was kind of a bust though I did add one small keeper largemouth. Next we were off to the weedy humps. The previous day I threw a jig on them but after getting a tip from one of my club members I went with a watermelon red flake finesse worm on a dropshot. That was really the ticket and we ended up catching a number of fish in a relatively short amount of time. After culling a few times I was up to around 10 lbs and with my weight from the 1st day I knew I had made the top 12. It really takes a lot of pressure off when you know you have accomplished your goal for the tournament. That doesn't mean I was ready to quit fishing though. I was in a good position to win the tournament and I wanted it bad. By now I figured the fish on my started spot had rested enough so I headed back to that area. I fished it for another hour and was only able to catch 1 smallie on the X-Rap but it was nearly 4 lbs. That was the last fish I caught that helped me the rest of the day. For the last 3 hours of the tournament I kept rotating through areas I had found in practice and was able to catch a few smaller fish but nothing that went in the livewell. My 5 fish limit on day 2 weighed in at 13.37 lbs which dropped me from 2nd to 3rd but it's alright since I was definately not on the winning fish and like I said the main goal is just to be in the top 12. One other note from day 2 is that my dad ended up catching the biggest fish of the tournament that day. It was a giant smallmouth that weighed in at 5.67 lbs and was worth a nice chunk of change.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Osakis

Sorry for the delay guys. I didn't quit writing the blog but I was out of town for a week for the state tournament and after that I guess I just wasn't in the writing mood. It's not because the fishing has been bad though. The results over my past four tournaments have been very solid although I haven't been able to pull out a win. There's a little preview for you I guess but first things first. September 6th was the Big Bass Bonanza Tournament of Champions. Only the top 10 teams in points at the end of the 4 regular season events were invited to fish this no entry fee championship. By virtue of our tie for 3rd place in the standings my dad and I were allowed to fish. Each team threw the name of a lake in a hat and Osakis was the one chosen. The fishing for us was pretty good and we ended up with a limit of 8 fish for about 20 1/4 lbs. This was good enough for 3rd place and a nice little payday.

The problem with Osakis is the vast amount of "dead" water. There are miles and miles of reeds but seemingly no fish in most of them. On the flipside to that is once you do find a fish there are usually a lot more in the area. After flipping those miles of reeds in practice we ended up with 2 main areas that held numbers of quality fish. On the tournament day only 1 of them ended up producing a lot of fish for us but the other one did give up 2 of our biggest fish. Flipping the reeds with jigs and soft plastics is basically what we did for pretty much the entire 8 hour tournament day. My dad also added 2 of our better keepers on a swimbait from the same reeds and later in the afternoon we hit one stretch of docks where I added another solid keeper on a tube. We didn't catch any big fish but we had 5 fish in the 2 1/2 - 3 lb range and the others weren't too much smaller. We spent most of the day within sight of the eventual winners but they were able to get a couple slightly bigger bites to push them up to 22 lbs and we just didn't get a few of those bites so that was kind of frustrating but overall it was a very good performance.

Immeditately after the weigh in at Osakis my dad and I headed up to Grand Rapids to begin practice for the Minnesota Bass Federation TOC on Lake Pokagema. Offical practice actually began the day before so we lost 2 days of practice but still had 2 more days to figure something out. This tournament is an individual tournament unlike most of our team tournaments so we would need to find enough fish for each of us to use over the 2 days of the tournament. I'll have the report of that tournament up soon.

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake

Thursday August 27th was also the final night for the bass league this year. The format was exactly the same as on Wednesday but on this night we had the full 10 team field fishing. It was a great night for fishing but the fish just didn't really cooperate for the most part. Ron & Joe again figured it out the best and went back to back in winning both Classics this year. On Thursday they weighed 8.49 lbs. 2nd place went to John & Jacob with 6.05 lbs and 3rd went to Paul & Troy with 6.01 lbs. The big bass for the night weighed 3.37 lbs and the 2nd big bass was 2.98 lbs. They were both caught by Ron & Joe so they made a nice haul for the night and the week. My dad and I were only able to come up with 4.97 lbs which put us in a disappointing 7th place for the night. For whatever reason we fished extremely poorly on Thursdays this year even though we ended up being team of the year on Wednesdays.

As you can tell from our weight we really struggled. We have been getting a lot of rain recently and since we figured the water would be up we obviously wanted to head to Games Lake. We found out quickly that they had not gotten as much rain right around the lake since we were unable to get our boat through the channel since it was much too shallow. That threw a wrench in our plans right off the bat but we regrouped quickly. Our first stop was a stretch of docks and I ended up catching a keeper on my very first cast. I caught another keeper on the very next dock. After that we ran more docks but it was a very long time until we were able to catch our 3rd fish. All those fish came on a black/blue Bleeding Bait tube. After that we tried some reeds where I was able to catch our biggest fish of the night which weighed around 2 lbs. That fish also came on a black/blue tube. We then tried another stretch of reeds where things really went wrong. We had probably 3 bites apiece but neither one of us was able to hook up at all. I don't know how big any of the fish were but with the low weights it wouldn't have taken much to move up. I have no clue why we couldn't catch any of those bites but it just didn't happen and the night was over.

These were the last 2 nights of league for the summer but we will be running the fall league again. We run the fall league on Saturdays since it's starting to get too dark in the evening this time of year. We also fish for 5 hours with a 5 fish limit instead of 3 hours with a 3 fish limit. Otherwise the rules are basically the same. We will be running these every Saturday until the end of October or as long as the weather permits. My next 2 events before the fall league begins are the Big Bass Bonanza TOC which is being held next weekend on Lake Osakis and then the week after that we have the Minnesota BASS Federation TOC on Lake Pokegama.

West Central Bass Leage - Nest Lake

Wednesday August 26th marked the final night of the West Central Bass League for the 2009 season. Only the top 10 in the points at the end of the year were invited to fish this final night. Each team then threw a lake name into a hat and Nest Lake was drawn. We ended up with only 9 teams fishing because of last minute circumstances that forced one team to drop out for the night. 1st place for the night went to Ron & Joe with 13.15 lbs which is the heaviest weight I can remember coming from Nest Lake. 2nd went to my dad & I with 11.75 lbs and 3rd went to Jeff & Kris with 10.45 lbs. The big bass for the night weighed 5.11 lbs and the 2nd big bass was caught by myself. It was a beautiful 4.48 lb smallmouth.

That big smallmouth was my first fish of the night and I caught it after fishing for less than 10 minutes. We fished a rocky area with green pumpkin tubes and watermelon worms rigged on a dropshot. After about 45 minutes we had 3 fish in the livewell so we headed to a few more areas around the lake. We tried several weedline areas for largemouths and several other rocky areas for smallies but the action was pretty slow with only a few fish that wouldn't help us. Eventually we went back to the starting area and it again was pretty slow but my dad was able to catch one about 3 1/2 lbs on a tube that upgraded our limit a little bit. Once again the action slowed so we bounced around the lake running and gunning looking for one more really big bite but we never caught another fish. I knew we had close to 12 lbs in the livewell so I was still feeling pretty confident since that would be the winning weight on Nest any other night except on this night.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake

Just like Wednesday this past Thursday was the final regular season night for the league with the Classic to follow next week. We only had 10 teams show up to fish Green Lake on a cloudy, rainy and windy night. I don't blame most people for staying home because those are really the worst conditions for Green. The fish definately seem to bite better with a little bit of sun. The wind, if it's not too strong, is alright but the clouds and rain really seem to shut down the bite. That was reflected in the results for the night as most people reported struggling to catch fish. 1st place went to my dad & I with 7.73 lbs, 2nd was Paul & Pete with 7.71 lbs and 3rd went to Jim & John with 6.72 lbs. The big fish for the night was caught by my dad and it weighed 3.43 lbs. Wayne & Brad ended up holding on to the team of the year title with 189 points. They led pretty much the entire year and held off 2nd place by a mere 1 point. My dad and I ended up in 5th place for the standings which is the worst I can remember doing in forever.

Even though we ended up winning it was by no means easy. In fact we only caught 3 fish the entire night. We started on a shallow rock area that has been pretty good to us this year. It took awhile to get a bite but I finally put one in the boat on a green pumpkin Strike King KVD tube with a 1/2 oz weight. That fish was around 3 1/4 lbs so it was a very nice start to the night. After that we bounced around a few other shallow, mid-depth and deep areas with no success. After that we tried another deep area that only ever produces 1 fish but if you catch one there its a good one. That is where my dad caught the big fish of the night on a watermelon Lake Fork Tackle Trick Worm rigged on a drop shot in 26 feet of water. At this point it was 8 pm and we only had 2 fish. With an 8:45 pm check in there wasn't much time left. We tried a few more deep areas since we were seeing a lot of fish and bait but couldn't get anything to go. Finally I decided to run to the east side of the lake out in the wind. There is a tiny weedbed in about 12 feet of water that has had fish on it all year. We got over there with about 15 minutes to fish and I boated our final keeper on the KVD tube. It was only a little over 12 inches but it ended up being enough to seal the victory for the night.

West Central Bass League - Lake Koronis

This past Wednesday marked the final regular season night of the year for the West Central Bass League. There is still 1 more night to fish but that is the Classic where only the top 10 teams are invited to fish. We only had 11 teams show up to fish on a rainy and tough night for Koronis. 1st place went to Ron & Joe with 9.85 lbs, 2nd was Bill & Todd with 7.64 lbs, and 3rd was Paul & Pete. My dad and I weighed 4.80 lbs which put us in 6th place for the night. The big fish for the night weighed 4.03 lbs. Since this was the last night the team of the year was decided as well. Two teams ended up tied with 186 points and after some controversy over the tiebreaker we have decided to have co-teams of the year. Those teams are my dad & myself and Paul & Pete.

Our fishing for the night was extremely tough. We actually started off pretty quickly by boating our limit in just over half an hour. All those fish came from docks and trees on a black/blue Strike King Bleeding Bait tube. Unfortunately that first limit was what we ended up weighing in. We did catch a few more fish from the docks and trees but nothing that would help us. After awhile we headed to a smallmouth area where I was throwing a big Super Spook and had several fish blowup on my bait but none of them would get hooked up. Finally I hooked into one and had it almost to the boat before it came off. That fish was probably around 2 1/2 lbs which ended up costing us the outright team of the year title since it would have moved us up several spots for the night. After the action slowed in the smallmouth area we bounced around the lake trying shallow and deep with absolutely no action at all.

B.A.S.S. Northern Divisional - Bays de Noc

I guess I've put off writing this for about as long as I can but as most of you know by now I didn't fare very well out in Michigan. The tournament was held August 12-14 and my 3 day total was 3 fish for 8 lbs 13 oz. That put me in 94th place out of 113 anglers. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong but for the most part nothing really went right for me the entire week. I'll do a quick recap of the highlights few as they may be.

I arrived in Escanaba Michigan on Thursday the week before the tournament was to start. This gave me 5 full days of practice time before the actual tournament began. 5 days may seem like a lot but if I had it to do over again I'd want much more time. Not only did I struggle to find areas holding concentrations of fish but getting around on the water was difficult and time consuming. It would have been much nicer to have more time to pick and choose when and where to go out. With so much water to cover on a huge place like that 5 days really isn't a lot. But I'm not making excuses. Out of the 5 days of practice I only really had 1 good day where I thought I got onto something that would work for me in the tournament. That day was actually sunny and calm which was a rarity throughout the time I was there. I got onto a super shallow rock/sand pattern and was able to catch fish in most of the areas that seemed to have the right mix of bottom cover. I ended up getting around 20 bites that day but I shook most of them off. I did end up boating 5 of the bites I had and by my caculations would have had nearly 22 lbs for those 5 fish if it was a tournament day. Among those 5 fish were my 2nd and 3rd biggest smallmouth ever weighing in at 5.60 lbs and 5.10 lbs. Needless to say I was pretty excited about what I had found and thought I had a decent chance in the tournament even though the rest of my practice was not very good at all.

On day 1 of the tournament we again had calm conditions so I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I started on an area with the shallow rock/sand mix where I had caught my biggest fish. Right away things didn't seem right. The entire week we had been having south winds and the day before the tournament was a pretty strong north wind. With so much area of water the wind really moves alot of it around. The south winds had been blowing water in all week and the north wind blew it right back out. My already shallow area was now almost a foot shallower than it had been. I don't know for sure if that was the reason but the fish were entirely gone. I ran a few more miles down to my next similar spot and found the same thing. All the fish were gone except for one that we spotted. I made a few casts at it but was unable to get it to bite but my partner threw one cast at it and hooked and lost it. That fish looked to be between 4-5 lbs but it was the only fish in the area. After spending a few hours on my stuff we made the long run over to Big Bay de Noc. At least the lake was calm because it still took a little over 30 minutes running wide open to get to my partner's spot. That is by far the longest run I have ever made and when we got there it looked like it was going to be well worth it. Almost immediately I boated my 1 fish of the day. I caught it on a green pumpkin KVD tube and it weighed in at 4 lbs 1 oz. We continued fishing the area for several more hours and my partner boated 4 fish but I was never able to put another one in the boat.

Day 2 was again cloudy and with a fairly strong south wind. With the change in conditions I decided to start in the same areas again. I was just hoping something would move those big fish back in there or at least some keepers. That didn't happen and after a few hours I knew I needed to do something else. My backup area was a huge sand flat. There were high spots and grass patches on it but where I ended up catching my fish was a pipe that I hadn't even seen on my practice day there. We were just going along the sand and my partner says he thinks he saw a pipe running out across the lake. I turned the boat around and sure enough there was a pipe in the sand. Some of it was buried under the high spots but where the water was deeper it was exposed. We followed it for as far as we could and I eventually boated a 3 lb 4 oz smallie on a chartruese and white spinnerbait. After that it was off to his spots and that ended up being the only keeper I caught for the day.

On day 3 the wind was blowing right off the bat in the morning. My partner wanted to make the run to the Big Bay and I said we could go there because I didn't have anything going. Several of the boats ahead of us started in that direction but soon turned back around. Right as we were about to blast off my partner says not to make the long run. Now we were going to have a lot more time to fish instead of run but the problem was I didn't know where to catch any. I didn't want to go to the same areas first thing in the morning since that hadn't worked at all so instead we went to the pipe from the previous day. I struck out on the pipe but further down on a weed patch I boated my 1 keeper for the day on a green pumkin KVD tube. It was only a 14 incher, which is the minimum length, but it was a keeper. It actually ended up being my only claim to fame of the tournament since it weighed in at 1 lb 8 oz. which was the smallest fish weighed by any competitor all 3 days! After that we tried some of my partner's areas where he boated a small keeper but nothing for me. By now it was getting later in the day and I wanted to see if my big fish areas would be better at that time. Unfortunately the waves were huge by this time and it took forever to get there. Once we did get to the area I wasn't even able to fish it properly. I needed to be really shallow but the waves were so big if I got up real shallow the boat would have been bottoming out in the troughs. All the while the wind continued to build and by the time we were ready to head back to the weigh in the waves were consistant 6 footers with a few even bigger than that. It was the wildest water I have ever seen and honestly I'd rather not see it again. One boat actually got flipped over and they needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard. It wasn't my idea of fun thats for sure.

So all in all I'd have to say this was my worst tournament performance in years. I feel like I've gotten pretty consistent with my performances but this was a total bomb. If I had to do it all over again I'm not even sure what I would change. Obviously I needed to practice differently and probably spend more time over in the Big Bay since that is where many of the best bags came from even though the ride there and back would be treachorous. I basically fished like a rookie which at this level I was since it was my first time. Next time I make it back to the Divisionals I guarantee the same thing won't happen.

West Central Bass League - Lake Florida

I am writing this from Michigan so I do not have the details with me and I am doing this from memory so it may not be completly accurate. This past Wednesday we had 18 teams fishing on a very tough night for Lake Florida. I do not remember who finished where so I will only be giving the weights. 1st place weighed 7.87 lbs, 2nd had 7.26 lbs, 3rd had 7.03 lbs and 4th weighed 6.93 lbs. The big bass for the night went 4.54 lbs. My dad and I only caught 2 keepers for 4.44 lbs. I'm not sure what place we finished but it was well back in the pack.

We spent the majority of our night out in deep water and that bite just wasn't happening. I ended up catching our 2 keepers in one area on a watermelon red flake Lake Fork Tackle Trick Worm. I also missed one other bite there that probably would have been our third keeper. Other than that we fished a few docks where we caught a few short fish but overall our night was very uneventful.

Michigan has been pretty uneventful as well. I'm not catching very many fish and it seems like they are really scattered. It's hard to find any areas where I feel like I can catch more than a couple fish. With a 3 day tournament I am going to have to find something more consistant if I am going to have any chance to do well. On a positive note I did catch a smallie that weighed almost 4 1/2 lbs and in that general area I saw half a dozen more that were all the same size. That won't be enuogh for the whole tournament but I feel like I can maybe at least pull one big one out of there each day. I still have 3 more days of practice left so hopefully I can figure something out. I'll keep posting updates when I have time.

Big Bass Bonanza - Clearwater Lake

Sunday was the 4th and final event of the regular season on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit. 32 teams showed up to fish Clearwater Lake and most were able to weigh in their 8 fish limits. The fishing for most however was extremely tough as the bigger fish seemed to disappear. The weights were extremely low with just a little over 18 lbs taking 1st place. My dad and I weighed a disappointing 13.94 lbs for our 8 fish which put us in 15th place for the day. Coming into the day we were in 2nd place for the team of the year standings with a good shot to take over the top spot but with our poor showing we slipped one spot into a tie for 3rd. It's a little bit tough to take knowing that we had such a good chance at team of the year but I'm not going to get too down about it because I would still consider it to be a good season overall on the BBB trail. With our 3rd place in the standings we qualified for the Tournament of Champions which will be held on Lake Osakis in early September. I haven't fished Osakis very much and its been at least 6 years if not longer since I have been there so it will be interesting to see what we can figure out for the TOC. I enjoy going to new waters so it should be fun even though the lake doesn't have the best reputation.

This is the part of the blog where I talk about our fishing for the day but this time there isn't going to be much to tell. We started in an adjacent lake where we found 2 areas that were holding quality fish. They were both weedline areas and the fish were biting right away. We had our 8 fish in the boat in just about an hour using watermelon Brush Hogs and Lake Fork Tackle Trick Worms. After that our day was pretty much done. For the rest of the day I think we caught 5 more keepers with a couple that helped us upgrade by maybe half a pound. We kept rotating through areas where we had found them in practice or where we had caught them in the past but nothing seemed to work. One thing I found really strange was our complete inability to get a bite on a jig. In practice they were eating it pretty good but on tournament day the only jig bite I had was a northern. For whatever reason the fish just were not doing the same thing they were on our practice days. Obviously that means you have to adjust and we did but we just were not able to figure it out well enough on Sunday.

My next tournament will be the B.A.S.S. Northern Divisional on Bays De Noc in Michigan which will be held Aug 12-14. I qualified for the tournament by finishing 2nd in last years State Tournament of Champions. Unfortunately this means I will be missing 3 league nights and the West Central Bassmasters Summer Classic on Green Lake Aug 15th. Obviously the Divisional is a much more important tournament so I don't mind at all but it is going to make things very interesting at the end of the year for our leagues. I'm not sure what kind of internet access I will have out there so there may not be any updates for awhile. If I can get on a computer out there I will try to post updates on how it's going. Otherwise I'll do my full report when I get back home in a few weeks.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake

This past Thursday was a new event for the bass league. The Norway Cup has been a long running night for bass league so this year we decided that Green Lake also deserved a special Cup night. The Cup events are basically the same as any other league night with the only differences being a higher entry fee and 2 big bass payouts instead of just 1. We had 15 teams fishing and many were rewarding with some excellent fishing. Most bass fishermen would agree that the fishing on Green has been "off" this year but it seems like its starting to turn around a little bit. 1st place went to John & Jacob with 10.51 lbs, 2nd was Ron & Joe with 9.86 lbs, 3rd went to Dean & John with 9.56 lbs and my dad & I took 4th with 9.23 lbs. The 2 big bass for the night weighed 4.32 lbs and 3.99 lbs.

We ended up having a very good night for numbers of fish and also were able to get better size than we have been able to any other time on Green this year. We actually weighed 3 fish that were all 3 lbs or a little more which is the first time we have caught 3 3 pounders on Green this year. We ended up catching probably about 15 fish in the 3 hours so it was a lot of fun. We started our night on the north side on a shallow rock area. I put a 3 pounder in the boat after about 15 minutes on a green pumpkin Strike King KVD tube with a 1/2 oz weight. We fished around for awhile after that but got no more strikes so we headed to the east side of the lake. We fished several different areas on the east side with a spinnerbait and tube and were able to catch several fish to fill out our limit and cull a couple times but still only had the 1 good fish. Next we headed to the south side near a milfoil patch that has been pretty good for us this year but instead of a good smallie my dad put a 6-7 lb walleye in the boat. After that we headed back to our starting area to work it over again. This time the fish were biting a little bit better and we caught several fish with one of them being another 3 lb fish on a Strike King tube. With time running out we made one final move to another milfoil patch near the access. I brought the boat off plane and checked the time. It was 8:54 pm so there was very little time to fish but we were only about 30 seconds from the ramp so there was time to catch one more and thats what I did. I cast my tube right in the middle of the milfoil and got kind of hung up in it. As soon as the bait popped free from the weeds another 3 lb smallie was on it and in the boat. That was yet another last cast fish for us this year and we made it back to the ramp with about a minute to spare.

West Central Bass League - Long Lake

This past Wednesday the West Central Bass League headed back to Long Lake just north of Willmar. We had fished out there a few weeks ago and the weedgrowth was so thick it made moving around very difficult. This time a lot of those weeds had died back but the lake now has a large amount of that bright green slimy stuff growing everywhere. The fish didn't seem to mind though as we had the largest weights of the year weighed in. There were 18 boats fishing and only 36 fish weighed in so the numbers weren't great but the average size of thoese 36 bass weighed an astounding 3.86 lbs. 1st place went to David & Lenny with 3 bass weighing 15.29 lbs, 2nd place went to Ron & Dave with 13.06 lbs, 3rd went to Ron & Joe with 12.80 lbs and 4th went to Brandon & Evan with 12.21 lbs. There were also 3 more bags over 10 lbs who finished out of the money. The big bass for the night weighed 5.47 lbs. My dad and I struggled to catch just 1 fish for 3.73 lbs and 14th place.

There really isn't much to tell about our night. We had 2 bites the entire night and only boated one of them. My dad caught our one keeper on a black Spro frog in the reeds. My only bite came on a watermelon Berkley Chigger Craw but as soon as I set the hook the fish was already buried in the reeds and I had no chance to get him out. We spent most of our night flipping which was apparently the wrong thing to have done that night as it seems most of the big bags came on moving baits like spinnerbaits and topwater. Last year we caught our heaviest 3 fish league bag ever weighing over 16 lbs on Long Lake but this year after our 2 events we only weighed 3 fish total. We just never figured them out this year but thats fishing I guess.

Green Mill Tournament - Green Lake

About a month ago the guys in our club started hearing talk of a tournament that was being held by Green Mill Restaurant in Willmar. They ended up approaching us in the club for help with running the tournament and using our equipment for the weigh in. 14 teams ended up fishing with about half the teams from our bass club and the other half being employees or friends of Green Mill. The wind blew extremely hard all day and the fish didn't bite as well as everyone would have hoped but it seemed like everyone had a good time and there is already talk of running another one next year. 1st place weighed in a 5 fish limit of largemouth weighing 15.07 lbs. 2nd place weighed in 5 smallmouth for 13.99 lbs. My dad and I finished in 3rd with a limit of smallies weighing 13.67 lbs. The big bass for the day was a 5.11 lb largemouth caught by the winning team.

We started our day on a milfoil patch near an inside corner on the south side of the lake. The waves were already coming in pretty good right away in the morning so we figured we needed to catch them before it got too windy to fish at all. We didn't end up catching any fish out of the milfoil but as we moved down the corner breakline we found the fish schooled up pretty good but the size wasn't what we had found earlier in the week. All those fish came on green pumpkin tubes in 8-10 feet of water. One thing I think helped trigger some of the bites was using a heavy 1/2 oz weight on the tube and really snapping it hard. That seemed to get more bites than just dragging the tube slowly along the bottom. After leaving the south side at around 9 am we had a very slow next few hours. We spent much of that time fishing deeper humps with drop shots but only managed 2 small fish. We also made an attempt to fish the south east section of the lake but the wind was blowing so hard we had waves coming over the front and back of the boat and it was just impossible to fish correctly in those kind of waves. At around noon we finally got into another little wad of fish on the north end of the lake. This time we were fishing much shallower around rocks in 5-6 feet of water but the heavy tube was still the bait of choice. I put 3 of our weigh fish in the boat in about 5 minutes and probably 20 minutes later my dad caught our big fish of the day which went 2.90 lbs on our handheld scale. After that flurry of activity the action died again and I don't think we caught another keeper in the last 1 1/2 hours.

West Central Bass League - Nest Lake

We had 14 boats fish Nest Lake on Thursday night. The fishing again was tough for most and out of all the fish weighed I believe there were only 5 smallmouth brought to the scales which has got to be close to a record for the fewest brown fish weighed in on Nest. 1st place went to Scott & Al with 9.55 lbs, 2nd was Ron & Joe with 8.53 lbs, 3rd was John & Chad with 8.41 lbs and 4th went to my dad and I with 7.59 lbs. The big bass for the night weighed 3.77 lbs.

Our fishing for the night was extremely slow although I think our bag could have been much better if we hadn't missed a couple of bites. We targeted smallies for most of the night with tubes and drop shots and caught maybe 6 smallies. We also had a few weedbeds we wanted to check for largemouth but only were able to manage 2 of those that went around the 2 lb mark. With about 20 minutes left in the night we started throwing Super Spooks and the action really seemed to pick up although most of the fish just kept hitting at the bait but not actually getting hooked up. We were able to follow up with tubes and catch a few of those fish though. We ended up weighing in 2 of those smallmouth that we caught in the last 20 minutes and it ended up being the difference between getting in the money and being in 5th place.

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna

The bass league returned to Johanna this past Wednesday and 15 teams showed up to try to figure out the fish once again. Some teams reported the fishing to be very tough while others caught a lot of fish. The weights were not all that impressive as is the case on Johanna the last couple of years. There was 1 big bag brought in and that was by my dad and I. We took 1st place with 11.87 lbs for our 3. 2nd place went to Tim & Grant with 9.43 lbs, 3rd went to Dean & John with 9.06 lbs and 4th went to Troy & Chad with 8.96 lbs. My dad caught the big fish of the night and it weighed in at 5.40 lbs.

Last time on Johanna my dad and I really struggled and only managed to catch 4 fish and they all came in the last half hour. This time we decided to just go where we caught those fish and stay there the whole night. We got to our area and put the trolling motor down and never picked it back up until it was time to head in. We ended up having a pretty good night catching around 15 bass but only 3 of them were over 3 lbs. Fortunately in these events we only need to weigh 3 bass. All of our fish came on Lake Fork Craw Tubes and Strike King Flippin Tubes in a variety of colors that we pitched to reed beds.

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake

Thursday was another cold windy day and as a result only 11 teams showed up to fish Norway Lake. This was our lowest turnout of the year but I don't blame them. I wish we could have stayed home too. 1st place went to Ron & Joe with 10.92 lbs, 2nd went to Brandon & Brent with 7.26 lbs, and 3rd was Brad & Wayne with 6.23 lbs. The big bass for the night went 3.95 lbs. My dad and I blanked which put us in a tie for 10th with another team who also zeroed.

Not only did we not catch a single keeper we didn't even have a single bite from a bass. I caught 2 northerns and those were the only 2 bites we had for the night. This is were I usually talk about the fishing but obviously there isn't much to tell. We fished the first 1 1/2 hours in Games and had nothing on the 5 spots we tried. The water is so low getting through the lakes that we had to make a decision about going back to Norway because if we did there would be no returning to Games. We did make the move back to Norway and fished a bunch of different stuff but got no bites doing anything there either.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

We were back on Eagle Lake this Wednesday. 14 teams showed up to compete which was the lowest turnout we have had on Wednesday this year. I think the strong winds coupled with the smallish lake kept at least a few people away. That is ok though on a lake like Eagle because space is at a premium with everyone fishing the same docks all night long. 1st place went to Paul & Pete with 10.67 lbs, 2nd was Ron & Joe with 9.80 lbs, 3rd was David & Lenny with 9.20 lbs and 4th went to Troy & Chad with 8.98 lbs. The big bass for the night went 4.06 lbs. My dad and I struggled and only caught 8.48 lbs for 6th place.

We fished docks for most of the night like everyone else and we had our 3 fish limit in about an hour but it just didn't seem like the docks were working as well as usual. At about 7:30 we ended up going offshore and found some very nice weedlines. There weren't many fish there but we did end up with one of our keepers out deep on a watermelon Brush Hog. I also caught a nice 19 inch walleye on a jig that I will be eating tonight. Our 2 other fish did come off of the docks on a green pumpkin tube and a watermelon jig.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Ida

This past Sunday was the 3rd of 4 stops on the Big Bass Bonanza tournament circuit. Ida is a deep extremely clear lake that is known for huge numbers of bass. Catching fish on Ida is not a problem but what is difficult is finding the quality fish needed to win or do well in a tournament. Even though the average fish is well under 2 lbs it still takes around a 3 lb average to win and close to that to do well. After our practice I was just hoping to catch 16 lbs for our 8 fish and salvage a decent finish to keep us near the top in the team of the year standings. We ended up doing better than I expected and weighed a limit for 17.84 lbs which put us in 10th place out of 33 boats. Obviously this was by far our worst tournament of the year but I feel pretty good about it because it could have been a lot worse. I also feel we made good decisions on the water and fished a clean tournament to maximize the little we had going. The winners weighed 8 fish for 21.33 and 2nd place had 19.82 lbs. In the team of the year race we slipped from a 3 way tie for 1st to 2nd position but we are still in great position to make a charge at the team of the year. 1st place right now has 139 points but we are right behind with 136. There are also 2 teams with 135 points so the race is extremely tight.

Like I said earlier our practice was mediocre at best but we did have a few areas I thought we could catch 2 pounders on and maybe a few bigger than that. We started on an area where we caught our biggest fish in practice which wasn't even 3 lbs but there were also a few other decent fish around and if everything went right I felt like we could catch a limit of 2 pounders pretty quick and then try to figure out how to get a big bite the rest of the day. Of course that didn't happen even though we caught our limit in the first hour. The problem was the fish shrank and we didn't even have anything over 1 1/2 lbs let alone 2 lbs. After that hour it just seemed like the bigger fish weren't biting or had moved so we went to a few other areas to try to upgrade. We tried a few deep weedlines, shallow cabbage beds, reed beds and docks but only managed a few more small fish that helped by ounces not the pounds we needed.

By this point we had run through the 4 areas where we felt we had the best chance to do well and only had a small limit. With not much else to go to we headed back to our starting spot and hoped the fish had positioned better or were more willing to bite later in the morning. The spot really wasn't a spot but a long sharp breakline with sand on top and weeds growing right on the drop off. There were a few key areas along the drop off but really you could catch a fish anywhere along it. This time when we came back the eventual winners were sitting right on one of those little key spots. They were moving pretty slow and I know they are good fishermen so I knew something was going on and they were catching good fish. There was still plenty of area so we worked around and a few hundred yards north of them we finally started getting into some better fish. After working the area for a couple hours we had upgraded our bag to a little above the 16 lb range. All of those fish came on a watermelon Picasso jig with the small 2 1/2 inch Lake Fork Pig Claw trailer. The big key to the jig I feel was downsizing to lighter line and a smaller profile jig and trailer in the clear water. Usually if your looking for bigger fish you want to use bigger lures but in this case it was the exact opposite.

After the bite slowed in our primary area we had about an hour left in the day. The sun had started to come out so we decided to fish docks for the rest of the day. Dock fishing on Ida can be hit or miss but traditionally some of the biggest fish come from the docks and we have a few good stretches that we have relied on over the years. When we pulled in on our best docks there was already another boat there but they were far enough down that I was able to get the 10 docks I really wanted to fish. Almost immediately I caught one that went about 2 1/4 lbs and a few docks down I popped another that went 2 3/4 lbs. Both those fish were caught on a green pumpkin Strike King Bleeding Bait tube. Those were the last 2 fish we caught for the day but they were extremely important to our finish. The weights all the way down the board were very tight and without those 2 fish we would have finished much closer to the bottom of the pack than the 10th place we got.

The last stop on the Big Bass Bonanza trail is Clearwater Lake in early August. We fished it earlier in the year for one of our club state qualifier tournaments and didn't have a great day but I do like fishing on Clearwater. We have a fair amount of experience on the lake and even had a win on the Midwest Sportsman ciruit there a few years ago. I am definately not going to change the way I've been fishing just because of the points race. I go into every tournament with the goal to win and it will be no different for Clearwater. We will fish the way we feel is the best way to win the tournament based on our practice. Even if we wanted to fish conservatively it wouldn't make any sense because the points are so tight and the competition is so tough that if you stumble just a little bit theres a bunch of teams that will jump right past.

West Central Bass League - Long Lake

We tied our best turnout of the year on Wednesday and Thursday this week we had our highest turnout with 16 teams fishing. Had they known how the lake was fishing many might have stayed home. It's not that the fishing is that bad on Long right now because it seems about normal for this time of year. The problem is the stringy weeds that are matted up in the shallow water pretty much around the entire lake. It makes it extremely difficult to move the boat around and fish effectively since you constantly have to clean off the trolling motor. But this is Long Lake so there were some good bags weighed in. Brad & Wayne took 1st place with 11.70 lbs, Paul & Terry took 2nd with 11.45 lbs, Dean & John took 3rd with 10.65 lbs, and Scott & Al were 4th with 10.10 lbs. My dad and I only weighed 2 fish for 5.91 lbs which put us in 7th place for the night. The big bass of the night went 4.85 lbs.

Thursday night was extremely disappointing for us as we turned in our worst performance of the season. I was hoping to weigh 3 fish every night of the year which I don't think we have ever done before. As easy as it might sound to just catch 3 fish in an evening, believe me it's not. What makes it worse though is we had the chances. If we only had 2 bites and caught 2 fish that would be one thing but we actually had 9 bites but only caught 2 of them. That kind of poor execution just won't get it done against this group of anglers. There really wasn't any reason for missing all those fish either. It was just one of those fluke things. As for the fish we did catch they both came by flipping the reeds with soft plastics which is pretty much what we did the entire night.

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake

We had another great turnout for Wednesday night with 20 teams showing up to fish. This matches the highest turnout we have had on Wednesdays. Unfortunately for most the fishing wasn't very good and only 12 of the 20 teams were able to weigh in their 3 fish limit. For the most part the limits that were weighed in were on the small side too. There were a few exceptions though as John & Mary took 1st with 10.66 lbs. My dad & I were 2nd with 10.26 lbs, Scott & Kelly took 3rd with 7.48 lbs and Paul & Pete were 4th with 7.30 lbs. My dad caught the big bass of the night and it weighed in at 4.00 lbs.

Our fishing for the night was very slow. We didn't catch a fish for about the first hour of the night and the last 2 hours weren't that great either. I think we ended up catching 6 keepers on the night with 3 of them being very small and the other 3 being very nice ones. We headed to Games Lake as usual to fish the weedlines. We bounced around to several different areas to start with before finding the spot we were looking for. The first fish we caught there was my dad's 4 pounder so we just kind of hunkered down and fished that small area very thoroughly. After about 45 minutes to an hour we had 2 more good fish in the box and that was it for our night. All of our keepers came on watermelon Picasso jigs.

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna

Lake Johanna has a reputation as a big fish lake but the last few years in league have not really shown that at all. There are still nice average fish but the real big ones have seemed to disappear. That didn't stop 15 teams from trying to catch one of those Lake Johanna giants though. 1st place went to Paul & Pete with 10.67 lbs, 2nd was Ralph with 9.46 lbs, 3rd was Dean & John with 9.07 lbs and 4th went to John & Mary with 9.05 lbs. The big bass for the night went 4.41 lbs. My dad and I were able to salvage a 5th place finish with 8.60 lbs after struggling pretty much the entire night.

There isn't much to tell as far as the fishing goes for us. We had an extremely tough night. In fact we did not have a fish in the livewell until about 8:30 pm. With a 9:00 pm check in time that didn't leave much time to put something together. Fortunately the fish turned on a little bit at dusk and we were able to catch 4 fish in that time. We caught all our fish casting Yamamoto Senkos to the edges of a reed bed. Just like the previous night the last fish I caught was our big fish of the night and it weighed almost 4 lbs. That fish really moved us up in the standings for the night. Even though we were just out of the money the points will really help at the end of the year.

West Central Bass League - Lake Calhoun

This past Wednesday 18 teams returned to Lake Calhoun. We had fished the lake a few weeks ago on Thursday night and the fishing was very good with 4 bags over 10 lbs weighed in. This week the fishing was quite a bit tougher as only one bag over 10 lbs was caught. Fortunately that bag was caught by my dad and I. We weighed in 10.74 lbs to take 1st place for the night. 2nd place went to Dean & JD with 9.61 lbs, 3rd was Jim & Dwight with 9.15 lbs, and 4th was Paul & Pete with 8.41 lbs. I caught the big bass of the night and it went 3.85 lbs.

The area where the winning bag was caught last time is an area we frequently share with the guys who won. On this night we had a better start number than them so I went straight to the sweet spot. Unfortunately it wasn't very sweet this night and we ended up leaving pretty quickly with just one small keeper in the box. Next we hit a few docks and I put one in the boat a little over 2 lbs. A few docks down my dad caught his big fish of the night that went about 3 1/4 lbs. The dock fish came on Strike King Bleeding Bait Tubes. We fished more docks and several other weedy areas but were just not able to catch much else at all let alone upgrade fish. Towards the end of the evening we moved back to our starting area but there was still nothing happening so I started moving the boat out from the bank. The lake is basically just a flat bottom with weeds covering pretty much the entire lake so I was just kind of moving around randomly looking for an area the fish were holding. With about 10 minutes to go we found it. There wasn't really any particular reason for the fish to be right in one spot like that but they were stacked up. In the last 10 minutes I think we caught 5 good keepers with 4 of them being 3 lbs or better. My dad's fish came on a watermelon Picasso jig and mine were all on a watermelon Strike King Bleeding Bait Flippin Tube. With about 3 minutes before 9 pm my dad said we need to go in but I made one last cast. I actually picked up the trolling motor and when I had that stowed I picked up on my rod and caught one last fish on the last cast. That one ended up being the 3.85 that was the big fish for the night. I just wish we stumbled onto them a little bit earlier because I think we really could have got a bunch of fish. As it was we caught what we needed and had a very exciting end to the night.

West Central Bassmasters Summer Classic - Norway Lake

The Summer Classic on Norway Lake is 1 of 2 open events the West Central Bassmasters hold each summer. By open event I mean anyone is allowed to fish as opposed to our club tournaments where only club members fish. Our other event will be held in August on Green Lake and hopefully the turnout will be better than this one on Norway. Only 16 teams showed up to fish on Saturday which is down from last year, but this is the case with pretty much all the tournaments in Minnesota this year. I don't know why interest is down this year, maybe it's the economy, but that's just how it is. Just because there are less participants doesn't mean I want to win any less and that is just what my dad and I were able to do. We weighed in a 6 fish limit for 17.03 lbs to just barely edge out 2nd place. 2nd place went to Greg Jones & Scott Zypher with 16.65 lbs, 3rd was John & Jacob Zvorak with 13.84 lbs and 4th was Jim & Brad Hagedorn with 12.33 lbs. It's kind of interesting that 3 of the 4 teams in the money were father and son teams which is always good to see. The big bass for the day weighed 4.07 lbs and was caught by Greg & Scott. I was able to take the 2nd big bass money with a largemouth that weighed 3.50 lbs.

The recap of our fishing is going to be kind of brief because there really isn't all that much to tell. We headed to Games Lake first thing in the morning which is no secret to those who have fished with my us over the years. In practice we had located 2 schools of fish that seemed to be more concentrated than any other areas we could find. We only caught 1 fish in the 3 lb range in about 10 hours of practice time and that is where I wanted to start. Unfortunately 2 other boats were ahead of us and we were unable to get to the key area. We fished around them for awhile but after awhile we knew they weren't moving so we had to get out of there. At one point in the morning we pulled up to the other school we located in practice. It was a spot with a mix of weeds in 8-10 and a very defined edge to it. Right away my dad caught a sheephead and on my next cast I caught a bass close to 3 lbs. The wind was already blowing pretty hard at that point so I stayed on the trolling motor while my dad took care of the fish. My next cast after that I caught another good one. Then I caught another one and then another one. If I remember right I caught 4 fish in the 2-3 lb range in 6 casts. They were coming in so quick that at one point there were 3 fish laying in the cockpit area of our boat because my dad couldn't get them in the livewell that fast. After those 6 casts it slowed enough for my dad to get the fish in the livewell and catch one himself that went close to 3 lbs. Then a few minutes later I caught the 3.50 lb bass that was our big fish of the day. My fish all came on a watermelon Jig with a Strike King Denny Brauer 3x chunk and my dad's fish came on a watermelon Zoom Brush Hog. After about 10 minutes it was over. We obviously kept fishing the area but were only able to catch small fish that wouldn't help us. After awhile we moved to another weedline area and I caught one that upgraded our bag by about an ounce. Then we moved back to the sweet spot and about 50 yards away my dad was able to upgrade again by about 2 ounces with the Brush Hog. At this point it was around 9:00 in the morning and our fishing was basically done for the day. We tried various other spots including docks, reeds, milfoil, lily pads and more weedlines, but were hardly able to catch anything let alone anything that would help us. Out of our entire 8 hour tournament day we had most of our weight in 10 minutes and all of our weight in about a 45 minute period. It made for a pretty boring day but it doesn't matter when you catch them, just what they weigh at the end of the day.

West Central Bass League - Solomon Lake

Our 5th stop on Thursday night brought us back to Solomon Lake. We had just fished the lake the previous Wednesday and this fishing was tough to say the least. That didn't stop 12 teams from trying their hand once again. Somewhat surprisingly the fishing was much better for many teams even though not much had changed as far as weather or water conditions. It was still a struggle for my dad and I though as we turned in our poorest performance of the season with a 6th place finish for our 8.51 lb limit. 1st place went to Jim & Brad with 11.64 lbs, 2nd was Tim & Grant with 11.09 lbs, and 3rd was Brad & Wayne with 10.29. The big fish for the night went 4.29 lbs. After 5 evenings Tim & Grant lead the team of the year race with 90 points. My dad and I are a close 2nd with 86 points.

There really isn't much to tell about our fishing for the night since we only caught 3 fish the whole night. The first bass was caught by my dad on a spinnerbait fished on a rocky area outside of the reeds. The second bass was also caught by my dad on a tube flipped into the reeds. Both of those fish were in the 3 3/4 lb range. I did not have a bite for 2 hours and 55 minutes. With 5 minutes to go before the end of the night I finally caught a fish on a blugill Yamamoto Senko near the reeds. It was just a small one but it was a relief to get our 3 fish limit in the boat and it saved us from dropping down even further in the standings.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake

This past Wednesday was the 5th event of the summer for the West Central Bass League. This stop was at Green Lake in Spicer and 17 teams came out to catch some of the smallmouth Green Lake is famous for. Green Lake is an amazing fishery but the fish have become much harder to catch in recent years due to the heavy amount of pressure the bass now recieve. The weights this year have also gone down a bit but not substantially. 1st place for the night went to Paul & Pete with 3 fish for 9.25 lbs, 2nd was my dad & I with 8.34 lbs, 3rd was Dean & JD with 8.26 lbs, and 4th went to Jon & Jeff with 8.18. The 4 in the money weights were all comprised of smallmouth but the big bass for the night was a 3.70 lb largemouth. After 5 evenings my dad and I are leading the points with 87 despite not having a win yet. 2nd place is at 77 points but with most of the summer remaining many teams still have a shot to win the team of the year.

We started our night throwing chartruese and white spinnerbaits over flats in 6-10 feet of water. This is more of a summer pattern and it hasn't been working very well so far this year but we still spent the first hour trying it out in various places. It was pretty unsuccessful as after that first hour we had 3 fish but only one was a decent one in the 2 3/4 lb range. We spent the next hour fishing several deep humps in the 20-30 foot range with watermelon Lake Fork Twitch Worms on drop shot rigs. The first hump produced 2 smallies in the 2 3/4 lb range. The next hump was empty and then the 3rd area again produced 2 more smallies in the same size range. After that we went to the shallow rocks and tried topwater for the rest of the evening. I couldn't get anything to come up on my Spook so I switched to a green pumpkin tube as I approched a small milfoil patch. Almost immediately I hooked another smallie in the 2 3/4 lb class. The very next cast I caught our big fish of the night which went 2.90 lbs on our scale. It seems we had found a school of biting fish but by that time we had to head in and we made it back to the dock with less than a minute to go before 9:00 pm.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Minnewaska

Lake Minnewaska was the 2nd stop of 4 events on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit. 43 teams showed up to fish so there was a slightly larger turnout than the first even on Sauk Lake. The conditions were really ideal for fishing. It was warm, calm and for most of the day there was just a light rain. The end of the day was a different story though. The rain started coming down harder and the wind really picked up blowing directly into the weigh in site. People beached their boats but then the waves were coming right over the back filling everyones boats with water. For the most part the bilge pumps worked fine but one boat filled up to the point that only the very top was out of the water. They were able to get it back on the trailer though. As for the fishing it went very well for my dad and I as we took 2nd place with 22.87 lbs for our 8 fish limit. We just missed out on first place as they weighed in 23.11 lbs. I was also able to catch the 2nd big bass of the tournment that weighed in at 4.30 lbs for some additional money. Heres how we did it.

We were one of the very last boats to blast off so we were worried about getting to our spots but when we pulled into the first one there was no one nearby at all. It was a gravel flat in 5-6 feet of water and we thew Super Spooks hoping to get a few smallmouth to come up. My dad and I each had one bite on the Spook but they barely touched it and neither one of us was able to hook up. We went back through the area with tubes and football jigs but had no bites that pass so it was off to the next spot.

The next area was a weedline in 10-14 feet of water. Almost immediately my dad caught our first fish of the day and it was a solid 2 3/4 lb fish. This was the spot I expected to catch our biggest fish on so we stuck around for quite awhile but the only other fish we caught was a big sheephead. After that we hit a few more spots including reeds, another deeper weedbed, and a shallow sandy flat but struck out on all three. Next we tried to run to another spot we had found in practice but the guys who run the tournament were fishing basically right on out waypoint so instead we pulled into another nearby weedline in 10 feet of water. Again my dad had a bite pretty quick but it got off after just a second or two. He said it was a good one so we worked the area over pretty thoroughly but didn't get anymore bites. By now 2 1/2 hours had gone by and we only had 1 fish in the livewell. I was starting to get worried but I wasn't going to panic just yet.

Our next stop was on another shallow gravel and rock flat. Again my dad was the first to hook up and he put a nice 2 1/2 lb smallie in the boat on a football jig. After netting his fish I picked my rod rigged with a green pumpkin KVD tube that I had left in the water and there was another smallie on the line. This one weighed in at about 2 lbs. So after 2 1/2 hours with 1 fish we had just put 2 in the boat in a matter of seconds. We worked the area over some more and I caught anther small keeper smallie and it was time to go. Our next stop was another gravel and rock flat and I put 3 more small keeper smallies in the boat in about 10 minutes on the green pumpkin tube. I switched back to the Spook and caught another small keeper so after struggling for the first part of the day it took no time at all to fill our limit even though I knew it was going to be nothing to brag about if we didn't upgrade substantially.

After filling our limit we knew we needed much bigger fish so we headed back to the big fish weedline. We would end up hitting this spot 4 times throughout the day but this was the last time we would catch any fish on it. Within 10 minutes of arriving I hooked into what turned out to be the 4.30 lb largemouth on a watermelon jig. Not 5 minutes later I caught one weighing about 3 3/4 lbs on the jig. After that the action was done. We worked the spot over well and right before we left my dad hooked into a really good fish only to find out it was about a 5 lb walleye. I was hoping to catch more fish in the area but still catching 2 that weighed around 8 lbs combined was exactly what we needed at that point.

After that we made another stop on our starting spot and those smallies still wouldn't go so we moved pretty quickly to a shallower weedline in about 7 feet of water. I picked up a 2 1/2 lb largemouth on the watermelon jig but there were no other fish there. At that point it seemed like the largemouths were biting better than they had been earlier in the morning so I decided to fish that watermelon jig on weedlines the rest of the day. We moved back to the area where my dad had lost the good one earlier in the day and I missed a bite. The fish had ripped the trailer off my jig but I wanted to get back out there quickly so I pitched the undressed jig right to the same spot and the fish still ate it up. That one went about 3 lbs. Next we were able to move over to the weedline that was occupied earlier in the morning since that boat had left. It was the same kind of spot with a weedline right about 10 feet deep. I picked up another solid fish in the 2 3/4 lb range on the watermelon jig. Then it was mine turn to lose one. It was the first bite all day that hit on the fall and for whatever reason I just didn't get a good hook in it. I never saw it but I would guess that was a fish in the same size range as the other one.

At this point we knew we had a really solid bag but we also knew we still had that 2 lb smallmouth that we needed to get rid of. We bounced around to several other areas including the big fish spot 2 more times but were unable to come up with anything that would help us. We had our 2 chances for first with those fish we lost but it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe they weren't even bass but I'm almost positive they were. It also would have been nice to catch a bigger smallmouth since we had caught some good ones in practice but they just weren't going that day. There were very few smallies weighed in by any of the teams. For the most part though, besides the first 2 1/2 hours, our plan from practice went about as smoothly as possible. Our 2nd place finish combined with our 5th place in the first event has us in a 3 way tie for Team of the Year with 2 event remaining. Hopefully we can keep this momentum going and compete for the top spot at the end of the year. Our next event will be July 12th on Lake Ida.

West Central Bass League - Lake Calhoun

We had 15 teams for Thursday night on Lake Calhoun. Thursday nights have averaged around 14 boats while Wednesday's have averaged around 19 boats. I'm not sure why there is higher participation on one night versus the other but it is kind of nice to have less competition on the water sometimes. Even so we were not able to get to our starting area which is where the winning bag came from. Hopefully we will have a better start number next time and we can get there first. 1st place was Scott & Al with 11.86 lbs, 2nd was Paul & Troy with 10.72 lbs, 3rd was Brad & Wayne with 10.41 lbs and 4th was my dad and I with 10.25 lbs. It's tough when you catch 10 lbs but still only get the last place money. The big fish for the night was a nice 4.56 lb fish.

Even though we couldn't get to the sweet spot we fished in the general vicinity most of the night and were able to get into there after the winner already beat it up pretty good. We were able to pull our 2nd biggest fish of the night from the area though after he had left. We caught fish on docks, reeds and a mix of weeds in shallow water. That is as detailed as I am going to get at this point. Our fish came on black/blue Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes and watermelon/red flake Strike King Ochos and Yamamoto Senkos.

West Central Bass League - Solomon Lake

We had another good turnout on Wednesday night with 19 teams competing on Solomon Lake. Most teams reported the fishing to be slow like the lake has been the past couple of years. Even when the fishing is slow the weights are still very good usually. On Wednesday even the weights have started to slip a little bit. There have been times when 10 lbs will not even be in the money but there was only one 10 lb bag weighed in for the evening. 1st place when to Jeremey & Lee with 10.03 lbs, 2nd was David & Daniel with 9.95 lbs, 3rd was my dad and I with 9.14 lbs, and 4th was Wayne & Brad with 8.69 lbs. The big fish for the night was a monster 5.98 lb bass weighed in by David & Daniel.

I once again am not going to be very detailed since by random draw our league will be fishing out on Solomon again next week. We drew the last starting number so I knew we would not be able to get to the reed islands that we generally like to start on. In fact we fished one for about 15 minutes which is the least I think I have ever fished the islands during a league night. It turned out ok though since our first fish was close to 4 lbs from a small patch of reeds. Our next keeper came off of a log in the water and the final keeper we weighed in came on a rocky area. The first 2 fish came on a black/blue Strike King Flippin Tube and the rock fish came on a black/blue jig. I'll go into a bit more detail next week after we are done fishing the lake for the year.

West Central Bassmasters State Qualifier Tournaments

This past weekend the West Central Bassmasters held two tournaments to determine which of our members would qualify for the Minnesota State Tournament of Champions held on Lake Pokagema in September. 12 members were attempting to reach the state tournament but only 6 would be allowed to go. On Saturday we fished Clearwater Lake. The winner weighed in 5 fish for 13.48 lbs while I weighed a limit weighing in at 9.62 lbs which put me in 6th place for the day. On Sunday we fished the Le Homme Dieu Chain in Alexandria. 1st place there weighed 5 fish for 13.20 lbs. My 5 weighed in at 9.35 lbs which put me in 5th place for the day. Overall when the points were combined I qualified for the state tournament in 4th place. Here are the qualifiers in the order they finished:

1 - Joe Patock
2 - Ron Mehr
3 - Mike Nitchals
4 - Andy Nitchals
5 - Dean Drexler
6 - Scott Van Buren

I'm going to be pretty brief in describing my fishing for the days. For one thing we will be fishing another tournament on Clearwater later this summer so I don't want to give too much away, and also the days were pretty uneventful as you can see from the very low weights I weighed in. On Clearwater I fished several different areas of the lake but all of the areas had several things in common. I concentrated on depths of 6-12 feet that featured heavy weed growth in the form of milfoil, cabbage and other assorted weeds. All of my weigh fish came on watermelon Sweet Beavers and jigs pitched into the heavy cover.

On the Alex chain I started throwing a white Strike King spinnerbait on a large cabbage flat in 6-9 feet of water. I had my 5 fish limit in the boat quickly but the size was much smaller than I had found in practice as they probably weighed less than 6 lbs combined. It is still nice to have an early limit though since it kind of frees you up to fish more loose the rest of the day. I try not to worry about catching a limit and just go fishing but in a tournament if you don't have a limit in the box it can start messing with your mind sometimes. Thankfully I usually don't have a problem with worrying about things like that but it can happen. After realizing the quality wasn't what I was expecting in my starting area I moved shallow to docks, overhanging trees and reeds. I spent most of the rest of the day shallow with a few forays into deeper water. None of the deep stuff was very productive at all, but I was able to cull out all 5 of my original limit in the shallow water using watermelon Sweet Beavers and green pumkin red/green flake Bleeding Bait tubes.

Congatulations to all who made it and better luck next year to those who didn't.

West Central Bass League - Lake Florida

On Thursday night the turnout was quite a bit lower than Wednesday with only 12 teams fishing. Maybe its because Florida has a reputation for small fish and Diamond is a big fish lake, but by the numbers Lake Florida turned out to be a much better lake this week. With 12 teams we pay 3 places instead of 4. 1st place went to Tim & Grant with 9.08 lbs, 2nd was Paul & Troy with 8.81 lbs and 3rd went to Brandon & Brent with 8.61 lbs. My dad and I were 4th with 8.54 lbs but since one of the teams ahead of us declined to enter the side pot we were able to make the 3rd place side pot money. The big bass for the night was 4.06 lbs.

Lake Florida is known as a dock lake since almost the entire shoreline is rimmed with docks. The last couple years my dad and I have almost completely avoided the docks to fish deeper water where we feel we have the best chance to win. This year with the cold spring and summer so far we decided to join the crowd and start on the docks. That turned out to be a mistake. We had a limit in about 10 minutes but we didn't end up weighing any of them in. The best fish were also not under the docks but my dad caught them by casting a chatterbait the other direction from the docks. After fishing a few docks we headed out deep and bounced around to various spots the rest of the night. It was not fast action but we were able to steadily upgrade throughout the night by fishing watermelon jigs in the thickest weeds we could find in 8-10 feet of water.

West Central Bass League - Diamond Lake

We had another good turnout on Wednesday night with 18 teams showing up at Diamond Lake. Most people reported the fishing to be slow but most teams also were able to weigh in their 3 fish limits. The weights however were extremely small especially for Diamond. 1st place went to Mike & Greg with 8.26 lbs, 2nd was Dean & JD with 7.99 lbs, 3rd was Paul & Pete with 7.90 lbs and 4th went to my dad & I with 7.68 lbs. The big fish for the night was 3.98 lbs.

Our fishing for the night was pretty slow as I think we only boated 5 keepers on the night and 4 of them were just little fish under 2 lbs. I wanted to start on a certain section of a reed bed but when we got there 3 boats were already in the area so I pulled into the bay and worked the flat with logs on it. We didn't get anything there and when the reed area cleared out we pulled in and were able to get our first two small keepers flipping tubes to pockets in the reeds. After working that area another boat headed to a stretch of docks I wanted to fish so I quickly moved to the other end of the docks and worked towards them hoping to hit as many docks as I could before they did. Right when our boats met I skipped my Strike King Bleeding Bait tube under the last dock and caught our big fish of the night right in front of them. It went about 3 3/4 lbs and was the reason we were able to get into the money. After that we fished a combination of docks and reeds the rest of the night but were only able to manage to catch 2 more small keepers.

West Central Bass League - Lake Andrew

On Thursday night it was time to visit my namesake lake once again. Most people dread coming to this lake for good reason. Years ago it was an excellent lake with a lot of big bass swimming in it but now anything over 2 lbs is a really nice fish. There were 15 teams competing and for the most part the weights reflected the lack of big fish in the lake. The majority of the 3 fish limits brought in weighed under 5 lbs with one limit of 12 inchers weighing in at 2.71 lbs. It's tough to get much smaller than that. As is usually the case though someone finds em and that was Ron & Dave. They weighed in 10.74 lbs for 1st place. My dad & I were 2nd with 8.24 lbs, 3rd place went to Brad & Wayne with 6.73 lbs and 4th was Tim & Grant with 5.68 lbs. The big bass for the night was 5.78 lbs. That fish has a very good chance to be big fish of the year and no one would have expected it to come out of Andrew.

My dad and I started up in the bay on the north end of the lake. We managed to get a small limit pretty quickly by flipping Sweet Beavers into the shallow reeds in the area. We stuck around for what was probably too long but there was alot of fish in the area and we just were hoping to run into a bigger one. That didn't happen though and we left the bay with around 5 lbs. Our next stop was an inside corner along a deep weedline. Almost immediately I had a nice 2 1/2 lb bass in the boat on a watermelon jig. Just minutes later my dad caught a jig fish that went over 3 lbs. The action slowed a bit so I switched to a texas rigged watermelon worm and was able to catch another 2 1/2 lb class fish. Now I figured we were in pretty good shape for the night and the fish seemed to be getting on the weedlines so for the rest of the night we tried other deep areas that have been good to us in the past. Most of the areas had no fish on them at all but we did get into one other little flurry but none of those fish helped us.

West Central Bass League - Norway Cup

This past Wednesday was the annual Norway Cup. All the same league rules apply but the entry is increased to $25. There are also two places paid for big bass instead of just one. This year we had an even 20 teams competing and all but one team weighed in their 3 fish limit. The problem for most though was that the limits were extremely small as only 3 bags over 7 lbs were weighed in. 1st place went to Ron & Joe with a very nice for the night bag of 10.85 lbs, 2nd place was Mike & Greg with 8.64 lbs, 3rd was John & Mary with 7.75 lbs and 4th was Troy & Brett with 6.98 lbs. The 1st big bass was 4.25 lbs and the 2nd big bass was 4.17 lbs. My dad and I finished out of the money in 7th place with 6.52 lbs.

Our fishing for the night was pretty uneventful. We caught 10 fish at the most and obviously they were all small. We started fishing on some of our deep stuff on Games Lake and had our limit relatively quickly throwing jigs and worms to the deep weedline. After realizing we weren't going to be able to upgrade we headed to some docks and shallow weedbeds but that was totally unproductive. Before leaving Games we tried the deep stuff once more but only upgraded a small amount with another slightly bigger fish. We then spent the last hour of the night in Norway Lake and only managed to catch 1 small fish on a swimbait over a shallow flat and that was it for our night.

Big Bass Bonanza - Sauk Lake

This past Sunday was the first of four tournaments on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit. It was held on Sauk Lake and after our practice my dad and I did not have the highest expectations coming into the event. We really struggled to get bites but at least when we did get a bite it was a good fish for the most part. We were able to narrow down our game plan to one general area of the lake that had several key spots in it but we were not on anything solid. Our whole goal was just to catch an eight fish limit in our eight hours of fishing time. As is often the case however practice is no indication of how the tournament will go and we were able to catch a solid limit weighing almost 23 lbs which was good for 5th place out of the 37 teams competing. Heres how we did it.

Our general area was a large flat in 5 to 10 feet of water that was almost entirely covered with curly leaf pondweed. This is a type of weed I generally do not like fishing in because it seems very difficult to catch fish out of for some reason. On Sauk though the fish were in there so that is where we fished. For our first stop I pulled up to one of our weighpoints near a shoreline point. Within 5 minutes I had a fish close to 3 lbs in the boat on a chrome sexy shad Strike King Red Eye Shad. After working that area shallow I pulled out deeper to the inside corner of the point and popped another fish close to 3 lbs on a watermelon Picasso Jig. We continued to work around the flat but the fishing slowed for awhile until we made our way to what proved to be our best spot for the day.

This area was still on the same flat but had a different feature that the fish were holding on. It was a ridge that came up to about 5 feet with 8 feet of water on either side of it. There were weeds on either side as well but on the very top of it was a bare area. We just worked back and forth keeping the boat in deeper water and casting up to the top of it. We were able to fill out our 8 fish limit by 9:30 in the morning which was way faster than we ever could have expected. Most of the fish were in the 2 - 2 1/2 lb range but I was able to put 2 in the boat in the 3 3/4 lb range. All of those fish came on the watermelon jig and a black/blue flack Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver dragged slowly across the ridge.

After filling our limit we fished the ridge awhile longer but it really slowed down so we started moving around more. We tried a few docks and trees and were able to get a small upgrade. We also tried another large weedy flat but struck out there. Towards the end of the day we made our way back to the ridge but again it was very slow. I eventually caught another solid fish on the jig and upgraded about a 1/2 lb but it was the only fish we caught there that time and it was time to head in.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

Our league lakes are chosen by random draw and the first Thursday night ended up being Eagle Lake. I only point this out because I don't remember ever fishing Eagle for league so early in the season. I was happy it worked out that way because its always fun to fish lakes at different times than normal. The turnout was a little bit lower than the previous night with 14 teams competing. Most reported catching a number of fish although some said it was as tough as they had ever seen the lake. There were some substantial weights brought in though.

My dad and I started on what most people consider to be the best stretch of docks on the lake but right away it just didn't seem right at all. We only ended up staying for about 10 minutes before heading to the extremely shallow water on the south end of the lake. On the 3rd dock we fished down there we put our limit of 3 fish in the boat. One of them was about 3 3/4 lbs but the other 2 were small. We continued down the shoreline fishing every dock and catching a fair number of fish but most were in the 2 lb range. Every once in awhile we would hook into one over 3 lbs but we only ended up catching 3 fish over 3 lbs for the night. All of our fish came on green pumpkin red/green flake Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes. Our limit weighed in at 10.53 lbs which was good for 3rd place. 1st place was again Tim and Grant with a massive 13.44 lb limit, 2nd was Wayne and Brad with 10.92 lbs, and 4th was Scott and Al with 10.07 lbs. The big fish for the night was caught by Tim and Grant and weighed in at 4.95 lbs.