West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Andrew

November 6th was our final West Central Fall Bass League of the season. The schedule actually ended the week before but since the weather was decent a few people still wanted to fish. We had 5 boats fishing on Lake Andrew and as usual this season the fishing was tough. One boat was able to catch a 5 fish limit but unfortunately they were late coming back to the weigh in so they were disqualified. Only 3 other fish were caught on the day.

1st - Paul 2 4.00 lbs (approximately)

2nd - Andy & Mike 1 2.56 lbs

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals 2.56 lbs

As you can see the DQ ended up working out very well for us but it's still not the way I want to see it happen. It did move us up into the money but I still would have had big bass regardless. Our day was pretty unproductive obviously. We actually went the first 4 hours and 40 minutes of the 5 hour tournament without a bite. At the end of the day we moved back to a weedline area that we had already fished and almost immediately I hooked into a decent bass. Of course I had to lose that fish for no apparent reason but about 2 casts later I was able to connect with the 1 fish we did catch. I was hoping to catch a limit quick in that last 15 minutes but after that the action was done. The one fish came on a watermelon Sweet Beaver fished in the cabbage.

West Central Fall Bass League - Nest Lake

October 30th marked the final event scheduled for the 2010 West Central Fall Bass League season. We returned to Nest Lake which is where the Fall League kicked off about 2 months ago. After a massive front that moved through earlier in the week expectations for good catches were low and that proved to be true. The water temps had dropped over 10 degrees and the winds had really churned it up. Only 1 limit was brought in by the five teams fishing. With 5 boats fishing there were two spots paid.

1st - Andy Nitchals & Grant King 5 12.60 lbs

2nd - Wayne & Ralph 3 6.08 lbs

Big Bass - Grant King 4.32 lbs

Going into the day I felt that fishing the greenest cabbage we could find would be our best bet to get a limit and that is exactly how it played out. Finding the good green weeds though was difficult and much of the day was spent fishing in seemingly dead water. When we were able to find good weeds though there were a few bites to be had. Our fish ended up coming from 2 areas that were 3 to 6 feet deep. I really struggled personally on the day but Grant was able to clean up and catch most of our fish on a Jackall Cover Craw fished slowly in the weeds.

West Central Fall Bass League - Diamond Lake

October 23rd was the fall league's return to Diamond Lake. We have fished Diamond every year that the fall league has been running and usually it kicks out some really big weights. Generally we fish it earlier in the fall and fishing it later certainly affected the fishing. There were very few docks left in the water and most of the overhanging trees had no leaves on them so they provided very little cover. That left reeds as the primary cover. All 6 teams competing were able to bring in a 5 fish limit and every single fish weighed came from the reeds. 2 spots were paid and my dad and I ended up just out of the money in 3rd with 5 fish for 13.87 lbs.

1st - Wayne & Ralph 14.32 lbs

2nd - Dean 13.93 lbs

Big Bass - Paul 4.32 lbs

Just like the previous week my dad and I had a very good first 1 1/2 hours. We started in the reeds and were just a little bit off for the first half hour or so but once we figured out where they were it was lights out. We caught 20 or more bass in about an hour by pitching jigs and various plastics to the edge of the reeds. After that first hour or so of catching them really good the action really died. We tried working deeper into the reeds but that didn't work either so it was off to try some other areas of the lake. Nothing else was working for us though so we ended up going back to our starting area to try to pick up one more 3 lb bite that I knew we needed but it just didn't happen for us.

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Minnie Belle

October 16th was the West Central Fall Bass League's second trip to a lake that is not normally on the summer schedule. The first was to Red Rock and the fishing was extremely tough so we were all hoping that Minnie Belle would offer better fishing. The fishing turned out to be better overall but still not great. There were 5 teams competing so 2 spots were paid.

1st - Pat & Nasha Marting 5 17.01 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 5 12.02 lbs

Big Bass - Pat & Nasha 4.13 lbs

The week before the tournament my dad and I had spent a few hours on the lake and determined that our best bet to catch bigger fish was on the docks. The problem with that though is at this time of year people are taking their docks out of the water. Sure enough when we came back a week later for league there were very few docks left in the water. We decided to start on the few docks there were and fish as many of them as we could before anyone else. It turned out to be a good move because we had our final weight after about 1 1/2 hours. All the dock fish came on jigs and tubes. The rest of the day was spent fishing mid depths and a couple deep weedline areas as well as another pass through the docks we caught them on earlier but we just were not able to catch anything that would help us upgrade and we were left almost 5 lbs behind the winners.

Bass League - September 1st & 2nd

I wasn't sure about doing blogs for these two nights since they were unofficial events but since I have blogged about every competitive fishing outing of mine for the past 3 years I decided to put them in for the completeness of the record. Our official West Central Bass League season had ended with the TOC's the previous week but since there were still people who wanted to fish we held two more nightly leagues the first week of September.

September 1st - Nest Lake

We had 9 boats competing and the fishing was pretty good as 8 of them were able to bring in a 3 fish limit but the weights were quite a bit lower than we had seen on Nest Lake earlier in the year.

1st - Paul & Brian 9.52 lbs

2nd - Lee & Nick 9.00 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 8.85 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Brian 4.39 lbs

September 2nd - Lake Calhoun

There were 7 boats fishing this night but the fishing was much tougher as only 4 limits were brought to the scales. With so few competing only 2 places were paid.

1st - Ron 10.85 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 7.11 lbs

Big Bass - Ron 4.60 lbs

West Central Fall Bass League - Long Lake

On October 9th the West Central Fall Bass League visited Long Lake just north of Willmar. It's known for being a really tough lake most of the time but it also has a reputation for giving up giant bass. That all held true as the fishing was extremely tough but the fish that came in were good ones. There were 5 teams fishing and only 6 bass caught for the day. Here are the results.

1st - Andy & Mike 4 19.49 lbs

2nd - Roy & Daran 1 4.69 lbs

Big Bass - Mike Nitchals 5.56 lbs

With only 6 fish being caught all day I guess we were fortunate to end up catching 4 of them to walk away with the win. There really wasn't anything special about what we were doing either. We just happened to get in the right areas at the right time I guess. All of our fish came by fishing in the reeds. I caught 3 of them on a black/blue punch skirt with a Chigger Craw and my dad added the big fish on a watermelon weightless Ring Fry. Even though they all came from the reeds, they were all in completely different areas of the lake so it wasn't like we ran into a school or found an area holding more fish. It was just a matter of keeping our heads down and just grinding for every bite. I did end up losing one fish halfway back to the boat that would have given us our limit but it was only around 3 lbs. Despite being one fish short of a limit, it still ended up being one of our biggest 5 fish bags ever.

West Central Fall Bass League Tournament - Red Rock Lake

October 2nd was our West Central Fall Bass League Tournament on Red Rock Lake. The tournament is basically the same as any other Fall League day except that we fish a longer day and the entry fee is higher. Otherwise all the same rules as league apply. We had 10 boats fishing and it was a struggle for everyone. Even the winners reported getting very few bites during the day. My dad and I really struggled to catch just 2 fish for 2.96 lbs which put us in 6th place. Here are the results for the money finishers.

1st - Kelly & Butch 5 14.68 lbs

2nd - Dean & JD 3 9.16 lbs

3rd - Wayne & Ralph 5 7.19 lbs

Big Bass - Kelly & Butch 4.61 lbs

There isn't much to recap on my fishing for the day. I only had one bite the entire day and it ended up being short. My dad caught our 2 keepers on a watermelon Chigger Craw on the outside weedline in about 8 feet of water. That was the only way we could figure out to get bites but even then there just weren't enough bites to come up with a decent finish.

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Johanna

September 25th marked the 3rd fall league of the season and we had our best turnout of the year so far with 12 teams competing on Lake Johanna. Most of the teams probably wished they had stayed home though because the fishing was extremely difficult. Only 1 team was able to bring in a 5 fish limit and 2 teams were able to bring in 3 fish. Here are the results.

1st - Brian & Scott 16.99 lbs 5 fish

2nd - Andy & Mike 11.03 lbs 3 fish

3rd - Dean & JD 10.19 lbs 3 fish

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals 4.60 lbs

Our fishing for the day actually started off strong. We got to our starting area which is just a bay lined with reeds and were able to catch 3 fish in the first 30 to 45 minutes. The two I boated came on a black/blue Chigger Craw and the one my dad caught came on a watermelon Senko. After that we never had another bite the rest of the day. We tried several different areas as well as going back and hitting our starting spot several more times but were just never able to make anything else happen. I knew our fish were good ones but I had no idea the fishing was that tough for everyone and we were able to get a decent finish even without a limit.

Big Bass Bonanza TOC - Lake Koronis

Sunday September 12th was the Big Bass Bonanza Tournament of Champions. The top 10 in the season points were all invited to fish and throw the name of a lake in the hat. Lake Koronis was drawn and the top 10 teams all got to fish for cash and prizes with no entry fee. I don't have official results for this event but first place ended up being and 8 fish limit for nearly 24 lbs. There were several other weights over 20 lbs as well. My dad and I struggled all day and only ended up with an 8 fish limit weighing 16.75 lbs. That put us in 9th for the day.

In practice we had 2 different patterns going but both were producing quality bites for us. One was fishing deeper weedlines in the 10 foot range for largemouth and the other was fishing shallower weedlines in 2-5 feet of water for smallmouth. We bounced back and forth trying each for awhile during the tournament day but neither one worked nearly as well as in practice. In fact we were barely able to catch our limit and ended the day catching only 9 keepers total. Our big fish was a 4+ lb smallmouth that came on a spinnerbait in the shallow weeds but it was the only smallie we were able to hook up with. The rest of our fish were largemouths caught on the deeper weedlines with watermelon jigs and Sweet Beavers.

Lake Koronis can be very spotty for us but I had much higher expectations coming into this event. I guess that has kind of been how our year has gone on the BBB trail this season. Every tournament ended up being just a grind with tough fishing conditions and uncooperative fish. Generally those are the conditions I like since I feel it is easier to win a tough tournament than it is to win a slugfest but things just didn't work out for the most part. We were able to finish in the top 10 once again though so it wasn't all bad but hopefully next year it will be even better!

West Central Fall Bass League - Nest Lake

The day after the MN BASS Federation TOC concluded was our first West Central Fall Bass League of the season. The rules of the fall league are basically the same as our nightly leagues throughout the summer but we fish for 5 hours and have a 5 fish limit instead of 3 hours and 3 fish. We will be holding these events every Saturday until it gets too cold to fish or no one wants to show up anymore. There were 10 teams fishing on Nest Lake despite the extremely windy conditions. The fish were mostly uncooperative though, but a few big bags were still brought in.

1st - Paul & Brian 18.86 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 16.29 lbs

3rd - Travis & Jason 15.81 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Brian 5.19 lbs

There isn't a whole lot to say about our fishing for the day although it ended up being good enough to take 2nd place on the day. Most of our main smallmouth areas on Nest Lake ended up being out in the wind so we just had to suck it up and get out in the wind and fish as best we could. We bounced around to several spots throughout the 5 hour day and were able to pick up a fish here and there. We did end up catching several largemouth but ended up weighing 5 smallies that were all between 3-4 lbs. Our fish mostly bit on green pumpkin tubes and football jigs and came from rocky areas between 1-10 feet deep.

Minnesota BASS Federation Tournament of Champions - Lake Minnetonka

Day 1

At the pre-tournament meeting the night before the event I drew boat 78 out of 82 for day 1 of the tournament. I actually didn't even mind being so far back in the pack because I knew I would have at least an extra hour of fishing time over the boats in earlier flights. For some reason I also had a feeling that the areas I wanted to fish would not be getting a lot of fishing pressure anyways. I was right as I pulled into my first spot and there was nobody on it. My starting area was a deep weed line on the inside turn of a point. Almost immediately I started catching fish but the size was not what I was expecting. I was able to put a limit in the boat in about 45 minutes although only one of the bass was over 2 lbs. Those came on black/blue Chigger Craws and hematoma Sweet Beavers that I Tx-rigged with a 3/8 oz. weight. Even though the fish were small I was happy to have a limit so early and I knew I had a long day ahead of me so there was plenty of time to upgrade.

After the action slowed on my deep spot I moved up to some nearby docks just to check if the better fished had moved up there for some reason even though it was early in the day and pretty cloudy. I was only able to catch one fish on a 3/8 oz. watermelon jig but it was around 2 lbs so I was able to get rid of one that was barely 12 inches. At that point I went back deep to check some of the other spots I had found in practice but none of them produced even a single bite.

With my deep stuff failing me I moved to another stretch of docks and as I was swimming my jig between some of them I got bite off by what was probably a big muskie. Instead of retying I picked up a rod rigged with a green pumpkin Bleeding Bait Tube and for some reason that's what they really seemed to want. I started catching fish under basically every dock I fished. They were still small but every couple docks or so I would get one that went around 2 lbs that allowed me to upgrade. I just had a feeling that eventually I was going to run into a big bite or two. Sure enough I got one about 4 lbs to bite and I got her clear from the boat it was under but for some reason it just pulled free. That was a heart breaker but at least I knew there were some quality fish still around. To make a long story short I never got another good bite the rest of the day and was pretty disappointed as I headed back to the weigh-in.

My 5 fish limit on day 1 ended up weighing 11.19 lbs which was actually a little more than I expected to have but still nowhere near enough to be at the top of the leader board. I believe my weight for the day put me in 36th place. The leading weights were close to 18 lbs and the top 12 cut line was about 13.75 lbs. The big one I lost would have put me right near that cut line but there was nothing that could be done about it at that point. Even though I was back in the pack a little ways I still wasn't out of it so that was good at least. I knew I would have to catch them the next day though.

Day 2

On day 2 I was boat 5 so I knew I would be able to get any spot I wanted to start on. I decided to start in the same spot as day 1 even though the fish were smaller than I was expecting. I knew from practice that there were good ones in the area though and even if all I caught were little ones again it would be good to get a quick limit. Right off the bat my partner lost one at the boat that was around 2 1/2 lbs so I was encouraged that some better fish may have moved back. My first couple of fish were all small though but eventually got a few in the 2 1/2 to 3 lb range. I ended up working the same spot for a couple of hours in the morning just fishing as slowly as I possibly could.

After the action really slowed on my starting area I back to the docks where I had lost the big one the day before. I was hoping the same fish would bite again or that some other big fish had moved under the docks. That was not the case at all though as the dock bite was completely dead. I was only able to manage one small keeper that didn't even help me. Even though I had caught a lot of fish the day before I really hadn't fished the docks very hard so I was expecting to catch a few fish at least but it just didn't happen.

I moved back out to try a few other weed line areas but they weren't working either and eventually moved back to my starting spot. I was able to pick up another fish in the 2 1/2 lb range this time before the action died. At this point I didn't have much else going but my partner wanted to try some areas that he had fished in the past. Even though he didn't get any time to practice they were areas that he had caught fish on at the same time of year. As soon as we pulled up on one of his weed lines I put another 3 lb fish in the boat. A short while later I caught another 2 1/2 lb fish. At this point I knew I had a really solid bag but I was just missing that one big kicker. I kept fishing hard for the last hour of the day but never got any more action. All of the fish I caught on day 2 came on the hematoma Sweet Beaver. Like day 1 I was pretty disappointed as I headed back to the weigh-in site. I knew if I had that big fish from the first day I would be in but as it was I just knew I was going to be short of the top 12 cut line.

I was one of the first boats to weigh and my 5 fish limit went 14.11 lbs. That gave me a 2 day total of 25.30 lbs. The whole week I was expecting the top 12 line to be 26 lbs and I didn't get there. As the rest of the field weighed in though it became apparent that the fishing was extremely tough on day 2 and the bags coming in were very small for the most part. I was shocked when my 14.11 lbs ended up being the 2nd biggest bag of the day and was enough to give me a final finish of 7th place out of about 165 anglers. With this top 12 finish I have now qualified for 3 consecutive Northern Divisionals after finishing 2nd and 3rd the previous 2 years. I would sure like to win one of these things but I won't complain too much!

West Central Bass League - Long Lake TOC

Thursday August 26th was the West Central Bass League Tournament of Champions. The top 10 teams in the year long point standings were invited to compete however one team had boat problems the night before and were unable to fish. With limited time we went down the list to try to fill the field but there were no takers so only 9 teams competing on Long Lake. My guess is that 8 of the teams wished they didn't have to fish either since it was brutal out on the lake. Of the 9 teams 6 failed to catch a single fish in the 3 hours of fishing. 2 other teams had 1 fish apiece and the winners reported getting 3 bites all night. They were a pretty amazing 3 bites though as you will see from the results.

1st - Ron & Joe 15.15 lbs

2nd - Ron & Dave 4.23 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 3.01 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe 5.54 lbs

Fortunately for us we were one of the teams who were actually able to catch a fish although it seems more like dumb luck than any type of skill. I never had a bite the entire evening. The bass my dad caught came about 20 minutes into the night while flipping reeds. It actually didn't even hit while in the reeds but after my dad had started reeling in to make another flip. About half way through the night I could tell that it was super tough out there and had the feeling that if we could catch just one more keeper it would be good enough for at least 2nd place. We bounced around to our best summer spots on the lake but were just never able to make anything happen. That is the way summer time fishing on Long can be most of the time though.

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake TOC

Wednesday August 25th was the West Central Bass League Tournament of Champions. The top 10 teams in the year long point standings were invited to fish. Each team then chose one of our league lakes and we drew the name of a lake to fish that night. Norway Lake was chosen. That got a few groans since the lake has been very tough this year but my dad and I were able to get a 1st and a 2nd there earlier in the year so we were happy with the choice. The lake ended up being stingy once again but my dad and I were able to finish off the Wednesday night season with another 2nd place. Here are the full results.

1st - Ron & Joe 9.07 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 7.78 lbs

3rd - Tim & Grant 7.56 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete 3.62 lbs

As usual we started our night fishing deep structure on Games Lake. Our action started almost immediately and we had our 3 fish limit in the boat in about 15 minutes by throwing Rapala DT 14s. We then hopped around to several other locations but not much was happening in any of those spots. After that we went back to our starting area and worked it over with jigs and soft plastics and were able to catch a few more fish doing that. While we were able to upgrade a little bit at a time the quality fish just didn't seem to be there. With about 45 minutes left in the night we decided to head back to Norway Lake to fish shallow cover with the hopes of coming across one big bite. With about 15 minutes left in the evening I was able to catch our big fish from under a dock but it only ended up weighing 3 lbs. That fish still was just enough to bump us over the 3rd place finishers and into 2nd.

Big Bass Bonanza - Sauk Lake

The 5th and final event on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit was held August 22nd on Sauk Lake. The fishing was extremely tough for the 31 teams competing and even the teams who did well reported catching very few fish. In fact only 8 limits were brought to the scales and 7 teams weighed no fish. My dad and I ended up in the middle with 4 fish for 10.38 lbs. That put us in 17th place out of the 31 boats. This was just barely enough for us to hang on to a top 10 spot in the Team of the Year standings. We finished the TOY standings in 8th place with 193 points and the 10th place team finished with 190 points so there was very little cushion for us. With our top 10 finish we will be fishing the BBB TOC on Lake Koronis in a few weeks.

Going into this event we knew the fishing would be extremely difficult but I was still confident we could put our 8 fish limit in the boat. We practiced for one day and had 2 patterns going. The main pattern was fishing docks and trees but this is what everyone else does on Sauk too. Our other pattern involved fishing shallow weedlines which we felt would get a little less pressure. At the end of the day neither pattern ended up working well for us but we did get 2 of our weigh fish from the docks and trees and 2 of our fish from the weedlines. Besides a couple of short fish we only had one other bite the whole day. It ended up being the worst fishing I have experienced in 3 years on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

Thursday August 19th was the final regular season night of the 2010 West Central Bass League season. We had 11 teams competing and as usual Eagle Lake kicked out some monster bags. What was unusual was the color of the fish for the winning team. For the first time that I can remember a team targeted smallmouth and brought in 3 brown fish to take the win. Big smallmouth have been weighed in the past but they were always just random fish. Here are the results.

1st - Grant & Travis 14.10 lbs

2nd - Joe & Pete 11.86 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 10.85 lbs

Even though this was the final regular season night there is still one more night of league fishing this year. The top 10 in the points standings at the end of the year are invited to fish in the Tournament of Champions which will be held August 26th on Long Lake. The top 4 in the standings will receive payouts based on their point standing throughout the year as well. Here are the top 4 teams on Thursday nights for the 2010 season.

1st - Ron & Joe 238 points

2nd - Tim & Grant 234

3rd - Paul & Troy 228

4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals 225

Our fishing this night was actually quite slow but we kept plugging away and ended up weighing in a very nice bag. The only problem was the 2 bags ahead of us were giants! We caught our fish the usual Eagle Lake way by skipping docks and trees although I believe all of our fish came from under docks. 2 of our fish were just average size but a 4.5 lb bass that came about mid way through the night really bumped our weight up enough to get into the final money spot.

West Central Bass League - Diamond Lake

Wednesday August 18th was the final regular season night of the 2010 West Central Bass League season. We had 15 teams competing on what turned out to be a pretty good night of fishing on Diamond Lake. There were a lot of fish caught and the weights were very solid as well. Here are the results.

1st - David & Lenny 9.62 lbs

2nd - Kelly & Scott 9.46 lbs

3rd - Joe & Greg 9.40 lbs

4th - Dean & JD 9.26 lbs

Big Bass - Kelly & Scott 3.68 lbs

Even though this was the final regular season night there is still one more night of league fishing this year. The top 10 in the points standings at the end of the year are invited to fish in the Tournament of Champions which will be held August 25th on Norway Lake. The top 4 in the standings will receive payouts based on their point standing throughout the year as well. Here are the top 4 teams on Wednesday nights for the 2010 season.

1st - Ron & Joe 224 points

2nd - Paul & Pete 220

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 215

4th - Kelly & Scott 192

My dad and I were only able to manage a 6th place finish on Diamond Lake with 3 fish for 7.88 lbs. We actually caught 30 or more bass in the 3 hours of fishing but we just didn't come across the quality fish that many other teams did. Most of our bites came by skipping tubes under the docks but I did add our best fish of the night on a Chigger Craw flipped in the reeds.

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

2010 marked my 2nd consecutive trip to the Northern Divisional after years of coming close but failing to qualify through the Minnesota TOC. Normally the Divisional rotates between the 8 states but for political reasons it returned to Bays de Noc for another year. On the one hand I was disappointed because I did terrible there last year and would have liked to compete on a new body of water but on the other hand last year gave me a lot of experience that hopefully would be useful to me this year. In the end I ended up doing quite a bit better than last year but still stunk it up. Over the course of the 3 day tournament I ended up weighing in 8 bass for 23 lbs 8 oz. This put me in 76th place out of 112 anglers. The 12 man Minnesota team did not fare much better as a whole. We finished in 6th place last year but this year we ended up dropping one spot to 7th.

My troubles started off right away in the morning on Day 1 when I remarked to my partner, "I have never had boat problems on a tournament day. I'm sure that just jinxed us." Right after I said that I checked the kill switch one last time and sure enough it didn't work. A wire had pulled free and there was no way to get it repaired as the blast off had started. Fortunately the Minnesota team had a spare boat in the water and ready to go. After a mad scramble to get our gear in the other boat we ended up blasting off only a couple minutes after the last boat had left. I was only able to grab a handful of rods and tackle though and also had none of my waypoints in the new boat. It was great to only lose a few minutes of time though as we started off on about a 25 mile run to my first spot. My first area was a large flat hump with various high rocky spots on it. I thought I would be able to get on my preferred areas even without my waypoints but the cloud cover really hindered my ability to see the high spots. I was able to catch my 1 fish of the day in this area on a green pumpkin tube. It ended up weighing 4 lbs 12 oz so it was a really nice fish but I just didn't get any more of them. After that we ran around to some of my other areas and my partners spots but nothing would work for me. He was getting quite a few bites dragging a tube just like I was but I just wasn't getting bit for some reason. I guess the whole boat ordeal was messing with my mind more than it should have but whatever the case the whole day was just a disaster.

Day 2 ended up being much better for me as I was able to weigh in a 5 fish limit for 13 lbs 13 oz. That is not a huge limit by any means but it felt good to just get 5 fish in the box. My partner for the day wanted to spend his time in the same area that I started on the day before. That suited me just fine since it was my best area as well. We were the first boat to arrive but it was really slow for most of the morning. I was able to pick up a fish here and there though as I moved around the rocky areas on the hump. In the morning dragging a tube and drop shot extremely slowly was working the best but as the sun came out around noon the spinnerbait bite picked up considerably. By the end of the day I had caught around 10 fish with most of them coming on a spinnerbait in the afternoon.

The forecast for day 3 was for strong south winds which on Bays de Noc is the one direction you don't want to see. Any strong winds make it tough out there since it is such a large body of water but there is nothing blocking a wind from the south. With that forecast in mind the tournament director decided to limit the fishing waters to Little Bay de Noc only for the day. This upset many competitors since all of the best areas were off limits for the day. Personally I do not like the call either. I feel that the day should have been cancelled or we should have been allowed to fish the entire lake. Regardless of our feelings though we had to make the best of it. Neither my partner nor I had much going in the waters we were allowed to fish so we just went fishing basically. I ended up catching one really early on a spinnerbait and then didn't have a bite the rest of the day until we came back to the weigh in site. I was able to catch one more keeper on a drop shot right outside the harbor as we bounced around in the 5-6 foot waves that were coming in at that point. My 2 fish for the day weighed in at 4 lbs 15 oz and I was able to get some more big water driving time in as well. I never felt comfortable in big waves like that but after doing it 2 years in a row now I feel like I have gotten the hang of it. It's still not my idea of a good time but at least I don't feel like I'm going to die!

Even though my performance in this tournament was not very good I still had a great time over the week. Our 12 man team worked well together even though it didn't really show in the final standings and they were a great group of guys to hang out with. I was almost sad when the week came to an end. In any case I'll be trying to make the 2011 Northern Divisional once again when we have our MN State TOC on Lake Minnetonka on September 9-10.

West Central Bass League - Lake Koronis

August 5th was the last league night I fished before leaving for the BASS Northern Divisional on Bays de Noc in Escanaba Michigan. We had one of our lowest turnouts of the year with only 10 boats showing up to compete. Koronis is not one of the more popular lakes on the league schedule so this is not too surprising though. My dad and I could only manage to find 3 little keepers for 4.87 lbs which put us in 7th place for the night. With only 10 boats we paid 3 spots instead of the usual 4.

1st - Paul & Troy 9.29 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe 9.01 lbs

3rd - David & Lenny 8.32 lbs

Big Bass - Tim Stockland & Grant King 4.41 lbs

Our night was just a struggle to get anything going. From the results you can see that we never did find anything that worked for us. I guess I just want to forget this night because it's been a few weeks now and I really don't remember how we caught our fish. I believe we caught a few on soft plastics around the trees and docks. I also think we caught 1 weigh fish along a deep weedline on a jig. It doesn't really matter though since it was such a poor performance.

After this night I left for Michigan for 4 days of practice and the Northern Divisional which took place August 11-13 so I missed the league nights of August 11th on Green Lake and August 12th on Lake Calhoun. Since I did not fish those night I will not be reporting on them here. My next blog will detail my experience in Michigan for the Northern Divisional.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

Wednesday August 4th was our first visit to Eagle Lake for the West Central Bass League this year. The lake is known for kicking out some big fish and big bags in league nights past but it was nothing compared to this evening. Of the 18 teams fishing, 9 of them were able to bring in a 3 fish limit weighing over 9 pounds, with 4 of those bags topping 10 pounds. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Pete 14.36 lbs

2nd - Grant King & Travis Lohre 12.22 lbs

3rd - Jeff & Jake 11.80 lbs

4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals 10.56 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete 5.14 lbs

Since I am pretty backlogged on these blogs after my trip to Michigan these next few league reports are going to be short and to the point. For this night on Eagle there is not a whole lot to report anyway. We fished the way we always do on Eagle which is to find a stretch of docks that doesn't have any boats on it and go to work picking them apart. This is how most of the fish are caught in the lake and all of our weigh fish came by skipping Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes under and around the docks.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake

Thursday July 29th was the first visit to Green Lake for league this year and it must have scared off most of the guys or something because only 9 teams showed up to fish despite the perfect weather conditions. I guess they are just intimidated by Green Lake! Maybe they were just the smart ones since the fishing was pretty difficult for the most part.

1st - Tim Stockland & Grant King 9.27 lbs

2nd - Paul & Troy 9.14 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 7.36 lbs

Big Bass - Ross & Daryl 3.40 lbs

My dad and I were the beneficiaries of some bad fortune from our closest pursuers in the Team of the Year standings on this night. Their boat broke down about halfway through the night so they were unable to fish effectively for the full 3 hours and ended up finishing 4th for the night. I would have liked more of a cushion but at least we gained 1 point on them. At this point in the season we have a 2 point lead over 2nd place in the standings.

I hadn't been out on Green since our Big Bass Bonanza tournament several weeks ago so the plan was to fish the same patterns and hope they still worked and if not try to figure something out with the remaining time. For the most part those areas and patterns held up but the size was just a little bit smaller than it had been. It also hurt that I lost several nice bass that would have helped our weight a bunch. I don't think they would have been enough to win but you never know. We caught all of our weigh fish on tubes fished around milfoil, sand and rocks.

West Central Bass League - Lake Calhoun

Wednesday July 28th was the first visit to Calhoun for the West Central Bass League this year. The lake is known for producing tons of small fish but can also produce some very nice bags as well. On this particular night it was somewhere in between as all 19 teams competing were able to bring in a 3 fish limit. Even though it is only a 3 fish limit that is pretty rare. The weights at the top were also very tight but all in the 9 lb range which is not great for this lake.

1st - Paul & Pete 9.41 lbs

2nd - Travis & Tristan 9.37 lbs

3rd - Ron & Joe 9.27 lbs

4th - Ron & Dave 8.48 lbs

Big Bass - Troy & Chad 3.97 lbs

My dad and I were only able to manage an 8th place finish with 6.98 lbs. This continues our slide in the month of July. We are still holding on to the Team of the Year standings lead but the gap has closed to 4 points over Ron & Joe who are on fire right now. We will need to pick it up if we are going to hold them off the rest of the year.

Our fishing on Calhoun was about what I was expecting. We ended up catching a lot of fish but most of them were under 2 lbs. I think the 3 that we weighed in were the only 3 fish we caught that were over 2 lbs but as you can tell from the weight they were not much over 2 lbs. We ended up moving around quite a bit in search of an area with big fish but nothing ever materialized. Our 3 weigh fish did end up coming in 3 different types of areas as well. The first came on a tube under an overhanging tree. The second came on a Chigger Craw flipped into heavy milfoil near deeper water and the third one came on a jig flipped in the reeds. It ended up being a pretty fun night just catching a lot of fish in a variety of ways but we really needed a few bigger bites. Hopefully they will be coming in the next few weeks.

West Central Bass League - Long Lake

Thursday July 22nd was the 2nd stop on Long Lake for the league and as expected for this time of year on Long the fishing was extremely tough. Out of the 13 teams only 2 were able to bring in a 3 fish limit and 7 of the teams zeroed. The 2 teams who did catch limits reported only catching 3 fish apiece so it wasn't like they were whacking them either but the fish they did catch ended up being very nice. Even though very few fish were caught the average weight ended up being an astounding 4.10 lbs!

1st - Ron & Joe 12.73 lbs

2nd - Tim & Grant 12.60 lbs

3rd - Jim & Dwight 8.34 lbs

4th - Andy & Mike 7.54 lbs

Big Bass - Ross & Daryl 5.16 lbs

Just like everyone else we had an extremely tough night although we were able to get 3 bites and put 2 of them in the boat to squeak into the money in 4th place. One of our fish came early in the evening on a black/blue punch skirt rig flipped in the reeds. Our 2nd fish didn't come until about 10 minutes before check in. That one came on a black/blue tube from under an overhanging tree.

Sorry for the delay and shortness of these last two blogs. I have been in Michigan for the past several days doing some pre-practice for the upcoming BASS Federation Northern Divisionals on Bays de Noc so I haven't had the time I usually do for these things. Things will be back to normal at this point for a couple weeks at least.

West Central Bass League - Lake Andrew

Wednesday July 21st was the 2nd visit to Lake Andrew for the West Central Bass League. This time we had 21 boats fishing which is a great turnout but also a lot of boats for such a small lake. It may have been a little crowded on the water but the weights for the evening were the best in a few years for the lake. My dad and I did not share in the success though as we managed to catch a 3 fish limit for 6.78 lbs which was good for 6th place for the night.

1st - Travis & Tristan 10.15 lbs

2nd - Paul & Pete 9.44 lbs

3rd - Ron & Joe 9.13 lbs

4th - Jeff & Todd 8.47 lbs

Big Bass - Jeff & Todd 4.43 lbs

Our fishing started off very slow but picked up later in the evening as we found a school of bass hanging in the thickest coontail area we could find. That is basically what we did for the whole evening. We just kept fishing different weedline areas looking for a school of big fish which we were never able to find. The bass we did end up catching were all about 2 1/4 lbs and all came on watermelon jigs in the heavy coontail.

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna

Yesterday was the 2nd stop at Lake Johanna for the West Central Bass League. Earlier in the year a 3 fish bag weighing nearly 13 lbs was weighed in but on this night nothing came close to that. There were some very nice bags brought in though. Unfortunately my dad and I were not one of them as we ended up with only 2 fish for 5.77 lbs. That was good for 7th place out of the 14 teams competing. Here are the rest of the results.

1st - Ron & Joe 9.86 lbs

2nd - John & Jacob 9.77 lbs

3rd - Tim & Grant 9.76 lbs

4th - Jim & John 9.65 lbs

Big Bass - John & Jacob 4.15 lbs

There really isn't much to say about our fishing for the night since we didn't catch much at all. We spent most of our time for the night in one small area of reeds that we knew was holding at least a few fish. I missed a couple of bites but never got a hook in either fish and my dad had 2 fish on that he lost so we did have our chances at getting a 3 fish limit but it just didn't happen for us. The 2 fish that we did weigh both came on a black/blue homemade punch skirt rig.

West Central Bass League - Lake Florida

The West Central Bass League returned to Lake Florida on Wednesday July 14th. We had fished there several weeks earlier on a Thursday night and the fishing was pretty tough for the most part. It was nothing compared to what we faced on this night though. Out of the 18 teams competing there were 6 zeros and another 6 boats only had 2 fish. There were still some nice fish caught though as usual.

1st - Ron & Joe 9.67 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 9.51 lbs

3rd - Kelly & Scott 8.30 lbs

4th - Brad & Wayne 5.20 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe 4.08 lbs

After the top 3 the weights really dropped off as you can see. Fortunately we were able to find some fish and actually have a fun night of fishing. Our first stop was deep water area with scattered weeds and a few rocks. We ended up staying on this spot for the first hour. The action was very slow but after that hour we had 3 fish in the boat with one of them being 3 3/4 lbs and another close to 3 lbs.

Our next stop was another deep area with similar features to the first. We ended up spending the entire second hour in this location and the action was much faster. We probably ended up catching 15 keepers in the hour if not more. Most of the fish were 2 lbs or under but we were able to cull up a few times with fish in the 3 lb range.

Our final hour was spent bouncing around several other deep weed areas with little success. I was able to catch another fish close to 3 lbs on one of the spots but at that point it was not big enough to help us. All of our weigh fish for the night ended up coming on watermelon jigs or watermelon texas-rigged finesse worms.

Big Bass Bonanza - Green Lake

Sunday July 11th marked the 3rd of 5 events on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit this season. The tournament was held on Green Lake near Spicer and drew 34 teams. This number was a little lower than I expected but Green Lake has been extremely tough this year and I think that may have kept a few teams from showing up. Despite threats of thunderstorms and wind the fishing conditions were very nice for the day but true to it's nature this year the fishing was extremely tough. Even the teams who ended up finishing well reported a tough bite. The winning bag went to Nick and Paul with an 8 fish limit for 22.15 lbs. 2nd place went to my dad and I with 8 fish for 21.95 lbs. 3rd went to the team of Moore and Moore with 20.96 lbs and they also had the big bass of the day with a 5.12 lb largemouth. I do not have official results so these are all from memory but I believe they are correct.

Like the other top finishers we also had a tough day overall. Our morning started off well but in the last 4 hours of the day we were only able to cull 1 time. We basically had a two pronged approach to this event after our practice period was over. We had found some good fish shallow in milfoil beds and also deep on humps.

We started the morning running various milfoil beds that we had located in practice and over the past several years. Our primary lure was a texas rigged tube that we threw around the edges and also right into the thick stuff. This pattern allowed us to fill our limit by about 9 am. That limit was mostly just small largemouth but also included 3 bass in the 3 lb or better range.

After fishing our best areas the action seemed to slow for us up shallow so we decided to head out to deep water in search of a few big smallies. We had gotten bit on several humps in the 20-30 foot depth range in practice and felt like this would be a good compliment to our shallow water pattern. Our first two stops out deep paid off nicely with 4 smallies in the 2 1/2 - 2 3/4 lb range on drop-shot rigged finesse worms. We continued to run this pattern in several more locations but the action was completely dead in all the other areas we tried. Since the deep water bite wasn't working for us anymore we headed back shallow but that was also very slow for the rest of the afternoon. I was able to upgrade with another 3 lb largemouth from the milfoil at about 1 pm but that was the only cull we made and one of the few fish we caught in the last 4 hours of the tournament.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with our performance in this tournament. Coming so close to a win but not quite getting there was pretty heartbreaking but that's how it goes. I really feel with the lake fishing as tough as it was that I should have been able to win the event but it wasn't meant to be. It really would have been nice to have a better afternoon or at least caught 1 more good fish to put us over the top but I don't think I would change anything about how we fished. It just didn't happen for us that day.

West Central Bass League - Diamond Lake

Thursday July 8th was our first visit to Diamond Lake for the West Central Bass League. Diamond can be a really good big fish lake or it can be tough as nails. This night it showed it's ugly side as only 3 of the 14 teams were able to bring in a 3 fish limit for the night. 6 of the 14 teams were not able to catch a single keeper. Out of the 14 boats fishing a total of 17 bass were brought to the scales. That is some tough fishing!

1st - Ron & Joe 8.71 lbs

2nd - Ron & Dave 7.05 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 6.45 lbs

4th - John & Jacob 5.21 lbs (2 fish)

Big Bass - Ron & Joe 3.37 lbs

We were one of the 3 teams to catch a 3 fish limit but for the most part our night was uneventful. We only ended up getting 4 bites but one of them was a fish that my dad missed and I was able to follow up with a quick cast to catch it. So really we only had 3 keeper fish bite all night long. Our first fish came after fishing for over an hour. I caught it off a dock on a black/blue Strike King Bleeding Bait tube. After that we went over an hour again without a bite. At this point I figured just having 1 keeper would possibly get us some good points but I was still getting worried. At around 8:30 my dad missed a fish in a weed mat and I was able to throw my tube right back and get it. My next cast was to the next dock and I was able to add our final keeper on the tube. So after 1 bite in 2 1/2 hours we had 2 fish in the boat in about 2 minutes. It was another great ending to a tough night!

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake

Wednesday July 7th marked our 2nd visit to Norway lake this season for the West Central Bass League. We had 22 boats competing and most teams were able to bring in their 3 fish limit. The weights were about normal though for the past few years as most of the bags were very small. There were a few exceptions though as the top several teams brought in very nice bags for Norway Lake.

1st - Brad & Wayne 11.06 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 9.29 lbs

3rd - Jim & Brad 9.06 lbs

4th - John & Jacob 8.76 lbs

Big Bass - Brad & Wayne 4.74 lbs

As usual we started and spent the majority of our night in Games Lake. We fished several spots out deep and were able to catch around a dozen fish for the night on a variety of lures. The biggest fish came on Rapala DT 16 crankbaits and Berkley 10" Power Worms. We were not able to find many quality fish over in Games though as our biggest fish was just a little under 3 lbs. With about 15 minutes to go I decided to head back to Norway Lake and fish one spot in the reeds for the last 10 minutes of the night. With about 5 minutes before check in I boated a nice bass that went just a little over 4 lbs on a Berkley Chigger Craw. I don't know why I decided to move to a spot that I only had 10 minutes to fish but it paid off! That fish gave us an additional 2 lbs and moved us up from out of the money and into 2nd place. What an exciting way to end the night!

West Central Bass League - Nest Lake

We had 15 boats competing last night on Nest Lake for the West Central Bass League. Once again we had strong winds that hampered the fishing for some but for others the fish really turned on and some really big bags were brought to the scales.

1st Ron & Joe 11.91 lbs

2nd Brad & Wayne 11.25 lbs

3rd Andy & Mike 11.17 lbs

4th Paul & Troy 9.38 lbs

Big Bass - Dean & JD 4.77 lbs

For a 3 fish limit you can see that the weights this evening were very strong. Most of the top teams reported catching a lot of nice fish as well. My dad and I were not one of those teams though. I think we only ended up boating 7 fish for the evening but 6 of them were 3 lbs or better and I'll take quality over quantity any day!

Our evening started on another down note as I lost a smallie over 3 lbs in the first 5 minutes of fishing. I won't blame that one on my injury though since I was feeling much better. I had it on a drop shot with a small light wire hook so usually those things stick and fish don't get off but this one just jumped and came off for some reason. That seems to be how my year is going so far. The rest of the night was just a grind as we rotated through our usual areas with very little success. As I said though when we did get a bite it ended up being a good one. Towards the end of the night we had a little flurry and I put a largemouth close to 4 1/2 lbs in the boat on a KVD tube. At this point I knew we had close to 11 lbs so despite the tough night I felt we had a good shot at the win. It wasn't meant to be though as not 1 but 2 teams brought bigger bags to the scales. Man these guys are tough out here!

West Central Bass League - Lake Koronis

We had our lowest turnout of the year for Wednesdays on June 30th. I think the strong winds as well as the fact that it was Koronis kept many teams from showing up. Koronis can be a great lake but since it is a little further away than most of our league lakes some people just don't have as much experience on that body of water. Even though the turnout was lower we still had 18 boats competing on what turned out to be a pretty tough night. Koronis is noted for pretty good smallmouth fishing but only 2 made it to the scales that evening and they were both brought in by my dad and I. Here are the results.

1st Ron & Joe 8.18 lbs

2nd Andy & Mike Nitchals 7.98 lbs

3rd Paul & Pete 6.61 lbs

4th Kelly & Scott 6.54 lbs

Big Bass Mike Nitchals 4.44 lbs (Smallmouth)

Before I start the fishing report I have to start making my excuse for why we lost this evening. Earlier in the day my dad and I stopped off at a lake on the way to Koronis for a few hours of fun fishing. As I was loading the boat I slipped off the trailer and crushed my chest against the winch. I didn't break anything but I was in quite a bit of pain for the rest of the evening. I didn't do any damage to my arms but the chest pain ended up affecting my hooksets later in the evening and I was not able to get much power which resulted in me losing 3 good fish. Any one of those 3 would have been enough to give us the win but that's just the way it goes I guess. I have loaded and unloading my boat 100s and 100s of times since 2005 and never had any issues like that. I guess it was due to happen someday!

Besides the lost fish our fishing for the night was very slow. We started on one of our favorite stretches of docks and trees but didn't have a bite. After that it was off to one of our favorite deep weedline areas. It was out in the wind though and extremely difficult to position the boat but we did put one small keeper in the boat on a watermelon jig. After having a tough time for largemouth we stopped on a small rocky area for smallies. Almost immediately I had a good one on but since I had a terrible hookset it pulled off right away. I never saw the fish but I know it was a good one. It seemed like the smallies might have been biting so our next stop was an area mixed with rocks and weeds. I opted for a spinnerbait this time thinking that the way smallies hit a spinnerbait I would not need a very good hookset to get them to the boat. I was wrong! I had a good one close to 3 lbs crush my spinnerbait but halfway to the boat it jumped off. My dad also lost a decent smallie on this area. Our night was going from bad to worse in a hurry!

Our next stop was another shallow rocky area in search of smallies. This time my dad connected with the big fish of the night on a KVD tube. A short while later I added a small largemouth from the same area that also came on a tube. At this point we at least had our limit and the one big one so we were feeling a lot better. The rest of the night we bounced around and I missed one more good one under a dock but we were not able to boat any fish until our last stop of the night. With about 10 minutes until check in we pulled onto a shallow weedy ridge and I was able to add a 2 lb smallie that culled out one of those tiny largemouth. With as bad as my execution was I knew we had blown the win but I didn't realize it would end up being as close as it did. That makes it hurt even more!

West Central Bassmasters State Qualifier - Lake Osakis

Sunday June 27th was our final qualifier event to determine which of our club members would go to the MN State Tournament of Champions. Unlike most of my other tournaments this is an individual event and we had 15 guys competing in this one. Going in it sounded like everyone had a very tough time in practice and extremely strong winds on tournament day did not help matters. I am not going to post the full results like I did last time but I will give some of the details. The winner on the day weighed in a 5 fish limit for 10.80 lbs and I came in 2nd with 10.02 lbs. After that no other bag topped 9 lbs. The big fish for the day was caught by my dad and it weighed 3.77 lbs. With my 2nd place finish I was able to move into the top spot for the club this year! This means that I will be the guaranteed boater from our club at the state tourney! It is always nice to be assured that you will be able to use your own boat.

Here is the list of state qualifiers from our club this year:

1st - Andy Nitchals

2nd - Brian Krause

3rd - Mike Nitchals

4th - Dean Drexler

5th - Grant King

6th - Joe Patock

Alternate - David Christinsen

This is a strong group of fishermen. Many of them have qualified for state multiple times and it should allow us to have a good showing. Besides my personal accomplishments at the state tourney over the past 2 years our club has also been the top club in the state in that portion of the event those 2 years. I see no reason why we can't keep that crown!

I had the same experience as the others in the club who had a tough time during practice. My dad and I spent about 9 hours on the lake the week before and caught about 10 fish. That doesn't sound too bad but they were all small except for 1 and also there really was no rhyme or reason to where we would get a bite. One area of reeds on the north end of the lake seemed to be a little bit better though so that is where I decided to start. Almost immediately I had a small keeper in the boat and a short time later my dad boated the big bass of the day. This got me feeling pretty good about the area and I decided to spend a good chunk of the morning without ever picking up the trolling motor. After fishing through the reeds and adding another small keeper, the cover turned to slop near the bank. I picked up a Zoom Horny Toad, which I almost never throw, and fired it up next to shore. As soon as it hit the water my biggest fish of the day was all over it. He got buried in the slop and I just skied it into the boat. That fish went right at 3 lbs and I was feeling pretty good about my chances if I could just fill my limit. After that we worked back through the reeds again with no action until I came to a few docks where I added another small keeper on a Strike King tube and my limit fish a short while later from a small reed pocket. By now it was 10:30 in the morning and I had not started the big motor since blastoff. For me that is very unusual but on this day it was effective. At that point I felt it was time to check some other stuff and the day got really slow. I didn't have another bite until 1:30 in the afternoon. That fish came on a black/blue jig pitched into the reeds and allowed me to cull up slightly.

This was an unusual tournament for me in that I spent so much time without moving and also the number of lures it took to get my limit. Most of the time if you aren't dialed into to just a couple of baits it means that you are struggling pretty bad. This tournament my 5 weigh fish came on 5 different lures. They were a Chigger Craw, Sweet Beaver, Horny Toad, jig and tx-rigged tube. I will say I felt like I was struggling out there but at the end of the day it turned out to be much better than I expected!

WCB/Green Mill Summer Classic - Green Lake

Saturday June 26th marked the first of two events my Federation Nation club, the West Central Bassmasters, and Green Mill Restaurant will be holding this year on Green Lake in Spicer Minnesota. We had 33 teams show up from all over the state to compete on one of the premier tournament lakes in Minnesota. Although it is one of the best lakes in the state, this year it had been fishing tougher than I have ever seen it and many teams struggled to catch quality fish. There are always a few who figure it out though and some very nice bags were brought to the scales. With 33 teams competing, 6 spots were paid. Big bass of the day also earned a check.

1st - John & Jacob Zvorak 6 fish 18.89 lbs

2nd - Seth Fieder & Austin Felix 6 fish 18.58 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 6 fish 17.68 lbs

4th - Matt & Verney Klemm 6 fish 17.50 lbs

5th - Jason Dudek & Jason Holmer 6 fish 16.90 lbs

6th - Paul Shimek & John Lindgren 6 fish 15.33 lbs

Big Bass - Matt & Verney Klemm 4.28 lbs

As you can see the weights at the top were pretty tight together as is usually the case on Green Lake but after that they began to tail off quite quickly. Only half the field was able to weigh in over a 2 lb. average which shows just how tough the lake is fishing right now. Another interesting note is the number of largemouth weighed in. Traditionally this has been a smallmouth lake and that is what most people fish for but in this tournament 70 largemouth were weighed compared to 88 smallmouth weighed. That is getting pretty close to a 50/50 mix. The big bass for the day was also a largemouth which is almost always the case in recent years.

My next tournament on Green is coming up July 11th on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit so in this post I cannot be very detailed with my fishing report. It looks like it is going to be hot for the next 2 weeks though so the fish will be moving and probably doing some completely different things by then but I still don't want to reveal too much. After the BBB tournament I will maybe get more detailed about the patterns and spots used for both tourneys.

So what can I say about this event? I guess there are a few things that I can reveal. It is pretty well known, amongst many in the area, that I enjoy fishing deep on Green. That was not the case this year though. I was not able to find any deep water areas I had confidence in for the tournament. All of the fish we caught came from water 10 feet deep or less. As far as what type of areas we were fishing in the shallow water I won't say but we fished a variety of spots. There were a couple keys subtleties that seemed to make a big difference though.

I will also say that one lure really produced much better than any others for us and that was a tube. We rigged it a variety of ways and worked them in several different ways as well. We did end up catching probably around 35-40 fish on the day and the vast majority of them came on a tube. Another interesting note is that the majority of the fish we caught were largemouth. We still caught around 15 smallies but I don't ever remember catching so many largemouth on a tournament day, especially since we were not necessarily targeting largemouths specifically. Our final bag ended up consisting of 3 smallies and 3 largemouths which is probably more largemouth than I have weighed in out of all my other tournaments out there combined.

Well I've probably said too much already but I hope that was an interesting read and still sufficiently vague.

West Central Bass League - Lake Florida

We fished Lake Florida for the first time this year for league June 17th. The reports coming into the event were that Lake Florida was really tough this year and from the little bit of time I put on the water I had to agree. Maybe that was the reason the turnout was so low with only 14 boats competing. The fishing, numbers wise, turned out to be better than I expected but as usual for the lake in recent years the weights were pretty small in general. Here are the results.

1st Andy & Mike (Me) 3 fish 9.94 lbs

2nd Tim Stockland & Grant King 3 fish 7.03 lbs

3rd Paul & Troy 3 fish 7.03 lbs

4th Ron & Joe 3 fish 6.48 lbs

Big Bass Andy Nitchals 3.49 lbs

As you can see there was a tie for second place in total weight but Tim & Grant won the tiebreaker by having a larger fish than Paul & Troy.

Writing this blog has become a little trickier for me in recent years as the readership has expanded. I generally have no problem talking about what worked and where but in certain instances I think I need dial back on the details. This is one of those instances. So even though I will not be very detailed in this report, I will not lie or try to deceive anyone on my blog.

My dad and I ended up having a very good night on what I was expecting to be a tough lake. We ended up catching maybe 15 or more keepers for the night and not to rub it in too much but we threw back 3 fish that would have also won handily. Maybe we should be allowed to weigh in 2 limits for a night? I'm just joking about that but we did have a fun night fishing the way I like to fish. All I am going to say about where we caught them is that they were deep. Our 3 weigh fish came on a variety of lures. We had one each on a Brush Hog, jig, and finesse worm rigged on a drop shot. We caught fish on several other lures as well but they didn't come to the scales.

West Central Bass League - Solomon Lake

The West Central Bass League returned to Lake Solomon on Wednesday June 16th. We had fished there the opening week on Thursday night and fishing was pretty good for most of the teams. It was the exact opposite this time as only 7 of the 24 teams competing were able to bring in a 3 fish limit. The winning weight was also the smallest that I can ever remember on Solomon. My dad and I really struggled for most of the evening but we did manage to bring in a 3 fish limit for 7.86 lbs which was good for 6th place. Here are the rest of the results.

1st David & Lenny 3 fish 8.80 lbs

2nd Ron & Joe 3 fish 8.77 lbs

3rd Paul & Pete 3 fish 8.26 lbs

4th Bill & Todd 3 fish 8.19 lbs

Big Bass Bill & Todd 4.47 lbs

As I said earlier we struggled for most of the night. We only had about a 20 minute period where we caught any fish at all so there really isn't much to tell in this report. I ended up catching 4 keepers in that 20 minutes by flipping a black/red flake Berkley Chigger Craw to the reeds. We must have hit that stretch before anyone else or something because the fish were biting pretty good for a little while at least. The rest of the night was just a struggle as we bounced around the lake searching for a bite that never came.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Ida

The second of five events on the BBB trail took place this past Sunday, June 20th on Lake Ida just north of Alexandria. There were 36 teams competing which was up slightly from the opening event a few weeks earlier. This is probably due to Ida being a much better fishing lake than the Horseshoe chain although the average size of the bass out there is pretty small. With 36 teams they ended up paying back 6 spots and my dad and I finished just out of the money in 7th place. We had an 8 fish limit for 16.70 lbs. With such a low weight I was pretty shocked to even be that close. The winning bag for the day was just over 24 lbs of smallmouth but 2nd place dropped all the way down to 17.81 lbs. The big bass for the day was a 3.96 lb largemouth.

Our practice for Ida was pretty tough overall and was interrupted by boat issues that cut our time short. Catching fish is never a problem on the lake but finding above average fish was extremely difficult even though an above average fish is only 2 lbs. We had located 2 areas that seemed to be holding more of the 2 lb fish at opposite ends of the lake. With that in mind we decided to start close to the launch site and get fishing quickly. The action started fast with a fish on my first cast but it wasn't a keeper. Several more short fish followed and we began to realize something had changed. We stuck around awhile longer and ended up adding 4 keepers but they were all small.

After that it was down to the other end of the lake to try our other "good" spot. This ended up being the same thing. A lot of small fish but the 2 pounders were gone. We did put our 8 fish limit together by about 8:30 am but we knew they would all have to be culled if we had any shot in this event. We fished around awhile longer but just couldn't find the right size so we decided to go to an area that only had small fish in practice. It was another stretch of deep weed line that has actually produced for us over the years but didn't seem to have the quality this year. For whatever reason the small fish in practice turned into 2 to 2 1/2 lb fish on tournament day though and we upgraded 7 times along that one weedline.

After the action slowed we went running docks and reeds for most of the afternoon looking for one big bite that would put us ahead of the rest of the field who we were sure would have limits of 2 lb fish. I was able to add 1 upgrade to our limit with a fish close to 2 lbs off of a dock but the big bite never came. After seeing the weights at the weigh in we realized that we messed up by leaving our honeyhole looking for a big bite that we didn't even need. I am almost positive that if we had sat on that one area the rest of the day we would have been able to cull up into 2nd place. There was no shot at first since they blew it away but I really wish we stayed put and just ground up a few ounces at a time. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.

Our weigh in fish, with the exception of the dock fish, came on watermelon LFT Twitch worms rigged on a drop-shot, watermelon Brush Hogs, and watermelon jigs. The dock fish came on a green pumpkin Strike King KVD tube.

West Central Bass League - Lake Andrew

After a record turnout the night before this Thursday had our lowest number of participants of the season. Strong winds and threats of severe thunderstorms kept most people home for the evening although it turned out to be not so bad after all. With only 13 boats fishing instead of the usual 20-25 it really opens a lake up to fish more areas. Those of us who did show up probably wished we had stayed home though after getting our butts handed to us by the winning team on what is traditionally a small fish lake. Here are the results.

1st - Superstars Tim Stockland & Grant King 3 fish 11.57 lbs

2nd - Paul & Troy 3 fish 7.70 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike (My dad and I) 3 fish 7.09 lbs

4th - Scott & Al 3 fish 7.02 lbs

Big Bass - Tim & Grant 4.48 lbs

I'll keep this recap short and sweet since I went long on the last one and really there isn't a whole lot to say. We spent most of the night bouncing around various deep weedline areas in 10-12 feet of water. We did make two forays into the shallows but did not catch any that helped our limit. The fish we did catch were all about 2 1/4 lbs and they came on watermelon jigs and Brush Hogs.

Also I'd like to give a big THANKS to Lafe Swalin for letting us use his boat this week. Our boat broke down Tuesday morning and has been in the shop waiting for parts all week. Without his generosity we would not have been able to fish at all. Thank you Lafe!

West Central Bass League - Long Lake

This past Wednesday saw another record turnout as 27 teams showed up to compete on Long Lake. The weather was beautiful and the lake is known for kicking out some big fish so that is probably what got everyone out. The lake definitely lived up to its reputation as a big fish lake that doesn't have a lot of fish as you will see from the stats. Only 38 bass were weighed but the total weight was 139.26 lbs which made for a 3.66 lb. per fish average. That is gigantic for Minnesota! I believe only 2 fish under 3 lbs. were weighed in for the night. I lost 2 fish at the boat that would have weighed a combined 10 lbs and we only ended up weighing in 2 fish for 6.35 lbs. This was still good enough for 10th place out of the 27 teams though. Here are the rest of the results.

1st - Chad & John 3 fish 12.34 lbs

2nd - Bill & Todd 3 fish 11.90 lbs

3rd - Tom & Bob 3 fish 10.22 lbs

4th - David & Lenny 3 fish 9.53 lbs

Big Bass - Chad & John 4.96 lbs

We started our night on one of the reed islands that we shared with another boat. It is not a large area and with 2 boats on it we covered it pretty quickly without a bite for either one of us. After that it was off to another area of reeds that also failed to produce. This time though I moved off the reeds slightly into open water where the first disaster struck. I was swimming a homemade black/blue punch skirt rig with a Berkley Chigger Craw when a 4 1/2 lb fish hit right at the boat. I didn't get a very good hookset so instead of waiting for the net I just tried to boat flip it but of course it fell off just as my dad was getting the net to it. That is not the way to start the night!

With so many boats on the water our next location was one we choose simply because there was no one there. It was another stretch of reeds that I rarely fish. It turned out to be a good choice though because we boated our 2 keepers there on the punch skirt rig and a watermelon craw tube. After getting those bites we really worked the general area thoroughly for our 3rd keeper but it never came.

The rest of the night was spent fishing used water although I tried to fish it differently than others would have. Most people will just fish around the edges of the reeds but we tried to get way back in them where a fish may not have seen a lure. Towards the end of the night we got way back behind a reed point that is usually too shallow to fish but with all the rain we were able to get way back to the back where my dad had 2 blow ups on his frog but wasn't able to connect. A short while later I had a giant well over 5 lbs crush my black Spro Bronze Eye frog. The fish was absolutely crazy! It was out of the water for at least half the fight until disaster struck once again. I had it right to the boat and almost in the net when it just fell off for no apparent reason. I kept it on through all the jumping but when it was at the boat it just pulled free.

I guess there are two ways of looking at the night. One is that we fished terrible and lost big fish. It really is a horrible feeling. On the other hand I feel like we fished a perfect tournament from a mental aspect. We were able to generate the bites to win and get big bass for the night on a night when many struggled to catch just 1 fish. That is how I should look at it I suppose but I still feel sick!

West Central Bassmasters State Qualifier - Lake Minnewaska

Sunday June 13th marked the first West Central Bassmasters club event to determine which members will qualify for the Minnesota State Federation Tournament of Champions. It was held on Lake Minnewaska out of Starbuck Minnesota. We had 16 guys fishing, 12 of whom were trying to qualify for the state tourney. With 12 people trying we are allowed to send the top 6 to the state tourney. The conditions on Sunday were beautiful with light winds and cloudy skies with occasional rain showers. These are the type of conditions fish should bite well in but unfortunately for us it was just about the toughest I have ever seen the lake. Here are the results from the day's fishing:

June 13, 2010 Lake Minnewaska

Name # Fish Big Tot Wgt Place State Pts

Tim Stockland 5 3.50 10.51 1 12

Mike Nitchals 5 3.48 10.50 2 11

Andy Nitchals 5 3.96 10.24 3 10

Brian Krause 5 3.64 8.98 4 9

Dean Drexler 5 2.81 8.17 5 8

Paul Shimek 5 7.84 6

Joe Patock 5 7.59 7 7

Grant King 4 6.88 8 6

Ryan Brummond 5 2.32 6.73 9

Wayne Kitzmann 5 6.29 10

David Christinsen4 6.16 11 5

Jeff Wilke 5 5.48 12

Eric Tessmer 4 5.09 13 4

Solon Schaefer 4 4.68 14

Lenny Schaefer 3 2.89 15

Bill Neumann 2 2.83 16 3

Big Bass 3.96 Andy Nitchals

Before the tournament everyone I had talked to was complaining big time about the lake. Everyone is saying all the big fish were gone and the fishing was really tough out there. I spent about 6 hours on the lake the previous week and was able to compile 13-14 lbs pretty easily so I was really liking my chances going into the event. Of course practice and the actual tournament are much different things but I at least had confidence that I could get a few bigger bites than most of the field.

My plan was to fish weed lines in 8-14 feet of water and that is pretty much what I stuck to all day long. I did start on a rock and gravel area in about 4-6 feet of water where I was able to catch 2 quick smallmouth on watermelon/red flake Strike King Coffee Tubes but they were both only around 1 1/2 lbs. After that it was off to the weed lines for the rest of the day. I alternated between 1/2 oz and 3/4 oz watermelon jigs as well as a watermelon Brush Hog for most of my fishing. I just kept rotating through my old waypoints and some of the new areas I had found earlier in the week. I can't be too specific about the big fish of the day but I will say it came on a spot I found a couple years ago and every time I have fished it I have been able to catch at least one fish over 3 lbs off of it. It really seems like a consistent spot that doesn't receive a whole lot of pressure. That fish came on a 3/4 oz jig and if I hadn't caught that one I would have been really hurting since the rest of my limit was all small fish. I was just never able to get on the quality I had found earlier in the week although my dad, who was fishing with me, caught 2 fish in the 3- 3 1/2 lb range to enable him to finish 1 spot ahead of me. If only I had gotten one of those bites instead of him!

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake

Thursday June 10th was the Norway Cup edition of the West Central Bass Leauge. Basically the Cup night is just double the entry fee and 2 big bass are paid instead of 1. Otherwise all the other rules are the same. We had 19 teams fishing on another cool, windy and misty night. As has been the case the past couple of years there were a ton of fish caught by most of the teams but for the most part they were all small. Norway generally has one of the lowest average weights per fish of any of our league lakes. 1st place went to my dad & I with 8.15 lbs for 3 fish. 2nd went to Paul & Troy with 7.64 lbs. In 3rd was John & Jacob with 7.55 lbs and 4th went to Brad & Wayne with 7.28 lbs. The big fish for the night was caught by Paul & Troy. It weighed in at 3.93 lbs.

Our fishing for the night was extremely slow compared to many in the field. Most teams fished shallow and caught a bunch of little fish but we did the opposite and stayed out deep all night looking for a couple of the right bites which we were eventually able to find. We really only had 2 10 to 15 minute periods of activity all night long. We were able to fire up a school and catch 3 or 4 pretty quick and then just like that it was over. That is just how it goes when you are hunting for those deep water fish sometimes. I would have liked the schools to have more fish but it ended up being enough. We threw a variety of classic deep water baits including jigs, football jigs, brush hogs, 10 inch worms and Rapala DT 16 crankbaits but the 3 fish we weighed in came on football jigs and cranks.

This makes it 2 wins for us in 4 events so far this season. Hopefully we can keep up the pace and win every other time or so but with the level of competition that will be impossible. We are going to be giving it our best shot though. My next tournament is a club event to qualify for the MN BASS Federation state tournament. It will be held tomorrow on Lake Minnewaska. I enjoy the lake and have really gained a lot of confidence out there in the past couple years so it should be a good tournament. I'll update on that one as soon as possible.

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna

We had another excellent turnout on Wednesday June 9th at Lake Johanna. 24 teams showed up to compete despite the cool and windy conditions. It seemed like a tale of two lakes while talking to the fishermen after the competition was done. Some teams reported catching a ton of fish while others including my dad and I struggled to get just a few bites. It sure seemed like one end of the lake was much more productive than the other. In any case the weights overall were pretty strong with 8 limits weighing over 9 lbs. 1st place went to Bruce & Cal with a monster 3 fish limit weighing 12.93 lbs which included the big bass of the night of 5.38 lbs. 2nd place went to Brian with 10.26 lbs. 3rd was T.J. & Isaiah with 9.98 lbs and 4th went Jeremy & Lee with 9.79 lbs. My dad & I finished 8th with 9.25 lbs.

As I mentioned earlier we had a tough time getting bites and only boated 5 fish for the evening. We did the same thing we always do on this lake which is fishing the reeds. We usually have a few boats around us in our starting area but on this night there were 5 other boats with us. It is not a large area so it was pretty crowded but we were able to start on the stretch we wanted and my dad put 2 fish in the boat within 20 minutes on a black/blue jig. After that we were out of fresh water so we began fishing used water and after about an hour we were able to pick up our limit fish also on the black/blue jig. At this point we decided to run to another area of reeds only to find that it had also been fished by several other boats. It was slow at first in the location too but as the sun got lower the fish pulled to the outside edge where I was able to upgrade twice with 3 lb fish on a Berkley Heavyweight Sink Worm.

Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain

The first event of five on the Big Bass Bonanza tournament circuit is in the books. It was held June 6th on the Horseshoe Chain of lakes near St. Cloud Minnesota. The tournament did not go as well as planned for my dad and I as we could only manage 14.07 lbs for our 8 fish limit. It was still not a total disaster though because even that small limit put us in 14th out of 32 teams. The winning team came in with 20.24 lbs and it took around 17.5 lbs to get a check. Obviously I would have liked to do a lot better than that but it wasn't a total bomb anyways. I also had the second biggest bass weighed in with a 4.18 lb smallmouth that just missed out on being the big bass of the day to a 4.26 lb largemouth. I believe big bass was worth $600 so coming so close but missing out hurt a little bit. You can also tell from doing the math that our other 7 fish weighed a combined 10 lbs. We just could not figure out how to get any more decent fish to bite despite having a fair practice period earlier in the week.

We started our day on an area with heavy vegetation in the form of curly leaf pond weed with a few pads mixed in hear and there. Normally I do not like fishing curly leaf since it rarely seems to hold bass for me but this area had a number of fish over 2 lbs during practice. We started by throwing frogs and flipping Sweet Beavers in the heavy cover but it didn't seem quite right. After longer than expected I had a blow up on the frog that missed but I was able to pick him up on a follow up cast but it was only barely over 12 inches. After that disaster struck. I had 3 fish hooked and almost all the way to the boat before they fell off for no apparent reason. The hooks were sharp as tacks and I really don't know why they came off. My dad then started getting bit on the frog but was never able to hook into any of them. Fortunately none of the lost or missed fish seemed to be the right size anyways. Unfortunately that meant our best area no longer seemed to hold the quality we needed.

After that we decided to go after smallmouth. They typically play a huge role in Horseshoe tournaments and we had found some good ones in practice. We had several spots within one general area of the lake and when we arrived there were boats on 2 of them. A third spot we had marked was vacant so we pulled in there and within 5 minutes I boated that 4.18 lb beauty on a watermelon/red flake Strike King Coffee tube. I really thought it was going to be on but that was the last good smallmouth we caught the rest of the day. After working the area thoroughly we slid up to a row of nearby docks where we caught a couple more small largemouth to get us closer to filling our limit. By that time the other boats had left and we fished the used water to catch a few more keeper smallies but nothing much over a pound.

The rest of the day was spent bouncing around between rocky smallmouth areas and dock/tree lined banks looking for a few more good fish which unfortunately never came. We were able to fill our limit with small largemouth but were just not able to find the right quality. I believe the winners were mainly fishing docks but we just didnt come across the right stretches I guess.

This tournament leaves me pretty unsatisfied. We are still in position to make the top 10 year end tournament so that is good and I'm not disappointed that we only caught small fish. We I don't like is the poor execution on the frog fish in the morning, even though I don't know what I could of done differently, and what I feel was semi-poor decision making on my part. I just didn't really feel it out there for whatever reason. Maybe it was because it was the first tournament of the year but it wasn't coming together in my head the way I would of liked. I'll chalk it up to being the first tournament and just move on. Even though it may seem like we weren't even close, just 2 more good bites would have moved us way up and into the money.

My next tournament is a West Central Bassmasters club event on Lake Minnewaska. This is the first of two events to determine which club members will go to the state tournament. I was out on Waska today and I probably shouldn't say anything but I will say I like what I see.