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!