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.