B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Championship - Ouachita River

As B.A.S.S. Federation Nation anglers our ultimate dream is to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic through the amateur ranks. Sure the camaraderie and competition at the club, state, and divisional level is a big part of it, but in the end what we are all striving for is a spot in the Bassmaster Classic. The B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Championship is the last step before the Classic. Do well there and you are in! Fortunately for me I was able to qualify for the BFNC at the Ouachita River held November 3-5 in Monroe Louisiana. Just getting to this point was a big accomplishment as the process of qualify is a long road through various tournaments. Unfortunately for me I was unable to capitalize on the opportunity. I really struggled on the Ouachita River and ended up weighing 11 bass for 12 lbs over the three day competition. This placed me 42 out of 54 anglers. In actuality you do not have to beat the full field though. There are six divisions and the winner of each division is awarded a Classic spot. I was in the Northern Division fishing against 8 other anglers and of course did not fair well there either, finishing 8th out of the 9 anglers and far short of my goal.

After the practice period I was pretty confident that I had an area where I could at least catch a limit. Although I had a couple of decent bites I knew finding the better quality fish was going to be a real challenge for me. I was boat 10 on the first day so I figured I would be able to get to my limit spot first and sure enough I did. The area was a creek, or bayou as they call them, off of the D'Arbonne Bayou. The fish were all the way as far back as I could go before a small bridge blocked the way. With the idle zones and the stumps back in the creek it took a good 45 minutes to get back in there but even with the water temps dropping rapidly the fish were still there. The action wasn't as fast as I had hoped for but I was able to get a small limit before noon. All of those fish came on a small 1/4 oz chartreuse and white Strike King spinnerbait slow rolled along the wood cover. It didn't feel as though I was going to get any big bites in this area though so as soon as I had 5 in the box I headed out to check some other backwater areas off the main river. I knew these areas wouldn't produce many bites but I also felt that I could get 1 or 2 bites in the 3 lb or better range from at least of them. My afternoon was uneventful until my final stop where I went as far back into one of the lakes as I could and the shad were going crazy. There were seemingly millions of shad flicking on the surface in the shallows. It seemed to be an ideal situation and I quickly put my best fish of the day in the boat. It was a little over 2 lbs and also came on the little Strike King spinnerbait. I fished around for awhile longer but with a 30 minute run back to the ramp I had very little time. My 5 fish limit for 5 lbs 13 oz had me in a respectable 26th place out of the whole field but there was a big problem. My Division leader was in 2nd place overall with a massive 14 lb 1 oz bag.

Going into day 2 with such a large deficit to overcome there was really no choice about what to do. I had to abandon my limit spot and fish for bigger fish even though I really didn't have an area I felt had a concentration of them. I started in the area where I ended day one and also fished several of the other backwaters off the main river where I had gotten bigger bites in practice but nothing happened. I went all morning fishing those areas and only came up with 1 small keeper on a chartreuse/black back Strike King KVD 1.5 crankbait. Towards the end of the day I decided to quickly hit my limit area with the little time I had left and just hope to find a big bite back in there. That didn't happen but I was able to add 2 more small keepers on a black/blue Strike King Rodent before time ran out. My Division leader struggled on the day but my 3 fish for 3 lbs 1oz only had me sliding further back.

On day 3 I was totally out of contention so I just decided to go fishing and try to have some fun. I started back in my small fish just to get some bites to start the day. The fish were actually biting really good and I caught more fish than I had any of the other days but most of them were short. I did pick up 3 keepers on the black/blue Strike King Rodent before deciding to just go exploring. The rest of the day was unproductive as I never had another bite. My 3 for the day ended up weighing in at 3 lbs 2 oz.

Even though the fishing was tough for me the week was still pretty incredible. Every competitor fished out of an identical brand new Skeeter ZX 200 with a Yamaha SHO 200 on the back. That is an impressive boat/motor combination without a doubt. Seeing 60 identical rigs parked in 2 rows in the boat yard is also something you don't see every day. The B.A.S.S. staff was also great. They handled everything that needed to be done as far as backing boats in or dealing with any boat issues. All we as competitors had to do was just go fishing. Jon Stewart, the Tournament Director, runs a great tournament and I hope to be fishing more with him. I'll sure be trying as hard as I can to get back!

West Central Fall Bass League - Diamond Lake

We had 7 teams fishing the West Central Fall Bass League on Oct. 22 on Diamond Lake. The weather was just about perfect for a late fall day with calm winds and mild temperatures. The fish apparently liked the weather too because a lot of fish were caught and some big ones were brought to the scales as well including one of the heaviest bass weighed for league in years. Here are the results.

1st - Pat & Nasha - 5 - 22.49 lbs

2nd - Kolton - 5 - 16.68 lbs

Big Bass - Butch - 6.42 lbs.

My dad and I had a great day for numbers as we caught more than 30 bass on the day but besides a couple in the 3-4 lb range we just were not able to find enough quality fish to compete. Our 5 weighed in at 14.60 lbs to take 3rd place. We focused our efforts on the trees and a few remaining docks and that was not the deal for the day. We caught fish on a variety of lures but all our weigh fish ended up coming on various colors of Sweet Beavers.

This was not the final event on the Fall League schedule but it was my last tournament of the year in Minnesota. It seems like almost yesterday when the season started. My fishing is not over yet though as I will soon be heading down to Louisiana to compete in the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Championship on the Ouachita River. I did some scouting down there a few weeks ago and it is definitely a challenging fishery but I'm super excited to get back down there and earn my spot in the Bassmaster Classic!

West Central Fall Bass League Tournament - Lake Osakis

On October 1st The West Central Bassmasters held what we call the West Central Fall Bass League Tournament. Instead of our normal fall bass league format in which we fish 5 hours with a $20 entry fee, the tournament is a $50 entry and we fish for 7 hours. This year the lake chosen was Lake Osakis and after a day's fishing many were unhappy with the choice. The lake was very tough for the 8 teams fishing and only three 5 bass limits were brought to the scales. For some reason it wasn't tough for my dad and I and we were able to catch a lot of fish with a few nice ones to take the win handily. Here are the results.

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 5 - 16.50 lbs

2nd - Paul & John - 5 - 13.36 lbs

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals - 3.74 lbs

As I said earlier we had a good day on the water. While the others struggled we were able to get onto a key area that gave up 30 or more bass for us on the day. What was interesting is that we never saw another tournament boat all day long. It is pretty rare when things happen like that. In my experience on Osakis you just have to fish a lot of water with no bites to find a small little area where the bass are schooled up and that is what we were able to find. All of our fish came by pitching jigs and various soft plastics to the reeds and bullrushes.

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Johanna & Norway Lake

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Johanna - September 17th

The forecast for the day was cold, windy and cloudy and that is exactly what we got for our event on Lake Johanna. It wasn't nearly as windy as many people were expecting although that is probably part of the reason we only had 8 boats fishing. The fish didn't cooperate very well either as most teams reported extremely tough fishing even though at the end of the day some nice bags were brought in. Here are the results.

1st - Dean & JD - 5 - 19.17 lbs

2nd - David & Lenny - 5 - 17.65 lbs

Big Bass - David & Lenny - 4.61 lbs

My dad and I had a tough day and only brought 4 to the scales weighing 13.70 lbs. That put us in 4th place for the day. Even though we only brought 4 to the weigh in that is a little misleading since we lost 4 fish that we had hooked up. So we had the bites but we just didn't get them in the boat for some reason. None of the fish we lost would have been enough to take 1st place though so that's a little consolation. As usual for Johanna all our fish came on jigs and various plastics fished in the reeds.

West Central Fall Bass League - Norway Lake - September 24th

We had a very nice turnout with 13 teams competing on Norway/Games Lakes for the West Central Fall Bass League. Although the day started cold it warmed up into a beautiful fall day on the water. The fishing was pretty good to with a lot of limits caught and some nice weights for Norway Lake. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Lee - 5 - 15.15 lbs

2nd - Ross & Robbie - 5 - 14.33 lbs

3rd - Butch - 5 - 13.91 lbs

4th - Wayne - 5 - 13.57 lbs

Big Bass - Ross & Robbie - 4.71 lbs

My dad and I had another pretty tough week as we brought in 5 weighing 12.59 lbs to take 5th place. Actually the only real difference from our bag and those in the money was one 4 pounder. The teams who were in the money all had one 4 pounder and we just never had that bite. We spent a fair amount of time out deep like we usually do on these lakes but for whatever reason that bite was just not happening so we ended up catching our fish by fishing jigs and soft plastics around the docks and reeds.

Green Mill/West Central Bassmasters Fall Classic - Green Lake

The West Central Bassmasters along with Green Mill teamed up for the 2nd annual Fall Classic held on Green Lake in Spicer on September 11th. We had a beautiful day that felt more like summer than fall and 33 of the 34 teams competing where able to bring in their 6 fish limit. The other team had mechanical issues so they did not get to the weigh in on time but I'm sure they had a limit as well because the fishing was excellent for most of the teams. My dad and I also had some great fishing for the day and we ended up weighing 5 smallmouth and 1 largemouth for 19.74 lbs which was good enough to take 1st place for the day! My track record for Green Lake tournaments is pretty strong, with numerous 2nd and 3rd place finishes, but it had actually been a number of years since I've gotten a win out there so this one felt really good. The full results of the tournament can be found here.

http://www.wcmnbassmasters.org/resources/2011FallClassicResults.pdf

A couple of things I found interesting about the results were the average size of the bass and the lack of largemouths weighed in. The weights all the way down were very solid and that led to the average weight of all the fish weighed in being 2.64 lbs per bass. This is the heaviest average I can remember in the tournaments our club has run out there. What makes that more surprising to me is that the big largemouth have almost completely disappeared. In the past couple of years the largemouth in the 2-4 lb range had really taken off and to do well in tournaments you usually needed to have at least a few of them in your bag. This year only 24 of the 198 bass weighed were largemouth. I have no idea where those bigger green fish went and no one else I've talked to seems to know either. The big fish of the day was a 4.74 lb smallmouth which is an absolute giant for Green Lake in recent years.

Immediately prior to the event my dad and I were up at the Whitefish Chain for a week fishing the Minnesota B.A.S.S. Federation Nation TOC so with no chance to pre-fish Green that week I decided that we would not pre-fish Green at all beforehand. That made the last time we had seen the lake about 3 weeks earlier for our last league night of the season. I would never attempt this for any other tournament but I have an extensive history on Green and thought it would be kind of fun to just figure things out on the fly.

We decided to start in the same spot we ended our last league night. That evening they were blasting topwaters at the end of the night and the hope was that they would be doing the same thing right away in the morning. The area was a large sand and gravel flat with a few scattered weeds in 4-8 feet of water. Sure enough it was on as soon as we pulled up and they were hitting the Super Spook. We had probably a dozen bites but they just weren't really getting it very good. We didn't lose any fish but just had a hard time hooking up. We did land about half of them but only 1 ended up riding to the weigh in. That smallie was about 3 1/4 lbs.

After the topwater action slowed we moved slightly deeper to the 8-15 foot range to test out several thick milfoil beds. Right away I put a 3 lb class largemouth in the boat on a green pumpkin Strike King Coffee Tube and a short while later added a nice 3 3/4 lb smallie on a watermelon Sweet Beaver in a clearing between to milfoil patches. At this point it was still early in the morning and we had 3 quality fish in the boat with only 3 more to go. I was wondering if the bite was just wide open all over the lake or if we were really onto something.

I did want to check some deep water in the 20-30 foot range though because I really like catching them that way on Green so that was our next couple stops. It didn't take long to figure out that deep bite wasn't going to happen. I caught 1 tiny bass out deep but the other key was there was nothing on our HDS screens. No bait, no fish, the screens were just blank. It made our decision to focus on shallow to mid depths for the rest of the day pretty easy.

After checking the deep stuff we moved back to the 6-12 foot range for the rest of the day primarily focusing on milfoil patches and sand/gravel flats. I was able to catch our second biggest bass of the day on a chartreuse/white Strike King spinnerbait fished over the sand which was actually the first spinnerbait fish I had caught on Green Lake all year. The action was much slower for quality fish in the late morning through the afternoon but we just kept bouncing around to various milfoil patches and every once in awhile we would get a smallie in the 3 to 3 1/4 lb range by flipping various plastics into and around the weeds. We ended up catching a pile of fish on the day but not really a ton of quality fish. For the day we ended up with 7 that went 3 lbs or better but with a 6 fish limit that was enough to get the job done!

West Central Fall Bass League - Nest Lake

September 10th marked the first West Central Fall Bass League of the season although it sure didn't feel like fall out there. We had sunny, calm conditions with a high around 85 degrees. It was hot out there and this fishing was pretty hot for a few of the 11 teams competing on Nest Lake as well. The fall league is basically the same as our summer league except that they are held on Saturdays instead of during the week. We also fish for 5 hours and have a 5 fish limit instead of 3 hours and 3 fish. Here are the results.

1st - David & Tanisha - 5 - 16.91 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 5 - 16.90 lbs

3rd - Paul & Scott - 5 - 16.13 lbs

Big Bass - David & Tanisha - 4.17 lbs

As you can see we had a good day but after the scales settled it was a huge disappointment to lose out by .01 lbs! We did have a fun day though catching a mixed bag of about a dozen fish with many of them being quality bass. We started on a large flat with cabbage and milfoil on it although this year the milfoil really exploded out there and was matted up everywhere. That is exactly what I was hoping to see and we got to work quickly by pitching various plastics to the clumps of milfoil. Most of those fish were smaller but one was a solid 3 pounder that stayed in the box for awhile. After the action slowed we headed out to a deeper rock area to see if the smallies were going. We were only able to get 1 bite out there but my dad put a nice smallie near 4 lbs in the boat on a green pumpkin football jig. Next it was off to an area I hoped would have cabbage but the milfoil had taken over just like everywhere else on the lake. Again we had only 1 bite in the area but it was our best largemouth of the day and a little over 3 1/2 lbs. After that we just bounced around between shallow rocks and milfoil switching back and forth between smallies and largemouth. As the day wore on it became apparent that the smallies were biting pretty well so we focused on that a little bit more and of the 5 bass we weighed 4 of them ended up being smallies.

Minnesota B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Tournament of Champions - Whitefish Chain

This tournament was held over two days on September 8-9th on the Whitefish Chain of Lakes north or Brainerd. There is really only one goal for this tournament and that is to make the top 12. Those top 12 anglers then advance to the Divisional tournament that will be held next year in Illinois. Coming into this event I had qualified for the previous three Divisionals and will also be representing Minnesota at the National Championship later this fall so I really wanted to keep my streak going. Unfortunately for me I was not able to accomplish my goal. Over the two days I ended up weighing in 10 bass for 20.72 lbs which put me in 24th place out of 160 anglers. To finish that high against such a large field is a pretty good accomplishment but anything outside of the top 12 is just a huge disappointment. At least my club, the West Central Bassmasters, has continued our hot streak in the event. We placed 2 anglers in the top 12 for the 4th consecutive year and also took 2nd overall in the final team standings. A big congratulations to Joe Patock and Ron Mehr for finishing 3rd and 8th respectively to advance to the Divisional tournament!

Day 1

I had a pretty tough practice which seems to be par for the course for me the last few years in this tournament. That doesn't mean a thing though since I was able to advance each of those years. I actually ended up putting a few things together that I really thought were going to be good enough even though I knew I would get very few bites doing them. It's not about the number of bites though at the end of the day and I really thought the few bites I would get would be the size I needed.

We blasted off at Moonlight Bay and I was fishing within about a minute after that. I started off throwing a Super Spook on a bank with milfoil and cabbage. I really didn't expect much for numbers but this is where I thought I could get a kicker right off the bat in the morning. As it turns out the fish were biting big time and they were keepers but none of them would be the ones I'd want in the box at the end of the day. After boxing a limit and throwing the Spook for about an hour it just didn't feel like a big bite was coming so it was off to the next area.

My next stop was a weedline area that is kind of hard to describe. Let's just say it had some unique turns and points all in one general area with the coontail growing out to about 18-19 feet and some thicker milfoil up shallower. Once again I did not expect a ton of bites but instead they were biting good here too and again they were small. I was able to upgrade though and after fishing this area for awhile I had now had a limit of 14 inchers in the livewell. These fish were caught on jigs, 6" finesse worms and my trusty Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss. At this point I had caught quite a few bass but had not seen even one of the quality fish I had found in practice. I did feel like the bite would be better in the afternoon though so I suggested to my non-boater that we try some of his areas and then return to this spot later in the day.

So it was off to his spots or large area as it were. It turned out to be pretty similar to my primary area with coontail out to around 19 feet adjacent to a large flat. We fished along the edge of the flat for a long time and the action was really slow but once we got to a nice inside corner I was able to put my largest fish of the day into the boat. That one went about 2 3/4 lbs and came on a 6" finesse worm. After fishing that corner for quite awhile it was pretty clear nothing else was going to happen so it was back to my area where we would end up closing out the day.

After returning to my weedline area the fish were still biting and still pretty small but eventually my non-boater was able to put a couple fish in the 2lb range in the boat so I really started thinking the afternoon bite was going to play out after all. For the most part it didn't until right near the end of the day when I hooked a good fish in the 3 lb range only to have it jump off a little ways from the boat. After such a tough day for the quality fish losing that one really stung! I knew I wouldn't be way up in the standings even with it but it was just going to be that much more ground for me to make up the next day. For the day I weighed in 5 for 9.59 lbs which put me in 51st place.

Day 2

Despite being so far back in the pack after day 1 I was by no means out of the game. I've been in these tournaments long enough to know that day 2 is almost always a much tougher day and the weights usually drop off quite a bit. I still knew I had a lot of ground to make up though but based on my practice I knew I was around the fish to make up that ground if I could just get them to bite and get them in the boat.

I decided to skip my Spook pattern in the morning in hopes that my primary weedline area, which I felt would be better in the afternoon, would also be on in the early morning. I hadn't fished it right off the bat in the morning so I didn't know what to expect other than that I knew there were quality fish there. Just like the previous day the fish were there and biting but also all in the 14 inch range. Eventually I was able to boat one on a jig that went about 2 1/4 lbs which was decent but I also knew that would have to be my small fish for the day.

After fishing awhile longer we decided to hit some of my non-boaters docks and hope that the afternoon bite would be better. The dock bite was tough and I was only able to put one keeper in the boat that didn't help me at that point. It was nice to be in the back of the boat for awhile though and recharge a little bit. I knew I would have to be on my game the last couple hours of the day if I had any chance to make the top 12.

We made our way back to my primary weedline area and I continued to catch fish, upgrading by ounces every once in awhile, instead of the pounds I needed. Eventually I came across a little spot on the weedline where the bottom was slimy and the fish were sitting right there. I was able to catch 4 keepers making the exact same cast and each one was bigger than the next, topping out at about 2 1/2 lbs. I just kept thinking please keep getting bigger but then the action just died. Those fish all come on a 6" finesse worm rigged on a drop shot. Eventually after about half an hour casting to the same little spot my non-boater hooked into a 3 lb fish which was the biggest fish in my boat over the two days. I really hoped that fish would fire the school back up and I could pull it out at the end of the day and I thought it had happened. I called last cast and pulled up the trolling motor when I hooked into a giant. I looked down into the clear water and saw a huge white mouth only to be heartbroken when it turned to the side and was way too long to be a bass. Turns out it was about a 6 lb northern. No last second heroics for me. I did end up with better weight than day 1 with 5 bass for 11.13 lbs but I ended up about 1 1/2 lbs short of the top 12 mark. The good one I lost on day 1 would have put me really close to the cut line but I think I would have still ended up just a little short even if I had boated it. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself!

West Central Bass League - Tournament of Champions Week

West Central Bass League TOC - Diamond Lake - August 31st

The top 10 teams, based on the final points in the TOY standings on Wednesday night were invited to fish the Tournament of Champions. Each team then threw their pick for a lake into a hat and Diamond Lake was drawn. Diamond used to be known as an extremely tough lake but also one that held giant fish. It has changed in recent years and the big fish are gone for the most part but it now kicks out huge numbers of fish. On this night most of the teams reported catching a lot of fish and some nice weights were brought in as well. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 11.39 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 10.55 lbs

3rd - Bill & Todd - 3 - 9.59 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Scott & Kelly - 4.41 lbs

Big Bass #2 - Ron & Joe - 3.92 lbs

Bill & Todd - 3.92 lbs

As you can see we finished 2nd to cap off a pretty good year on Wednesday nights in which we also finished 3rd in the TOY standings. For the final night on Diamond our plan was to primarily fish the docks and trees since that had been the main pattern all year on the lake. We did venture to the reeds a couple of times but were unable to get bit doing that although several other teams reported catching a lot of fish out of the reeds. We ended up catching a lot of fish on the docks though. All of our weigh fish came by pitching and skipping docks with various jigs and soft plastics.

West Central Bass League TOC - Norway Lake - September 1st

Just as on Wednesday nights the top 10 teams were invited to fish the Thursday night Tournament of Champions. We had fished Norway Lake on the last regular season night and by luck of the draw that is where the TOC was held. At least everyone in the field had been out the previous week so we all had a feel for the conditions. The fishing didn't end up being quite as good though. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 9.39 lbs

2nd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 9.22 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 8.86 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Mike Nitchals - 3.85 lbs

Big Bass #2 - Ron & Joe - 3.70 lbs

We were able to end the Thursday night campaign which had us placing 2nd in the TOY standings on a solid note with one last in the money finish. As many readers know my preference is to fish in Games lake but that plan had not been working at all this year. The previous week we decided to abandon Games and Spend our time in Norway. We were able to produce a decent limit but at the end of the night we ended up culling all those fish out on a quick trip to Games. For the TOC there was no question that we would spend most of our time in Games. We were able to catch a pretty quick limit fishing deep with crankbaits and jigs but the fish were small and after awhile it slowed way down. We ended up running around a little bit but I knew we had to be back on our prime deep stuff at the end of the night. That is when my dad caught the big fish of the night on a Rapala DT 16 with about 20 minutes to go.

With the TOC's complete the summer West Central Bass League season is now over. The fishing is far from over though as the West Central Fall Bass League starts on September 10th and runs until the end of October. Since we run out of daylight on weeknights the Fall League is held every Saturday. This allows us to fish for 5 hours instead of just 3 which I enjoy because it gives a little more time to figure things out. Last year the fall fishing was extremely tough for the most part. Hopefully it will be a lot better this year!

West Central Bass League - Week 13

West Central Bass League - Green Lake - Aug 24th

August 24th marked the final Wednesday night of the 2011 West Central Bass League season. We still have the TOC's for the top 10 on each night but the regular season and TOY standings are all wrapped up. We had 15 boats fishing on what started out to be a pretty windy evening but ended up being a perfect night for fishing. For the most part though the smallies didn't cooperate and the overall weights for the night were pretty low. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 9.50 lbs

2nd - Grant & Tim - 3 - 8.96 lbs

3rd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.30 lbs

4th - Dean & JD - 3 - 8.28 lbs

Big Bass - Grant & Tim - 3.73 lbs

My dad and I couldn't find any real quality either and ended up just out of the money in 5th place with 3 for 7.75 lbs. We actually ended up catching quite a few fish on the night but only found 1 in the 3 lb range. We primarily fished sand and gravel flats with scattered weeds in 6-10 feet of water. Most of our fish came dragging green pumpkin tubes but towards the end of the night I was able to get several bites on the Super Spook but only 1 fish actually hooked up with the lure.

The Team of the Year standings were also decided on this night. The top 10 in the standings are invited to fish the TOC on Diamond Lake. Generally the TOY race is a tight one near the top but this year Ron & Joe had it wrapped up before the final night. There was a tie for 2nd going into the night but we just didn't get it done and slipped to 3rd in the overall standings. Here are the top 5 teams for the year.

1st - Ron & Joe - 259 points

2nd - Paul & Pete - 243 points

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 241 points

4th - Scott & Kelly - 225 points

5th - Grant & April - 217 points

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake - August 25th

We had 16 boats fishing the final Thursday night of the West Central Bass League. The fishing was pretty typical for the lake in recent years although the top weight was one of, if not the largest weight weighed on this lake. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Pete - 3 - 13.01 lbs

2nd - Jim & John - 3 - 9.46 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.36 lbs

4th - Grant & Tim - 3 - 8.50 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete - 5.18 lbs

I'm not going to go into any detail on how we caught our fish on this night since by luck of the draw we are returning to Norway Lake for the TOC. Hopefully that will be another successful night as well and I will give the details at that time.

For Thursday night the TOY race was extremely tight and after a little flip flopping still ended up really close with only 2 points separating the top 3 teams. As on Wednesdays the top 10 in the standings are invited to fish the TOC. Here are the top 5.

1st - Paul & Pete - 251 points

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 250 points

3rd - Ron & Joe - 249 points

4th - Dean & JD - 227 points

5th - Grant & Tim - 210 points

It was another great year for the West Central Bass League. Congratulations to everyone who was able to make the TOC on either night!

West Central Bass League - Week 12 & Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Le Homme Dieu

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake - August 17th

We had 19 boats fishing Eagle Lake on this night and it was sort of a tale of two lakes. 8 teams brought in 3 fish limits weighing 10 lbs or more while the rest of the teams had 8 lbs or less. In addition to that many of the larger bags were comprised mostly of smallmouth bass. Here are the results.

1st - Grant & Tim - 3 - 12.89 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 12.12 lbs

3rd - Ron & Dave - 3 - 11.65 lbs

4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 11.23 lbs

5th - Brad & Wayne - 3 - 10.96 lbs

Big Bass - Jeff & Kris - 5.03 lbs Smallmouth

Despite our strong weight at the end of the night our evening started off pretty slow. We fished docks for quite awhile and only had one lost fish to show for it. After that we moved to another area where my dad quickly put a chunky 3 1/2 lb largemouth in the boat on a watermelon jig. A short while later I added a 3 1/2 lb smallie from a little deeper water on a drop shot finesse worm. After the action slowed in that area we moved back to the dock where we had lost a fish earlier but were unable to get that fish to bite again so we started working the large flat out from the docks and quickly got into the smallies. My dad filled our limit with a 3 lb class fish and just a few minutes later I had a 5 lb plus smallie almost to the net before it jumped off. That was a heart breaker but just a short while later my dad added a 4 1/2 lb smallmouth for a nice upgrade. We stayed in that area the rest of the night and caught several more fish but none that would help us. All of the smallies came on spinnerbaits burned just under the surface.

West Central Bass League - Lake Andrew - August 18th

We had 18 teams fishing Lake Andrew and overall I would have to say the fishing was very good. This lake is not known for big fish in recent years but a few of them showed up on this night. To get into the 5th and final money spot also took the most weight I can remember in years. Here are the results.

1st - Kyle & Jim - 3 - 9.94 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.83 lbs

3rd - Travis & Hunter - 3 - 9.28 lbs

4th - Ron & Joe - 3 - 8.67 lbs

5th - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.55 lbs

Big Bass - Kyle & Jim - 5.65 lbs

Unlike the previous night on Eagle we got off to a fast start on Andrew. I didn't catch one on my first cast but I did on the 2nd and 3rd and we continued to whack em for about a half hour on one small stretch of deep weed line. Many of the fish were smaller but after that half hour we already had a really solid bag in the boat. Once the action slowed we poked around the same general area and a short while later I put a 4 lb class fish in the boat from a little shallower water. All of those fish came on a homemade watermelon jig. A little later in the evening we moved up to the slop and I was able to put a 3 lb fish in the boat on a Spro Bronzeye frog. It wasn't a huge upgrade but it helped a little. I think that might have been the first frog fish I have weighed this year.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Le Homme Dieu - August 21st

This tournament was the final event of 5 on the Big Bass Bonanza for 2011. Going into it my dad and I were sitting in 11th place in the TOY standings. The top 10 in the standings are invited to fish a no entry fee TOC so that was what we were gunning for. To make a long story short we didn't get the job done as we finished 24th out of 36 on Le Homme Dieu. Our 8 fish limit weighed in at a paltry 14.35 lbs. The final results are not out yet but I believe we ended up finishing 13th in the overall TOY standings which was by far our worst showing since we started fishing the BBB circuit.

Our practice for this tournament was really tough. We were able to catch fish but for the most part they were all small until the end of the day when we got onto what I thought was going to be a really solid pattern and location. We ended up spending most of our tournament day on a large flat in 6-12 feet of water throwing a variety of baits from spinnerbaits and crankbaits to jigs and Texas rigged plastics. Our first fish of the day was a nice 2 1/2 lb bass which tells me that the quality fish were still around but we were just unable to put any other nice ones in the boat as you can tell from our total weight.

B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Northern Divisional - Mississippi River, Pools 18 & 19

As many of you probably know by now I had a very successful tournament last week at the Northern Divisional out of Ft. Madison Iowa held August 10-12. I finished the 3 day event with a combined total of 12 bass for 21 lbs 14 oz to place 11th out of 96 overall but more importantly it was the heaviest weight of anyone on the 12 man Minnesota team. By being the top angler for Minnesota I have earned the right to fish in the B.A.S.S. Federation National Championship to be held on the Ouachita River in Louisiana in November. If I finish 1st in my division at that tournament I will be going to the Bassmaster Classic! For this blog I will break down my week on the Mississippi.

Before I can get to the Iowa fishing I have to go back to last fall and the Minnesota State TOC on Lake Minnetonka. The main goal at the TOC is to finish in the top 12 to make the team for Divisionals but the secondary goal is to be in the top 6 which means you will be a guaranteed boater at Divisionals. I finished 7th last fall so going into the Divisionals I was already setting up a game plan as a non-boater. When I pulled into the hotel in Ft. Madison the first person I ran into was Rick Billings who finished 13th last fall. I was wondering what he was doing there and he informed me that the 5th place guy had dropped out and he had moved up to 12th. Later that evening at the team meeting I was officially given the opportunity to move up to the 6th and final guaranteed boater slot which I gladly accepted. In these tournaments each angler gets equal time running the trolling motor but being the boater is still quite a big advantage so I was thrilled with the chance. Now I just had to go catch em!

Day 1

On the first day of the tournament I had a great boat draw as the 5th boat out and a partner who didn't have a whole lot going but what he did have was all in the same general area that I planned to fish. This worked out well because the fishing was really tough and the portion of the river we were allowed to fish was huge. I wanted to spend as much time with a line in the water as I could instead of running all over up and down the river. After my practice I really only had confidence in 1 large backwater area and 1 smaller backwater lake nearby. I decided to go to the larger area simply because I felt it had the size to hold more fish and the way things were playing out I knew just catching 5 keepers, of any size, a day would probably be enough to do well.

After a 20 minute run I was able to start right on what I felt was the best stretch of water in my larger area. It was a ridge with logs and brush in about a foot of water on top that dropped off sharply to 3-4 foot along the edge. Several other boats, but not nearly as many as I expected, came into the area and set up on several of the other "good" brushy points nearby. Even though practice was tough I really felt like I could put 5 keepers in the boat quickly. Of course that didn't happen and after an hour of fishing I had only boated a couple of short fish.

After the slow start I jumped over to one of the brushy points that another boat had started on and promptly put my first keeper in the boat. Next I moved over to the other point a boat had started on and put 2 more keepers in the box followed by my 4th keeper a short ways down the same bank. Now I had 4 in the box and it was only an hour and a half into the day. Things were looking up but then reality struck and I didn't have another keeper bite for hours. Finally around noon or so I was able to put my 5th keeper in the boat. All of my fish on the first day came by flipping a black/blue Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss rigged with a 3/8 oz tungsten weight to brush and laydown logs.

On the 20 minute run back to the weigh in site I noticed that I was slowly losing RPMs along the way. I had never experienced anything like that before but I wasn't too worried by it so I made 1 last stop to fish for about 10 minutes before checking in. I didn't catch anything there but at that point I was barely able to get the boat back on plane. Now I definitely knew I had some sort of issue but we were able to cruise slowly to the weigh in with plenty of time to spare.

My 5 bass limit on day one was one of only 17 limits brought in by the entire field so as I expected the fishing was extremely tough. They weighed in at 9 lbs 5 oz which put me in 13th overall but 2nd on the Minnesota team to Tom Kiefer who weighed in 11 lbs.

Day 2

After the day 1 weigh in I scrambled around to try to figure out my boat issues but to make a long story short I wasn't able to get anything resolved. Fortunately our Minnesota team was full of great guys and I was able to borrow a boat from Joe Patock. I'm a Skeeter guy and Joe's boat is a Ranger but I won't complain too much. It was actually a great boat to fish out of and I can't thank Joe enough!

On day 2 I was in the middle of the pack for the blast off order but I was still able to get on the spot I wanted to start on which was the same place I started day 1. Once again all it produced was short fish. Next I moved to the same point I caught my first keeper on day 1. A boat had started there again but I was able to come behind them and pick up my first keeper of the day. After that I bounced around fishing points and banks with brush and laydowns and actually ended up catching a lot more fish than on day 1 but none of them met the 14" length limit.

By this time my partner wanted some time on the trolling motor and he chose to fish in a slough I had fished on day 1 but hadn't made my way to yet on this day. I was able to pick up my 2nd keeper behind him on just a muddy bank. My 2 fish from the backwaters, like day 1, came on a black/blue Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss. At this point he wanted to go check some of his other stuff and I was extremely disappointed to be leaving with only 2 keepers despite catching so many fish.

His first stop was a creek mouth with rip rap on either side. While he worked the rocks with a tube I wanted to show them something different so I picked up a chartreuse/black back Strike King KVD 1.5 crankbait and almost immediately had a keeper smallmouth in the boat. A short while later the crank struck again and I had another keeper largemouth in the boat. That was it for me on the day and I was just hoping that the fishing got tougher as everyone was predicting it to.

On day 2 my 4 bass weighed in at 6 lbs 10 oz which although much lighter than day 1 actually moved me up from 13th to 12th in the overall standings. It was a tough day for the rest of the Minnesota team as well and the day 1 leader zeroed. I actually went from about 2 lbs behind on day 1 to having a nearly 4 lb lead on the rest of the team going into day 3. I knew if there was ever a time to advance to the next tournament this was it but I also knew I still had to catch em on day 3. I was confident I could scrape out at least a few more keepers from my area on day 3 but nothing is ever guaranteed in fishing.

Day 3

On day 3 I was one of the last boats out at blast off but my partner for the day hadn't caught much the previous 2 days and since I was in a good position to finish first on the Minnesota team he told me to just go do my thing and he would stay out of the way. That really is true sportsmanship and if the positions were reversed I would do the same thing for him or anyone else. With that in mind I knew I had a full day to fish my area and just catch as much as I could.

I started on a different stretch than I did the first 2 days and almost right away I had one in the boat that was just on the edge of being a keeper or not. I decided to keep it for the time being and check it later in the day thinking that if it was the only fish I caught I would weigh it and risk the short fish penalty. It could have been the difference maker in a tough tournament like this. After that the action was just slow. I wasn't even getting many short fish like the previous day.

I started experimenting with several different lure and weight combinations, even though I don't think it made that much difference, but about halfway through the day I finally got a solid keeper on a black/blue Berkley Chigger Craw rigged with a 1/2 oz tungsten weight. I stuck with that combination for the rest of the day and was able to boat 2 more good keepers with the last one coming about 45 minutes before I had to leave for the weigh in. Right before leaving I checked the first fish I caught on the day and it just was too close to risk it so I threw it back leaving me with 3 fish in the box. With the 4 lb lead going into the day I felt pretty good about my chances but you just never know and I certainly didn't want to get penalized and lose out that way.

My 3 bass for the day weighed in at 5 lbs 15 oz and overall the fishing was even tougher yet so despite the smaller weight I once again moved up one place to finish 11th in the entire field. I was one of the last people in line to weigh on day 3 and before I even weighed in my Minnesota teammates informed me that my 3 fish were going to be more than enough to finish 1st on our team. I didn't want to believe it at first but when everything was officially weighed I had done it!

I have been fishing this Federation stuff for a long time and to finally make it to the National Championship is really unbelievable! It isn't over yet though. I still have to perform at the Ouachita River in November.

Now I'll address a couple of questions I have gotten that were pretty interesting to me. The first was about my choice of area for the tournament. Many people apparently felt that it would not be able to hold up over the course of a 3 day tournament. For me it was the only area I felt like I could get a number of keeper bites. I had a number of spots up and down the river that I felt like I could get maybe 1 or 2 bites off of but this backwater area was the only place I had the confidence I could go to and get multiple keeper bites. I knew there would be pressure from other fishermen in the area but as it turned out there weren't nearly as many boats in there as I expected and I'm sure that helped a lot but it was a large backwater and there's no question a large number of bass live there. It was just a matter of getting them to bite.

I was also asked about being nervous going into day 3 with a chance to close it out and to be honest I wasn't nervous at all. Like I told him I just go and do what I do and a lot of the time it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I do have a lot of confidence in the way I fish though and that really is what you need in tournaments like this. I won't lie though as day 3 ground on and the fishing was extremely slow I was feeling the pressure ratchet up and up. It was probably the most nerve-wracking day I've ever had on the water. That's not to say I got all spun out or anything that affected my fishing but it was pretty intense.

This was my 3rd consecutive Divisional tournament and I stunk it up the previous 2 years but I guess I made up for it this time! I wouldn't trade away those other 2 years though. For me the week of the Divisional has become my favorite week of the year. It really is an amazing experience to go down and hang out with the other state team members. If you fish B.A.S.S. Federation stuff you really do owe it to yourself to try as hard as you can to get on your 12 man state team. I'll sure be trying to make it again next year. I promise it will be a blast even if the fishing isn't so hot.

West Central Bass League - Week 10 & Other Results

West Central Bass League - Norway/Games Lakes - August 3rd

We had a nice turnout on this night with 21 boats fishing in very pleasant conditions. A lot of fish were caught as well but as is typical for these lakes in recent years the weights were relatively small. It was one of the few nights of the year where the 9 lb barrier was not bested by any team. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 8.91 lbs

2nd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.77 lbs

3rd - Tyler & Joakim - 3 - 8.65 lbs

4th - Dean & Kathy - 3 - 8.42 lbs

5th - Troy & Chad - 3 - 8.17 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete - 4.66 lbs

My dad and I struggled once again on these lakes and ended up with 3 fish for 6.41 lbs. That was only good enough for 14th place on the evening. Normally we fish deep for schools of larger fish but that bite has been almost nonexistent over the past several years so we decided to start shallow on dock and reeds this time. We were able to catch some fish doing that but couldn't find the size so we ended up back on the deep structure where we were able to find fish with Rapala DT 16 crankbaits and homemade jigs but as you can tell from the results we never found the quality we needed. This is apparently a lake I need to put more time on to hopefully figure out how to compete out there.

West Central Bass League - Lake Calhoun - August 4th

We had another beautiful night of fishing with calm winds and mild temperatures for the 18 teams competing on Lake Calhoun. The fishing was pretty good too as all 18 teams were able to bring a 3 fish limit to the scales. Here are the results.

1st - Tim & Grant - 3 - 10.82 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 9.97 lbs

3rd - Paul & Paul - 3 - 8.50 lbs

4th - Dean & JD - 3 - 7.69 lbs

5th - Jeff S - 3 - 7.56 lbs

Big Bass - Jeff S - 4.56 lbs

My dad and I brought in a 3 fish limit for 7.54 lbs which was good for 6th place and just out of the money by .02 lbs. The last time we fished this lake for league we were on the fish really good and caught the fire out of them so the plan was to fish pretty much the same way in the deeper weeds. It didn't end up happening for us the same way although we caught a fair number of fish the size was just lacking.

As many of you probably know I left to fish the B.A.S.S. Federation Northern Divisional the next day after our Lake Calhoun league event and I will get to that in my next blog. While I was away though my dad fished with several people in my place and I will post the results for those events here. I won't go into any detail since I did not fish these events.

Big Bass Bonanza - Green Lake - August 6th

My dad and Eric Tessmer weighed an 8 fish limit for 17.81 lbs to finish in 14th place out of 32 boats. The winners had 25.02 lbs

West Central Bass League - Long Lake - August 10th

18 boats fishing

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 14.52 lbs

2nd - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 13.41 lbs

3rd - Kyle & Kirk - 3 - 13.37 lbs

4th - Troy & Chad - 3 - 10.08 lbs

5th - Paul & Pete - 3 - 9.29 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe - 5.67 lbs

My dad and John Z. had a 3 fish limit for 5.17 lbs which put them in 7th for the night.

West Central Bass League - Lake Koronis - August 11th

12 boats fishing

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 12.56 lbs

2nd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 10.83 lbs

3rd - Grand & Tim - 3 - 8.06 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe - 4.74 lbs

My dad and Isaiah G. weighed a 3 fish limit for 6.07 lbs which put them in 9th for the night.

My next blog post will detail my week in Fort Madison for the Northern Divisionals. I'll try to have it up in the next few days.

West Central Bass League - Week 9

West Central Bass League - Lake Andrew - July 27th

We once again had 17 teams fishing the West Central Bass League on Lake Andrew. That seems to be a common number this year and really it is just about the right amount of boats for our lakes in this area. There have been times when crowding is a major issue on a small lake like Andrew but it wasn't at all on this night. Unfortunately the fish still wouldn't cooperate for the most part. It was a typical night on the lake with the winners having 10 lbs but the vast majority of limits brought in weighed 4-5 lbs. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Pete - 3 - 10.08 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 7.90 lbs

3rd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 7.32 lbs

4th - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 6.65 lbs

5th - Jared & Tonya - 3 - 5.64 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete - 4.01 lbs

Our plan for the night was to fish deep weedlines and hope to just get 3 good bites. Catching fish on this lake is usually not a problem but finding quality definitely is. We actually started off with a bang and had our limit in the boat within about 10 minutes including our biggest fish of the night that was a little under 3 lbs. After that we caught fish pretty much every place we stopped and ended up catching probably 30 fish for the night but we just didn't get enough quality bites to challenge for the win. All our weigh fish came on a watermelon Brush Hog fished on deep weedlines.

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna - July 28th

This one had me nervous since the league had visited Johanna the week before and we were unable to even get one bite. Just by luck of the draw we happened to return this week and with a week long off limits period there was no chance to get out to figure anything out. As tough as the fishing was the previous week for some of the teams it was even tougher this week and of the 12 teams fishing only 3 limits were brought to the scales.

1st - Paul & Pete - 3 - 10.17 lbs

2nd - Lee & Tim - 3 - 9.17 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 8.69 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Pete - 4.14 lbs

Like I said earlier I didn't know what to expect for the night except that I knew we were going to fish completely different areas than we did the previous week and that is what we did. We still fished the same type of cover which are the many large reed beds on the lake but just did it in spots that we don't normally fish. It ended up working out for us as we were able to boat 3 fish after blanking a week before. The 3 fish we caught came on a watermelon homemade jig flipped and swam around the reeds.

West Central Bass League - Week 8

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna - July 20th

Johanna used to be one of the better big fish lakes on the West Central Bass League schedule but in recent years the big bass seem to be much more scarce. It does seem to be making a little comeback as far as the average size fish goes though. Overall the fishing was pretty tough with 17 boats fishing and only 31 bass brought to the scales but the average weight per fish was an impressive 3.28 lbs. It seemed to be a tale of two lakes on this night. Some teams reported catching them really good while the other half of the field struggled mightily. Put my dad and I in the latter camp as we failed to boat a fish to tie with 3 others for last place on the night. Here are the rest of the results.

1st - Paul & Pete - 3 - 11.89 lbs

2nd - Bill & Todd - 3 - 11.81 lbs

3rd - Jim & Brad - 3 - 11.02 lbs

4th - Ron & Joe - 3 - 10.38 lbs

5th - Paul & Dave - 3 - 9.52 lbs

Big Bass - Bill & Todd - 4.52 lbs

What can I say? We never had a bite in 3 hours of fishing. We mostly fished areas that have traditionally been good for us but nothing was happening. I could sense early on that it was going to be really tough so we buckled down and fished thoroughly in a couple of spots which turned out to be our big mistake. In retrospect we should have been moving faster and fishing different areas of the lake since the good bags came from a completely different area of the lake and everyone who was fishing the same general area as us struggled.

West Central Bass League - Nest Lake - July 21st

The West Central Bass League had visited Nest Lake 2 weeks earlier and the fishing was just about the worst it's ever been on the lake so the expectations for fishing on this night were not high among the 17 teams competing. The fishing did improve somewhat but for the most part it was another tough night on the water for most. Here are the results.

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 11.10 lbs

2nd - Dean - 3 - 9.45 lbs

3rd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 8.23 lbs

4th - Donovan & Brad - 3 - 8.20 lbs

5th - Paul & Pete - 3 - 7.42 lbs

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals - 4.37 lbs

Despite the talk of tough fishing I mentioned earlier we actually caught them pretty good for the evening. We started on several smallmouth spots even though I knew they were going to be really tough to get to bite and that proved to be true. We never had a bite from a brown fish so it was on to the pattern I really felt would work. That involved finding the thickest milfoil and cabbage in 5-7 feet of water. We ran this pattern the rest of the night and it really paid off as we caught quality fish in several areas where we found the right combination of cover. We probably caught around 15 fish in the 3 hours and most of them were 3 lbs or better. It was a nice way to recover from the previous nights bomb. We caught our fish on a variety of soft plastics but all our weigh fish ended up biting a watermelon Zoom Brush Hog.

West Central Bass League - Week 7

West Central Bass League - Lake Solomon - July 13th

This was the second visit to Solomon for the West Central Bass League and while the fishing wasn't great earlier in the year, at the end of the night some pretty impressive weights were brought in. That was not the case on this night as most teams reported catching very few fish and the final weights were some of the lowest in years for this lake. With 19 teams fishing we paid back 5 spots.

1st - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 8.28 lbs

2nd - Travis & Hunter - 3 - 8.03 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 7.05 lbs

4th - Grant & April - 3 - 6.65 lbs

5th - Lee & Nick - 3 - 6.20 lbs

Big Bass - Scott & Kelly - 3.70 lbs

I knew going into the night that the bites would be few and far between so I put a 1/2 oz black/blue jig in my hands and stuck with it all night long hoping for just 3 good bites. We mostly flipped reeds all night long since that is the primary cover in the lake but we were never able to get a bite from the reeds. Our first and best fish in the 3 lb range came as I swam my jig by a log in the water. None of the other wood we fished panned out though and the rest of our keepers ended up coming when we found a school of small fish on a shallow rocky area. We probably caught 8 fish out of the school but the biggest 2 were only around 2 lbs which was at least enough to get us into 3rd.

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake - July 14th

Last year Eagle Lake kicked out some of the largest weights seen on the West Central Bass League. This year the fishing was quite a bit tougher for the 18 teams competing but some nice weights were still brought to the scales. Here are the results.

1st - Scott & Al - 3 - 10.72 lbs

2nd - Ross & Daryl - 3 - 10.45 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.91 lbs

4th - Dean & JD - 3 - 9.35 lbs

5th - Paul & Troy - 3 - 9.34 lbs

Big Bass - Todd & Jeff - 4.60 lbs

Eagle is almost entirely developed so the primary cover is docks and that is where we started. Within half an hour we had a 3 fish limit in the boat with 2 fish over 3 lbs. Those fish came on a green pumpkin Strike King Bleeding Bait tube skipped under the docks. I was expecting the fishing to be a grind so it was great to get off to such a hot start. This allowed us to explore some offshore while most everyone else was beating the docks. We were able to find an area where a thick coontail weed line came up next to a rocky bottom. After working the area pretty thoroughly I was able to add a nice 3 lb smallie on a watermelon Berkley Slim Shaky worm rigged on a drop shot. That fish came about half way through the night and we were never able to catch another keeper the rest of the evening but it was enough to get us into 3rd once again.

With the 2 3rd place finishes this week we have moved back into the lead for the Team of the Year standings on both Wednesday and Thursday nights. We do allow 2 drops out of the 12 weeks we fish in the summer so it is tough to figured out how the points shake out until the very end of the year. In any case it is a good place to be right now.

West Central Bass League - Week 6 & Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Ida

West Central Bass League - Nest Lake - July 6th

Well it was another tough night of fishing for the West Central Bass League. Nest is usually one of the better lakes on the schedule with numbers of quality largemouth and smallmouth but they did not want to show themselves on this night. There were no smallies weighed in and 11 of the 19 teams were unable to bring in a 3 fish limit. That is just unheard of for Nest Lake. Here are the results.

1st - Jared & Tonya - 3 - 8.90 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 8.88 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 8.60 lbs

4th - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.06 lbs

5th - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 7.24 lbs

Big Bass - Mike Nitchals - 4.15 lbs

Even though we ended up in 3rd for the night it was still a struggle for us. We ended up boating only 4 keepers on the night. Our first couple of stops were areas that usually produce smallmouth for us but the action was nonexistent and after half the night was over we had not boated a fish. Finally we were able to catch 2 in the 2 1/4 lb range on back to back casts in shallow weeds from 5-7 feet deep. We decided to run this pattern the rest of the night but didn't have another bite until we got back to the area where we caught the first 2 and were able to fill out our limit with another 2 lb class fish. With about 10 minutes left before check in we hit one last spot with similar cover. 5 minutes before weigh in my dad was able to boat the big fish of the night. Catching a big fish at the very end of the night has been a trend for us this year it seems. It would be nice to catch them earlier and feel more comfortable but as long as we keep catching them I don't really care when it happens! All of our fish came on various soft plastics on Texas rigs.

West Central Bass League - Diamond Lake - July 7th

I know I've been talking a lot about the tough fishing for our West Central Bass League nights but for a change the fishing was actually really good on Diamond. Most of the 15 teams competing reported catching a lot of fish for the night and the top weights were quite impressive as well. My dad and I probably boated between 25-30 fish for the night but we were just not able to find any of the right bites and our 3 fish limit weighed in at 7.88 lbs to put us in 9th. Here are the rest of the results.

1st - Dean - 3 - 11.16 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 10.50 lbs

3rd - Ross & Daryl - 3 - 10.38 lbs

4th - Grant & Tim - 3 - 9.65 lbs

Big Bass - Ross & Daryl - 4.11 lbs

Our plan for the night was to primarily target docks and trees and that is pretty much what we did all night. Like I said earlier getting bites was no problem at all but we were just unable to find any of the right bites. We did lose a couple of fish that would have moved us up in the standings but they wouldn't have been enough to get up into the money. I'm not really sure what I would do differently if I had it to do over again. Our fish ended up coming on jigs and various soft plastics.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Ida - July 10th

What a difference a year makes! Last year on Ida 23 lbs won but 2nd was just under 18 lbs. This year 18 lbs wasn't even in the top half of the field. I'm not sure why but the nicer fish really showed up this year. It took 22 lbs to win this year but the weights were tight all the way down the list. My dad and I weighed and 8 fish limit for 18.74 which we thought would be decent but we only ended up in 14th place out of 34 boats. This was really disappointing coming on the heels of our poor performance on Minnewaska. With 2 events to go on the circuit we are sitting in 14th place for the TOY standings. We have some work to do to get up into the top 10 to qualify for the Tournament of Champions.

There isn't a whole lot to say about the fishing on Ida. We came into the event with a specific game plan and stuck with it pretty much the entire day. That plan was to fish thicker weeds on a large flat in 8-12 feet of water and basically play the numbers game. It was difficult to pinpoint schools of larger fish so you just had to catch a number of fish and every once in awhile one would be a good one. The problem for us is that we just didn't catch enough fish. We probably caught 35 on the day but I know if we had caught 50 for the day a couple of those would have been big enough to get us into the money. We just didn't get the number of bites I was expecting. Our weigh fish ended up coming on Texas rigged Sweet Beavers and various straight tail worms rigged on a drop shot.

West Central Bass League - Week 5

West Central Bass League - Lake Koronis - June 27th

Once again we were faced with extremely windy conditions for league night. We just can't seem to escape the wind this year but at least it wasn't too bad out there. The fishing on the other hand was pretty bad as many teams reported tough fishing although most were able to bring in a 3 fish limit. With 14 teams fishing we paid 4 spots.

1st - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 10.12 lbs

2nd - Jared & Tonya - 3 - 9.89 lbs

3rd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.37 lbs

4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 7.98 lbs

Big Bass - Isaiah & Tyler - 4.30 lbs

My dad and I were one of the teams who really struggled for the night but things ended up alright for us as we squeaked into the last money spot. With the high water we decided to start on the trees and docks however it quickly became apparent that bite was not happening although I was able to put 1 in the boat that was around 13 inches. For the next 2 hours we bounced around trying shallow and deep for largemouth and smallies but were just never able to generate a bite. Around 8:15 I was finally able to a good one in the boat weighing nearly 4 lbs. That fish came on a watermelon Sweet Beaver fished on a weedy point. For the rest of the night we ran this pattern and were able to put 1 more nice one in the boat to give us just enough. We only boated 3 fish for the night but a lot of times in tournament fishing it's not about the number you catch, it's the size. Tonight it was just enough to get our money back.

West Central Bass League - Long Lake - June 28th

Well if Koronis was tough I don't know what to call Long Lake on this night. It's the worst night of fishing for the West Central Bass League in at least 5 years if not longer. What is strange too is that just a few weeks earlier this lake was absolutely on fire with numbers of 4 lb plus fish being caught. It was like a switch had been flipped though and none of us could get the bass to cooperate. Even the winners reported getting only 3 bites all night. The rest of us did not fair so well as only 20 total bass were brought in by the 19 teams fishing. The average weight was an impressive 3.57 lbs though. My dad and I were lucky to catch 1 bass weighing 3.21 lbs to put us in 11th for the night. Here are the rest of the results.

1st - TJ & Isaiah - 3 - 13.66 lbs

2nd - Jim & John - 2 - 7.45 lbs

3rd - Jared & Tonya - 2 - 6.94 lbs

4th - Scott & Al - 2 - 6.67 lbs

5th - Dean & JD - 1 - 4.84 lbs

Big Bass - Dean & JD - 4.84 lbs

There's not much to tell about our night. We went 2 1/2 hours without a bite to start the night. With a half hour left to fish I finally put one in the boat on a watermelon 6 inch Senko fished in the reeds. A short while later I had another one on the Senko halfway to the boat before he jumped off. That was really painful as it would have been enough to get us into the money but at least that's the only fish I have lost in competition this year that really hurt us. Hopefully it will be the last one too!

West Central Bass League - Week 4 & West Central Bassmasters Summer Classic - Green Lake

West Central Bass League - Norway/Games Lake Cup - June 22nd

This past Wednesday was the Norway/Games Lake Cup. In my previous post I talked about how the Cups work so I will skip that here. Despite the rainy and cold conditions I was surprised that 20 teams showed up to fish. It sounds like many teams were able to catch a lot of fish but as is typical for these lakes the past few years the weights overall were pretty small. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 9.88 lbs

2nd - Jared & Tonya - 3 - 8.44 lbs

3rd - Tom & Jim - 3 - 8.23 lbs

4th - Brad & Wayne - 3 - 8.18 lbs

5th - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 8.05 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Brad & Wayne - 4.26 lbs

Big Bass #2 - Lee & Nick - 4.09 lbs

Our hot start to the season is officially over! My dad and I really struggled and only managed to boat 6 bass on the night. Our 3 best fish weighed in at 5.68 lbs which put us all the way down in 15th place for the night. Fortunately the way the league is structured each team is allowed to drop their 2 worst finishes and it looks like this will be one of them. Hopefully there aren't too many more bombs for us the rest of the way. As I said before the fishing was really tough for us and we scrambled around trying a variety of things but were only able to get bit in one place. That was an area of deep rocks that we plied with Rapala DT 16 crankbaits and jigs. All 3 of our weigh fish came on the crankbait though.

West Central Bass League - Lake Florida - June 23rd

The way we make the schedule for our bass league is to draw the lakes at random before the beginning of each year. As it turns out we ended up fishing Lake Florida twice in the first month of the season this year. Our club also had a state qualifier tournament on the lake so many of us have been on this body of water a bunch already this year. We actually had nice weather for once on a league night but for the 17 teams competing that did not translate to good fishing. For whatever reason the lake fished was extremely stingy for most of the competitors. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 9.18 lbs

2nd - Paul & Troy - 3 - 8.78 lbs

3rd - Lee & Brad - 3 - 8.53 lbs

4th - Travis & Hunter - 3 - 7.08 lbs

5th - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 6.91 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe - 3.99 lbs

After the huge disappointments of the last Big Bass Bonanza tournament and the previous nights league it was nice to get back in the money even if it was the last paying spot. It sure wasn't easy though. We only boated 3 bass for the entire night and were fortunate that those 3 were just enough to squeak in. We started on one of our usual deep water areas but nothing was happening at all so we quickly headed to some docks that also did not produce although my dad added a small keeper on a chatterbait throwing to open water as I fished the docks. After that it was back to the deep area to try to grind out a couple of good fish. I know those fish live there but getting them to bite was all but impossible. They really did not seem to want any slow moving lures so my dad started slow rolling the chatterbait and caught our 2nd keeper of the night. This prompted me to pull out a Rapala DT 10 and within a few casts I boated our final keeper of the night. Now we thought we were onto something but we were never able to get another bite the rest of the evening.

Green Mill/West Central Bassmasters Summer Classic - Green Lake - June 25th

This past Saturday marked the first of two open tournaments the West Central Bassmasters and Green Mill put on each year at Green Lake in Spicer Minnesota. The next event will be held on September 11th but for now let's talk about this one. We had 36 teams competing this year including some of the best local anglers as well as some of the best fishermen from throughout the state. Green is always a popular lake because it kicks out numbers of quality smallmouth and increasingly numbers of quality largemouth as well. This year the green fish did not come into play as much though as only 2 largemouth were weighed in among the top 8 teams. Compared to last year the top weights were better but from the sound of things the fishing was extremely tough for most everyone. It certainly was for my dad and I but we were able to put a little something together and weighed a 6 fish limit for 18.58 lbs which was good enough for 2nd place. Instead of posting the complete results here you can see them at this link:

http://www.wcmnbassmasters.org/resources/June+25+2011SummerClassic.pdf

At this time of year most anglers focus on the shallow rocks and there were certainly a number of fish up cruising and on beds but for us the primary plan was to fish deep structure. However we did start on a couple of nice bedding fish that I had found the previous afternoon. It was pretty dark first thing in the morning though and I was unable to see them. I hoped that blind fishing the area would produce a couple of bites but after half an hour without a bite it was off to our deep stuff. Green Lake is loaded with structure and there are hundreds if not thousands of little places where a smallmouth might live. We narrowed our efforts to 10 to 12 spots from 20 to 30 feet deep that we rotated through the rest of the day. As I said earlier the fishing wasn't easy by any means. It was just a matter of picking off one here and there throughout the day but the fishing did pick up noticeably in the afternoon for whatever reason. With about 10 minutes left in the day we headed to one last spot near the weigh in site where I added a nice 3 1/4 lb smallie at the last minute to give us just enough weight to edge out 3rd place. We have caught numerous key fish in the last minutes of fishing this year and it just shows that you can never give up! All of our weigh fish came on green pumpkin or watermelon LFT Twitch Worms rigged on a drop shot. There was nothing fancy about the rigging it was just a matter of putting our heads down and keeping our baits in what we felt were the highest percentage areas.

West Central Bass League - Week 3 & Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Minnewaska

West Central Bass League - Lake Calhoun - June 15th

Lake Calhoun is one of the more popular lakes on the league schedule and it showed on Wednesday night as 22 teams showed up to fish. That is our highest turnout of the year so far. I think it is such a popular lake because catching numbers of fish is generally not difficult at all although finding the bigger bites can be a much tougher challenge. A few teams were able to find them though. Here are the results.

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 12.53 lbs

2nd - Grant & April King - 3 - 10.50 lbs

3rd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 8.70 lbs

4th - Kyle & Kirk - 3 - 8.63 lbs

5th - Scott & Kelly - 3 - 8.33 lbs

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals - 4.70 lbs

This win marked our 5th in a row to start off the league season! Streaks like this have been put together before in the West Central Bass League but I don't know if it's ever happened at the start of the year like this. In any case it feels really good to have everything working right. Our night actually started off pretty slow though as we fished a stretch of docks and only had 1 small keeper to show for it. After that we moved off shore where we added another small keeper and immediately after my dad caught our limit fish that was close to 3 1/2 lbs. Catching 2 fish so quickly had me thinking we were on a school but after fishing for quite awhile longer in the area we were unable to generate anymore bits. After that we heading to the reeds and tucked in among all the other boats. The fish were biting good but most of them were small. We were able to get 2 fish in the 2 1/2 lb range though and I figured that would be a pretty good bag for the night although not enough to win so we headed back off shore to try to find that school of big ones I knew was sitting out there. It took awhile but eventually we found them and it was game on! In the last 45 minutes I don't even know how many fish in the 2 1/2 to 4 lb range we caught. It was wild and the best part was the fish kept getting bigger as the night went on. With a 9:00 pm check in I caught the big fish of the night at 8:58 pm. I wanted to stay and keep pounding on them but we had to go in. All of those fish came on homemade jigs and various colors of texas rigged Sweet Beavers.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake Cup - June 16th

Each year the West Central Bass League holds a "Cup" event on Green and Norway Lakes. They are basically the same format with a slightly higher entry fee and instead of one big bass two are paid. In past years the Cups generated much more interest but lately they haven't seemed to and this year was no different as only 16 teams came out to fish on Green Lake. We had much nicer weather than when we fished Green the first week of the season but once again the bite was extremely tough. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Troy - 3 - 9.46 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.00 lbs

3rd - Craig & Jeff - 3 - 8.57 lbs

4th - Scott & Don - 3 - 8.39 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Craig & Jeff - 4.29 lbs

Big Bass #2 - Paul & Troy - 3.43 lbs

As you can see the streak is over at 5. I won't complain though since 2nd is not such a bad place to be either. I hadn't been on the lake since the last league night so I wasn't really sure what was going on with the fish. We started on some milfoil but that didn't produce so we went up to some shallow rocks where I quickly put 3 small bed fish in the box just to have a limit. They were very small I wouldn't normally waste time on them but they bite within 5 casts so it didn't take up much time. Next it was off to another spawning area where I found a 3 lb class fish on a bed. It took about 5 minutes working it with a watermelon/red Strike King Coffee Tube to put that one in the boat. After that the clouds rolled in and wind picked up so I scrapped plans to search for more bed fish and instead headed out deep. It was pretty slow but we added 2 more solid fish on LFT Twitch Worms rigged on a drop shot fished in 20 to 30 feet of water and that was it for the night.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Minnewaska - June 19th

I don't really know what to say about this one. After getting in the groove right off the bat to start the season this tournament was just a disaster! So far every decision I made seemed to be right but in this one nothing went right. We were just never able to put anything together and ended up with an 8 fish limit for 14.51 lbs and that was with a near 4lb fish that I caught with 15 minutes to go. Without that fish it would have been even uglier! That put us in 26th place out of 39 teams on the day. The winning weight was right around 22 lbs so obviously we were not even close.

I could go through all the details of the day as I normally do but that would be pretty pointless. We spent the majority of our day fishing weedlines in 10 to 15 feet of water with jigs and various soft plastics and actually caught a lot of fish. The problem was they were all 1 1/2 lbs or less. The funny thing is that most of the top finishers including the winners were fishing this exact same pattern. We just never got into the right areas for some reason. Part of the problem was that we found what seemed to be a big school of fish in practice with nothing under 2 1/2 lbs in it. We checked it 3 different times throughout the day and spent nearly half our total time trying to figure out how to get them to bite but they just never did! We caught plenty of fish in the area but they were all small. Another problem was the way the fish were biting. I had probably 8 bites that tore the flappers off my jig trailer without ever getting a hook into any of them as well as numerous other missed bites. Of course they were probably small fish but if even a couple of them were nicer fish it would have helped a bunch. Even our big fish that I caught at the end of the day bit my trailer off the jig and I was fortunate to pitch right back into the same spot and have her bite again.

This was by far my worst performance in 3 plus years of fishing the Big Bass Bonanza circuit and I have to say it stings a little bit. Especially after the hot start to the season where it seemed nothing could go wrong. That's fishing though. Bad days are going to happen. Unless your name is KVD!

West Central Bassmasters - State Qualifier Tournaments

Over the weekend of June 11th and 12th the West Central Bassmasters held 3 tournaments to determine the anglers we would send to the State TOC on the Whitefish Chain in September. On Saturday we held a 4 hour tournament on Norway-Games in the morning and then another 4 hour tournament on Lake Florida in the afternoon. Then on Sunday we held a 7 hour tournament on Washington-Stella near Darwin. Our club is allowed to send 6 anglers plus 1 alternate to the state tournament and I will get to those results at the end of this post.

Norway & Games Lakes

I was pretty worried about this one because in practice the fishing was really tough and the fish were not in the usual areas that I like to fish. I was able to find an area of reeds that seemed to have slightly better quality although not great for this lake. That is the area I ended up exploiting for my entire 4 fish limit including an unexpected kicker that weighed in at 3.40 lbs. All of my weigh fish ended up coming on a watermelon Yamamoto Senko fished slowly in the reeds. My 4 fish ended up weighing 9.43 lbs which put me in 3rd place for the morning. However the person finishing 2nd is our club tournament director who was not trying to qualify for state so I actually received the 2nd place points.

Lake Florida

We had a bass league event on Lake Florida the previous week which my dad and I were able to win so going into the afternoon tournament my game plan was to do basically the same thing as in league. That plan was to fish jigs and soft plastics in deeper weeds while most of the other competitors fished shallow around docks. During the 4 hours I really only fished 3 locations and the fishing was actually extremely tough. I probably only caught 5-6 bass on the afternoon but my 4 fish limit weighing 11.15 lbs was good for 3rd place. Once again the same situation as the morning tournament occurred as the tournament director finished 2nd so I was again able to receive 2nd place points. Normally those would be pretty strong showings but unfortunately for me Ron Mehr took 1st place in both events so I was behind the eight ball going into the final tournament on Sunday.

Washington & Stella Lakes

My practice for this event like Norway was also pretty unspectacular and I really only had one area that I had much confidence in and wouldn't you know it Ron started right where I was hoping to start! It turns out that this was a blessing in disguise as Ron struggled in the morning and I was forced to move to another part of the same area and caught them really good right off the bat. Within about an hour I had my 5 fish limit with 2 fish over 3 lbs and another around 2 1/2 lbs. Those fish came on Senkos fished in the bullrushes and a couple on a Strike King Bleeding Bait tube fished under a dock in the same area. After the action slowed I ran around without much success until I found a tree branch out in the middle of a shallow bay. I ran my Strike King spinnerbait along side the tree and was able to put another 3 lb class fish in the boat. Once again the action slowed for me until the last half hour of the day when I was able to put another 3 lb class fish in the boat. That fish came on a Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss fished over a shallow rocky area. At that point I knew I had a really good limit for the day but I would need some help from others as well. Even if I won the event, if Ron finished 2nd he still would have beat me for the club AOY. My 5 fish limit for 15.58 lbs was enough to win the event and I got the help I needed as 2 others finished between Ron and I to give me the club's AOY by just 1 point! This also ensures that I will be a guaranteed boater at the state TOC!

Here are the 2011 West Central Bassmasters state qualifiers:

1st - Andy Nitchals

2nd - Ron Mehr

3rd - Eric Tessmer

4th - Joe Patock

5th - Dean Drexler

6th - Tim Stockland

Alternate - Bill Neumann

Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain & WC Bass League - Week 2

Sorry for the delay guys but I've been spending too much time fishing (Is that even possible?) and not enough time writing. In this post I'll recap the Big Bass Bonanza tournament on the Horseshoe Chain that was held on June 5th as well as the 2nd week of the West Central Bass League held on June 8th and 9th.

Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain

Even though the Horseshoe Chain is relatively close to my house it is not a body of water I have fished much over the years. I really only started fishing it after joining the Big Bass Bonanza circuit several years ago because it is pretty much an annual stop on that trail. In the past it was a real struggle just to put an 8 fish limit in the boat and in previous visits we finished around the middle of the pack. This year was different though as we were able to find an area of the Chain that we had never fished before and was very productive for us. My dad and I ended up weighing an 8 fish limit for 19.98 lbs and I also caught the big bass of the tournament which weighed in at 5.08 lbs. The winning weight was 21.58 lbs so we were not too far off the pace.

For the most part our practice was pretty tough but we located a large weedy spawning bay that held a lot of quality fish both on beds and cruising around in the shallows. Practice is cut off on Tuesday before the Sunday tournament though and I had a feeling there would be a major change in the conditions come tournament day. As we pulled into the bay for our first stop of the morning I was right. The weeds had really grown up and the water was much more stained. My hope was that with the number of fish in there in practice there would at least still be a few hanging around. In the first hour we were able to put 5 fish in the boat but only one of them was in the 2 3/4 lb range that we were looking for. Most of those fish came on a watermelon LFT Magic Shad. Even though we were catching fish pretty steadily the size was not there so it was off to the next stop.

Our next area was a tree lined bank that we had actually not caught anything on in practice but had seen several big bass cruising along with a ton of sunfish. My hope was that the sunnies would still be there and they were. Right away I saw a cleared out area of sunfish beds and a big bass just lazily cruising around the beds. The fish actually seemed very comfortable and not spooky and all so I just let the boat kind of drift a short distance away while continuing to cast into the beds. After the boat was far enough away that I couldn't actually see the fish anymore there was a light tick on my watermelon LFT Magic Shad and I horsed that 5.08 lb beauty right into the net with hardly any fight at all. After that we continued down the bank and were able to add another 2 lb fish from under a tree but that was it.

The next stop was a rocky area that had a large number of quality smallmouth on beds in practice. Of course with the changing conditions they were pretty much all gone but there was a 2 1/2 pounder left which I was quickly able to put in the boat with a sand Strike King KVD tube rigged on a dropshot. That fish gave us our limit and it was still pretty early in the morning. I knew we had about 20 lbs at that point which normally is a pretty good weight for the Chain but I knew we needed a few more quality fish to contend for the win. Unfortunately nothing else really happened for us the rest of the day. With about an hour left in the day we returned to our starting bay and were able to locate a fish on a bed that was nearly 4 lbs. I didn't know for sure at the time but I had a feeling that could be the winning fish. Needless to say we fished it for the remainder of the day. She was really spooky but with time running out she really seemed to be getting more agitated but of course the clock ticked down and we were forced to leave her in the water. That was a really frustrating way to end the day but at the same time coming away from the first event with a 4th place finish and big bass feels pretty good!

West Central Bass League - Diamond Lake

Despite the extremely windy conditions yet again we had 18 teams competing on the 2nd night of bass league on Diamond Lake. With the conditions I actually expected a lot fewer teams but for the most part it sounds like a lot of fish were caught although the quality was down somewhat for Diamond. Here are the results:

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 10.64 lbs

2nd - Jeff & Kris - 3 - 9.66 lbs

3rd - Grant & April King - 3 - 8.85 lbs

4th - Joe & Ron - 3 - 8.25 lbs

5th - Paul & Pete - 3 - 7.58 lbs

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals - 4.37 lbs

Make it 3 in a row for Team Nitchals! It has been an awesome start to the league season for us and hopefully it will continue all year long. We started our night on a protected stretch of docks but almost immediately it didn't feel right to me so we switched to fishing the large number of reed beds Diamond contains. For the most part though they were exposed to the strong wind which made for really tough fishing. We bounced around to several reed areas and were not able to find any concentrations of fish but every once in awhile were able to catch a 3 lb class fish. Towards the end of the night the wind had calmed enough that we could get to another stretch of docks that has been productive for us and with half an hour to go in the night I caught that 4.37 pounder to put us over the top. The big fish and one of our other keepers came on a watermelon homemade jig and my dad added one weigh fish on a watermelon Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver.

West Central Bass League - Solomon Lake

We again had 18 teams fishing on Thursday night on Solomon Lake. While it was still pretty windy it was nothing compared to the previous night. Solomon has a reputation for kicking out a lot of quality bass in the 3-5 lb range but I had been out there several times and was unable to put any quality in the boat. I was really wondering what kind of weights would show up at the end of the night and while the overall weights were maybe a little bit lower the top bags were all very strong. Here are the results:

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 11.87 lbs

2nd - Jared & Tonya - 3 - 11.84 lbs

3rd - Joe & Ron - 3 - 10.42 lbs

4th - Ross & Daryl - 3 - 10.21 lbs

5th - Dean & JD - 3 - 9.48 lbs

Big Bass - Jay & Willie - 5.78 lbs

Make it 4 in a row for us! This one was the toughest challenge yet though even though our average fish was nearly 4 lbs. Our league nights run from 6 pm to 9 pm and at 8 pm we only had 2 fish in the boat. One of them was almost 4 lbs but the other was just a 14 inch rat. We had already fished a number of different areas but nothing was working for us. This is a lake that has a reputation for turning on right at dusk though so I tried not to worry too much and hoped the fishing would get better in the last hour. It certainly did! We were able to catch quite a few fish in the last hour including 2 in the 3 lb range to give us a pretty good bag. At 8:55 pm only 5 minutes before check in I caught our big fish of the night that weighed in at 4.91 lbs and push our pretty good bag to a great bag. It turns out that Tonya & Jared had caught their big fish that went nearly 5 1/2 lbs on their very last cast but we had just enough weight to edge them out by .03 lbs! All of our weigh fish for the evening came on a black/blue Berkely HAVOC Pit Boss fished in the reeds and bullrushes.

It has been an amazing run so far this season! It is still very early though but hopefully it keeps up. In my next post I'll recap the West Central Bassmasters state qualifier tournaments we held over the past weekend. I won't go into the details here but they also went quite well for me.

And so it begins...

The Minnesota bass season is officially in full swing. Memorial Day weekend is what we bass fisherman dream about all winter long. I had done some fishing earlier of course but for me I just can't really fish the way I want to fish until it is actually legal. Speaking of dreams I had pretty much a dream day on the water for the opener. I chose to hit an area lake, never mind which area, where I figured there would be some big fish up spawning. Right away in the morning I pulled up to one of my favorite areas and actually lost one about 4 lbs on my very first cast. I've heard catching a fish on the first cast is bad luck but what does losing a big one on the first cast mean? The rest of the morning was really slow. At 11:00 am I only had 2 in the boat but one was 4 lbs and the other was right about 5 lbs. After that it was on though! The water temps had warmed up a few degrees and I'm pretty sure that's what made the difference. For the day I ended up catching 12 that went 4 lbs or better topped by a 4.97, 5.22 and a 5.53. About half of the fish were caught off beds with techniques I will not reveal here. The other half were caught blind casting a LFT Magic Shad in spawning areas.

It was an amazing day that does not happen often enough but what really gets my blood flowing is competitive fishing. I have already fished one tournament this year down in Iowa but with the season open here in MN it's game on! This week we had our first two West Central Bass League events and tomorrow is the first Big Bass Bonanza tournament of the year.

West Central Bass League - Lake Florida - June 1st

The West Central Bass League runs every Wednesday and Thursday until the end of August. The lakes are drawn at random and this year Lake Florida was the first stop of the season. It was a beautiful night and the winds actually laid down for once and it was flat calm out on the water. Despite the conditions we only had 21 boats turn out to fish. I say only 21 because based on last year I expected the number to be closer to 30 boats. In any case Florida is a small lake and 21 boats is plenty out there. The fishing ended up being pretty tough although the weights were better on average than they were last year. Here are the results.

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 10.87 lbs

2nd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.86 lbs

3rd - Tom & Jim - 3 - 8.74 lbs

4th - Jeff & Greg - 3 - 8.56 lbs

5th - Lee & Nick - 3 - 8.29 lbs

Big Bass - Lee & Nick - 4.01 lbs

As you can see my dad and I were able to take 1st place on the 1st night! What a great way to kick off the league season. With the cold spring we've had here most of the competitors focused on shallow water and docks. I heard there were a lot of fish caught on beds as well. We decided to buck the trend though and focus on deeper water from 8 to 16 feet. Our first stop was a bust but after making a few moves we found some better quality fish in the deeper water. My dad ended up catching 2 of our weigh fish. 1 came on a watermelon homemade jig and the other was on a Red Eye Shad. I added our big fish of the night, which weighed 3.95 lbs, on a watermelon Sweet Beaver with about 20 minutes to go.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake - June 2

Unlike the calm conditions the previous night, Thursday hit us with 30 mph winds out of the SE. Those kind of winds are tough on any lake but it is the absolute worst wind for fishing on Green Lake. Only 13 teams showed up to fish but the conditions were absolutely brutal out there and the results show it.

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 8.72 lbs

2nd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 7.14 lbs

3rd - Paul & Troy - 3 - 6.53 lbs

4th - Scott & Al - 3 - 6.35 lbs

Big Bass - Ron & Joe - 3.53 lbs

Well make it 2 in a row! We have some pretty stiff competition in the West Central Bass League so winning 2 in a row is no small feat. I'm just happy to start off the season with such a bang. Hopefully we can carry it throughout the entire year. Despite winning by a healthy margin the fishing for us was by no means easy. We did end up catching a fair number of small keeper largemouth but triggering the smallies was extremely difficult. We ended up weighing 2 smallies and one largemouth. My dad caught the green one on a Texas rigged tube in a milfoil patch. I caught the smallies on a tube on a shallow sand flat and our big fish which went 3.50 lbs on a watermelon LFT Hyper Finesse worm rigged on a drop shot in 25 feet of water. Our big fish came with about 30 minutes left to fish and it was out in the rough water. I was taking every other wave over the bow trying to hold on that deep structure but it paid off. Those are the situations I'm so glad I went with a 52 inch shaft on my Minn Kota instead of the standard 42 inch!