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!