West Central Bass League - Week 12 & Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake - August 21st

This was the final regular season event on Wednesday nights for the West Central Bass League. The Tournament of Champions will be held next week but that is limited to the top 10 in the points standings at the end of the year. 19 teams showed up to try their hand on Eagle Lake. A few weeks ago the weights were really good and we were all expecting similar weights again. Eagle had a different idea though and while the weights brought to the scales were impressive they didn't quite meet up to a few weeks ago.

1st - Bruce & Bruce Jr. - 3 - 11.20 lbs
2nd - Bill & Brad - 3 - 10.85 lbs
3rd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 10.12 lbs
4th - Ron & Dave - 3 - 9.83 lbs
5th - Tonya & Jared - 3 - 9.80 lbs

Big Bass - Bill & Brad - 5.07 lbs

Our night wasn't nearly as good. We really struggled and only boated a few keepers for the night. Our 3 fish weighing 8.12 lbs was good for 9th place on the night. Not the way we wanted to end the year but at least we were able to hang on to 2nd place in the Team of the Year standings. We actually ended up catching all 3 of the bass we weighed in off of one dock. Our biggest fish, which was a little over 3 lbs came earlier in the evening and though we had 2 other small fish in the box we really couldn't get anything else going. With about 10 minutes left in the night I decided to try that dock one more time and it gave up 2 more fish that actually helped our weight a bunch even though we didn't end up with much. All the fish came on a green pumpkin Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss.

West Central Bass League - Green Lake - August 22nd

The final Thursday night league actually ended up being our lowest turnout of the season with only 14 boats showing up to fish despite beautiful conditions. The fishing turned out to be pretty good too as 4 teams passed the 3 lb average. 3 pounders have been tough to come by on Green Lake this year so it was good to see that despite only having 2 1/2 hours of fishing time. As on Wednesday night there will be a TOC with the top 10 teams in the points invited.

1st - Jared & Tonya - 3 - 9.63 lbs
2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.55 lbs
3rd - Dean & Kyle - 3 - 9.41 lbs
4th - Lee - 3 - 9.16 lbs

Big Bass - Lee - 4.22 lbs

Coming into the night we were in 2nd place for the Team of the Year standings but thanks to our high finish we were able to take the Team of the Year crown. That is no small feat in the West Central Bass League as the competition is extremely tough and the points race is really tight every year. As for our fishing I really can't say too much because as luck of the draw would have it we will be returning to Green Lake for the Wednesday night TOC.

Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain - August 26th

This week also marked the final Big Bass Bonanza tournament of the regular season. The Horseshoe Chain is a large series of lakes and river with endless amounts of shallow cover. Unfortunately much of the cover never seems to hold many fish. It can be a very tough fishery, especially in August. This year however the fishing was actually pretty good and of the all the tourneys I have ever fished there the average weight in this one was definitely the best. First place was and 8 fish limit weighing 23.99 lbs and there were many bags in the 19-20 lb range. Our 8 fish weighing 20.57 was good for 6th place out of 25 teams which was just one spot out of the money. The team that took the 5th and final money spot weighed 20.60 lbs to edge us out by just .03 lbs! Our 6th place finish also moved us up to 5th place in the final Team of the Year standings. This was easily inside the cutoff for the TOC which will be held in a few weeks on Clearwater Lake. This year the TOC will be a combined event with the Excel tournament circuit under the Minnesota Pro Team Tour banner. Each trail will send their top 15 teams to compete in the TOC.

Despite ending up with a good bag at the end of the day it was certainly not easy. We were the first boat out so we were able to fish our desired starting spot but things went downhill quickly. I lost a small keeper in a tree and missed what felt like a decent bite in our starting area but that was it. Meanwhile another boat had fished my 2nd and 3rd spots which were within site of where we were. We decided to run a short distance to another area only to find another boat sitting right where I wanted to go. I then moved to another stretch of docks and had a boat pull in front of me so I was only able to fish half the stretch. After about an hour of frustration and no fish it was time to move on to another lake on the chain. Finally I was able to find an area without another boat and was able to put a 2 and 2 1/2 pounder in the box before getting cut off again. Next it was off to a shallow weedy bay and you guessed it there were already 4 boats in there.  I didn't let it faze me though and our first fish in there was nearly 3 lbs. The action was pretty slow though and after a couple hours we had only added 3 more tiny keepers. It may sound like I'm complaining but really I'm not. Everyone out fishing this circuit is a good stick and we often find the same areas and patterns. It's all part of the game but it was just frustrating how it played out on this day. Next it was off to a bank with a brushpile and a few trees. We were able to finish off our limit with a few 2 lb class fish and after the way our morning went it was a relief to just have 8 even though many of them were small. At this point we made our way back to the lake we started in only to find out the trim and tilt had gone out on us. The motor was trimmed up since we were going through a shallow no wake zone and with the motor up like that it was impossible to get back on plane. Just another thing to deal with on an already frustrating day! We idled around for the rest of the afternoon and besides the lost time the afternoon ended up being great for us. We only caught 4 more fish but they were all in the 2 1/2 to 3 lb range and we were able to cull up with each of them. It would have been really easy to have gotten spun out on a day like that and believe me I could feel the wheels coming off the tracks a little bit but I just kept my head down and kept grinding and things turned out pretty good in the end. All you can do as a tournament angler is fight through adversity and keep on going. Eventually good things will happen.