Minnesota B.A.S.S. Federation Nation TOC - Island Lake Reservoir - Sept. 6-7th
The state TOC this year was held on Island Lake Reservoir near Duluth. It is a lake many of the competitors had never even heard of, let alone fished before it was announced. Although I went to college in Duluth I don't recall hearing much about it and I certainly had never fished it before the 4 days of official practice. It was an interesting body of water with a lot of rock, shallow weed cover and tannic water. One thing it seemed to lack though was a large population of bass. The primary species in the lake is smallmouth bass but there just weren't a lot of them or they weren't biting good as evidenced by the weights brought to the scales over the two day tournament. I expected the fishing to be tough but that is pretty much an understatement. When all was said and done only 2 people were able to bring a 5 fish limit to the scales on each of the days. I had a strong limit on day 1 with 5 weighing 13.97 lbs which put me in 3rd place. On day 2 I was only able to catch 2 weighing 5.81 lbs so I slipped to 10th place overall with a total weight of 19.78 lbs but in this tournament the goal is to make the top 12 and I was able to do that! This means that I have advanced to the Northern Divisionals which will be held next year in South Dakota on Francis Case Reservoir. There is also a team portion of the TOC. In that our club, the West Central Bassmasters finished 2nd. Over the past several years our club has shown that we are one of the best in the state no matter where the tournament is held. The full results of the tournament can be found here.
http://www.mnbfn.org/TOC/2012/index.html
Day 1
After practice I really didn't know what to expect coming in. I had a tough time getting enough bites like pretty much every one else I had talked to but I had also seen enough quality fish to feel like a good bag was a real possibility. Like I said to some of the guys the day before the tournament, "I could catch a big bag or I could zero." That was the absolute truth. As it turned out day 1 went almost as well as it could have. My original plan was to start on a shallow offshore rock pile but being boat 55 I was almost positive someone else would be on it by the time I got there. That turned out to be the case so I turned the other direction and went to the bank to fish docks. Docks were going to be my primary game plan anyway but generally that is not something you to until a little later in the day. It turned out perfect though as I had 3 keepers in the boat within the first half hour including one close to 3 lbs. I continued to run docks and not too long after I had another quality smallie in the boat. At around 9:30 am I decided to check a rocky point that I had gotten a number of bites on in practice. Almost immediately I had keeper number 5 in the boat on a green pumpkin Strike King Coffee tube. I was actually kind of shocked at how easily it was all coming together. I figured if I was going to get a limit it would pretty much take all day to get there. I worked over that point for quite awhile but it didn't give up any more fish so it was back to the docks for the rest of the day. Shortly after going back to the docks I caught a quality upgrade on a chartreuse and white Strike King Spinnerbait but after that it was like the bite was dead. At that point it was around 10:30 am and from then until the 4:30 pm it was just downright tough. By this point it seemed that every boat in the field had started fishing docks and I'm sure that was a big part of why it got so tough. Early in the afternoon I pulled into a stretch of docks that just felt like it wasn't getting as much pressure as the others. After fishing quite a few with nothing I finally hooked into the biggest fish I had seen all week. Of course it jumped right by the boat and came off just out of reach of the net. That was a heartbreaker but there is more to that story coming up. With only a little more than an hour to go I picked up my biggest fish of the day which was around 3 1/2 lbs. That allowed me to cull out one that was around 2 lbs so it was a big upgrade and that allowed me to end up with 5 for 13.97 lbs and 3rd place for the day. All of my dock fish came on a vampire orange Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss.
Day 2
After seeing all the pressure the docks were getting on day 1 my only hope was that they would reload overnight. Again I really didn't know what to expect. If we were fishing for largemouth I would expect that the dock fishing would be much tougher but since smallies move around more so I thought it there was a real possibility that fishing could be good. I decided to start my day on the same stretch of docks as I did on day 1 although I didn't go straight to the best 2 docks. That turned out to be a mistake as another competitor pulled right in front of me and started on those docks. Fortunately for me they didn't catch anything and I put a 13 inch keeper in the boat on the next dock over as they watched. I was off to a quick start again and feeling good about the day but that all came to a crashing halt. It was clear many other competitors were onto the dock pattern and everything was getting beat up. The next 4 hours or so were a complete bust. Then at around noon I finally got another bite only to have it get buried in a boat lift and break off. With about 1 1/2 hours left to fish I went back to the stretch of docks where I had lost that big fish on day 1. I had already fished it in the morning but with only 1 small keeper in the boat I was kind of thinking to myself that if it was a tough day one 4 lb class fish would possibly be enough to keep me in the top 12 so I went back hoping for just 1 big bite. After fishing a few docks I came to the dock where I had lost the fish. I fished it real thoroughly and eventually I hooked into a big one. It came flying out of the water just like on day 1 but this time it made it into the net. I know that it was the exact same fish! As it turned out that smallie weighed in at 4.50 lbs and my 2 fish on day 2 weighed a total of 5.81 lbs. If I had caught that big smallie on day 1 I would not have made the top 12 because I would have only gained around 2 lbs after the cull. By catching it on day 2 I kept all 4 1/2 lbs of it's weight and that was just enough to finish in 10th place. It's kind of crazy to say but losing a big fish actually ended up being the best thing that could have happened to me!
Green Mill/West Central Bassmasters Fall Classic - Green Lake - Sept. 9th
After returning from the TOC it was right into another tournament. Last year we didn't fish Green Lake at all for several weeks before the tournament and ended up winning. This year Green hasn't been as kind to us but my hopes were still high for this event. We had fished Green twice in the last few weeks of the league season and were able to finish 2nd both times so we felt like we knew what the fish were doing at least a little. As it turns out we couldn't figure anything out on tournament day. In our league nights we caught quality fish on topwaters shallow and drop shots out deep but on tournament day those quality fish turned into 2 pounders. Nothing we tried ended up working and our 6 fish limit weighing 13.24 lbs put us in 22nd out of 27 teams fishing. That was by far my worst tournament on Green Lake ever.
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