West Central Bass League - Tournament of Champions Week

West Central Bass League TOC - Green Lake - August 29th

At the end of the regular league season the top 10 teams in points are invited to fish the Tournament of Champions. Each of the 10 teams then throws a lake name into a hat and the TOC lake is chosen at random.  We actually ended up having 11 teams fishing since two boats tied in points for the 10th place spot. This year the Wednesday night TOC lake ended up being Green Lake. The fishing for the night actually ended up being pretty tough with the overall weights pretty low although the top team really crushed em.

1st - Paul & Pete - 3 - 10.97 lbs
2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.30 lbs
3rd - Tonya & Jared - 3 - 8.68 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Paul & Pete - 3.81 lbs
Big Bass #2 - Joe & Jodi - 3.50 lbs

We had fished several events on Green Lake in the previous weeks and in those our primary weapon was a Super Spook. However on this night the topwater bite was practically non-existent for us. In fact the shallow bite almost completely went away from us. My dad did end up putting one of our weigh fish in the boat on a chartreuse and white spinnerbait but other than that it was only a few other small fish. We ended up going out to the deep humps where we were able to put 2 more 3 lb class fish in the boat using Berkley HAVOC Bottom Hopper worms on a drop shot rig.

West Central Bass League TOC - Nest Lake - August 30th

The format for the Thursday night TOC works the same as on Wednesday night except that there were no ties so there were 10 boats fishing. By luck of the draw Nest Lake was chosen and I think everyone was pretty happy with the choice. The fishing on Nest was pretty tough back in early June but for the rest of the year the lake has been on fire and this night was no different. 7 of the 10 teams fishing ended up weighing over 10 lbs for their 3 fish limits which is impressive no matter where you go in Minnesota and a great way to cap off an amazing 2012 league season.

1st - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 11.91 lbs
2nd - Paul & Mark - 3 - 11.22 lbs
3rd - Joe & Pete - 3 - 11.12 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Paul & Mark - 4.36 lbs
Big Bass #2 - Dean & JD - 4.35 lbs

In our two previous league visits to Nest we weighed 3 fish limits of smallmouth over 11.5 lbs but came up 2nd both times. It was great to finally get over the hump and finish first with another big limit of smallies. In our previous visits we caught the majority of our fish off of one area but on this night another boat started there as well and they were catching fish and we couldn't buy a bite. After awhile it was time to abandon ship and head for new waters. The choice was a good one since as soon as we moved we had about 10 lbs in the boat in 5 minutes. The rest of the night was spent bouncing around and adding a good fish here and there. Our weigh fish ended up coming on various Strike King Coffee Tubes and Berkley HAVOC Pit Bosses.