Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Minnewaska

Lake Minnewaska was the 2nd stop of 4 events on the Big Bass Bonanza circuit. 43 teams showed up to fish so there was a slightly larger turnout than the first even on Sauk Lake. The conditions were really ideal for fishing. It was warm, calm and for most of the day there was just a light rain. The end of the day was a different story though. The rain started coming down harder and the wind really picked up blowing directly into the weigh in site. People beached their boats but then the waves were coming right over the back filling everyones boats with water. For the most part the bilge pumps worked fine but one boat filled up to the point that only the very top was out of the water. They were able to get it back on the trailer though. As for the fishing it went very well for my dad and I as we took 2nd place with 22.87 lbs for our 8 fish limit. We just missed out on first place as they weighed in 23.11 lbs. I was also able to catch the 2nd big bass of the tournment that weighed in at 4.30 lbs for some additional money. Heres how we did it.

We were one of the very last boats to blast off so we were worried about getting to our spots but when we pulled into the first one there was no one nearby at all. It was a gravel flat in 5-6 feet of water and we thew Super Spooks hoping to get a few smallmouth to come up. My dad and I each had one bite on the Spook but they barely touched it and neither one of us was able to hook up. We went back through the area with tubes and football jigs but had no bites that pass so it was off to the next spot.

The next area was a weedline in 10-14 feet of water. Almost immediately my dad caught our first fish of the day and it was a solid 2 3/4 lb fish. This was the spot I expected to catch our biggest fish on so we stuck around for quite awhile but the only other fish we caught was a big sheephead. After that we hit a few more spots including reeds, another deeper weedbed, and a shallow sandy flat but struck out on all three. Next we tried to run to another spot we had found in practice but the guys who run the tournament were fishing basically right on out waypoint so instead we pulled into another nearby weedline in 10 feet of water. Again my dad had a bite pretty quick but it got off after just a second or two. He said it was a good one so we worked the area over pretty thoroughly but didn't get anymore bites. By now 2 1/2 hours had gone by and we only had 1 fish in the livewell. I was starting to get worried but I wasn't going to panic just yet.

Our next stop was on another shallow gravel and rock flat. Again my dad was the first to hook up and he put a nice 2 1/2 lb smallie in the boat on a football jig. After netting his fish I picked my rod rigged with a green pumpkin KVD tube that I had left in the water and there was another smallie on the line. This one weighed in at about 2 lbs. So after 2 1/2 hours with 1 fish we had just put 2 in the boat in a matter of seconds. We worked the area over some more and I caught anther small keeper smallie and it was time to go. Our next stop was another gravel and rock flat and I put 3 more small keeper smallies in the boat in about 10 minutes on the green pumpkin tube. I switched back to the Spook and caught another small keeper so after struggling for the first part of the day it took no time at all to fill our limit even though I knew it was going to be nothing to brag about if we didn't upgrade substantially.

After filling our limit we knew we needed much bigger fish so we headed back to the big fish weedline. We would end up hitting this spot 4 times throughout the day but this was the last time we would catch any fish on it. Within 10 minutes of arriving I hooked into what turned out to be the 4.30 lb largemouth on a watermelon jig. Not 5 minutes later I caught one weighing about 3 3/4 lbs on the jig. After that the action was done. We worked the spot over well and right before we left my dad hooked into a really good fish only to find out it was about a 5 lb walleye. I was hoping to catch more fish in the area but still catching 2 that weighed around 8 lbs combined was exactly what we needed at that point.

After that we made another stop on our starting spot and those smallies still wouldn't go so we moved pretty quickly to a shallower weedline in about 7 feet of water. I picked up a 2 1/2 lb largemouth on the watermelon jig but there were no other fish there. At that point it seemed like the largemouths were biting better than they had been earlier in the morning so I decided to fish that watermelon jig on weedlines the rest of the day. We moved back to the area where my dad had lost the good one earlier in the day and I missed a bite. The fish had ripped the trailer off my jig but I wanted to get back out there quickly so I pitched the undressed jig right to the same spot and the fish still ate it up. That one went about 3 lbs. Next we were able to move over to the weedline that was occupied earlier in the morning since that boat had left. It was the same kind of spot with a weedline right about 10 feet deep. I picked up another solid fish in the 2 3/4 lb range on the watermelon jig. Then it was mine turn to lose one. It was the first bite all day that hit on the fall and for whatever reason I just didn't get a good hook in it. I never saw it but I would guess that was a fish in the same size range as the other one.

At this point we knew we had a really solid bag but we also knew we still had that 2 lb smallmouth that we needed to get rid of. We bounced around to several other areas including the big fish spot 2 more times but were unable to come up with anything that would help us. We had our 2 chances for first with those fish we lost but it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe they weren't even bass but I'm almost positive they were. It also would have been nice to catch a bigger smallmouth since we had caught some good ones in practice but they just weren't going that day. There were very few smallies weighed in by any of the teams. For the most part though, besides the first 2 1/2 hours, our plan from practice went about as smoothly as possible. Our 2nd place finish combined with our 5th place in the first event has us in a 3 way tie for Team of the Year with 2 event remaining. Hopefully we can keep this momentum going and compete for the top spot at the end of the year. Our next event will be July 12th on Lake Ida.