West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Johanna & Norway Lake

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Johanna - September 17th

The forecast for the day was cold, windy and cloudy and that is exactly what we got for our event on Lake Johanna. It wasn't nearly as windy as many people were expecting although that is probably part of the reason we only had 8 boats fishing. The fish didn't cooperate very well either as most teams reported extremely tough fishing even though at the end of the day some nice bags were brought in. Here are the results.

1st - Dean & JD - 5 - 19.17 lbs

2nd - David & Lenny - 5 - 17.65 lbs

Big Bass - David & Lenny - 4.61 lbs

My dad and I had a tough day and only brought 4 to the scales weighing 13.70 lbs. That put us in 4th place for the day. Even though we only brought 4 to the weigh in that is a little misleading since we lost 4 fish that we had hooked up. So we had the bites but we just didn't get them in the boat for some reason. None of the fish we lost would have been enough to take 1st place though so that's a little consolation. As usual for Johanna all our fish came on jigs and various plastics fished in the reeds.

West Central Fall Bass League - Norway Lake - September 24th

We had a very nice turnout with 13 teams competing on Norway/Games Lakes for the West Central Fall Bass League. Although the day started cold it warmed up into a beautiful fall day on the water. The fishing was pretty good to with a lot of limits caught and some nice weights for Norway Lake. Here are the results.

1st - Paul & Lee - 5 - 15.15 lbs

2nd - Ross & Robbie - 5 - 14.33 lbs

3rd - Butch - 5 - 13.91 lbs

4th - Wayne - 5 - 13.57 lbs

Big Bass - Ross & Robbie - 4.71 lbs

My dad and I had another pretty tough week as we brought in 5 weighing 12.59 lbs to take 5th place. Actually the only real difference from our bag and those in the money was one 4 pounder. The teams who were in the money all had one 4 pounder and we just never had that bite. We spent a fair amount of time out deep like we usually do on these lakes but for whatever reason that bite was just not happening so we ended up catching our fish by fishing jigs and soft plastics around the docks and reeds.

Green Mill/West Central Bassmasters Fall Classic - Green Lake

The West Central Bassmasters along with Green Mill teamed up for the 2nd annual Fall Classic held on Green Lake in Spicer on September 11th. We had a beautiful day that felt more like summer than fall and 33 of the 34 teams competing where able to bring in their 6 fish limit. The other team had mechanical issues so they did not get to the weigh in on time but I'm sure they had a limit as well because the fishing was excellent for most of the teams. My dad and I also had some great fishing for the day and we ended up weighing 5 smallmouth and 1 largemouth for 19.74 lbs which was good enough to take 1st place for the day! My track record for Green Lake tournaments is pretty strong, with numerous 2nd and 3rd place finishes, but it had actually been a number of years since I've gotten a win out there so this one felt really good. The full results of the tournament can be found here.

http://www.wcmnbassmasters.org/resources/2011FallClassicResults.pdf

A couple of things I found interesting about the results were the average size of the bass and the lack of largemouths weighed in. The weights all the way down were very solid and that led to the average weight of all the fish weighed in being 2.64 lbs per bass. This is the heaviest average I can remember in the tournaments our club has run out there. What makes that more surprising to me is that the big largemouth have almost completely disappeared. In the past couple of years the largemouth in the 2-4 lb range had really taken off and to do well in tournaments you usually needed to have at least a few of them in your bag. This year only 24 of the 198 bass weighed were largemouth. I have no idea where those bigger green fish went and no one else I've talked to seems to know either. The big fish of the day was a 4.74 lb smallmouth which is an absolute giant for Green Lake in recent years.

Immediately prior to the event my dad and I were up at the Whitefish Chain for a week fishing the Minnesota B.A.S.S. Federation Nation TOC so with no chance to pre-fish Green that week I decided that we would not pre-fish Green at all beforehand. That made the last time we had seen the lake about 3 weeks earlier for our last league night of the season. I would never attempt this for any other tournament but I have an extensive history on Green and thought it would be kind of fun to just figure things out on the fly.

We decided to start in the same spot we ended our last league night. That evening they were blasting topwaters at the end of the night and the hope was that they would be doing the same thing right away in the morning. The area was a large sand and gravel flat with a few scattered weeds in 4-8 feet of water. Sure enough it was on as soon as we pulled up and they were hitting the Super Spook. We had probably a dozen bites but they just weren't really getting it very good. We didn't lose any fish but just had a hard time hooking up. We did land about half of them but only 1 ended up riding to the weigh in. That smallie was about 3 1/4 lbs.

After the topwater action slowed we moved slightly deeper to the 8-15 foot range to test out several thick milfoil beds. Right away I put a 3 lb class largemouth in the boat on a green pumpkin Strike King Coffee Tube and a short while later added a nice 3 3/4 lb smallie on a watermelon Sweet Beaver in a clearing between to milfoil patches. At this point it was still early in the morning and we had 3 quality fish in the boat with only 3 more to go. I was wondering if the bite was just wide open all over the lake or if we were really onto something.

I did want to check some deep water in the 20-30 foot range though because I really like catching them that way on Green so that was our next couple stops. It didn't take long to figure out that deep bite wasn't going to happen. I caught 1 tiny bass out deep but the other key was there was nothing on our HDS screens. No bait, no fish, the screens were just blank. It made our decision to focus on shallow to mid depths for the rest of the day pretty easy.

After checking the deep stuff we moved back to the 6-12 foot range for the rest of the day primarily focusing on milfoil patches and sand/gravel flats. I was able to catch our second biggest bass of the day on a chartreuse/white Strike King spinnerbait fished over the sand which was actually the first spinnerbait fish I had caught on Green Lake all year. The action was much slower for quality fish in the late morning through the afternoon but we just kept bouncing around to various milfoil patches and every once in awhile we would get a smallie in the 3 to 3 1/4 lb range by flipping various plastics into and around the weeds. We ended up catching a pile of fish on the day but not really a ton of quality fish. For the day we ended up with 7 that went 3 lbs or better but with a 6 fish limit that was enough to get the job done!

West Central Fall Bass League - Nest Lake

September 10th marked the first West Central Fall Bass League of the season although it sure didn't feel like fall out there. We had sunny, calm conditions with a high around 85 degrees. It was hot out there and this fishing was pretty hot for a few of the 11 teams competing on Nest Lake as well. The fall league is basically the same as our summer league except that they are held on Saturdays instead of during the week. We also fish for 5 hours and have a 5 fish limit instead of 3 hours and 3 fish. Here are the results.

1st - David & Tanisha - 5 - 16.91 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 5 - 16.90 lbs

3rd - Paul & Scott - 5 - 16.13 lbs

Big Bass - David & Tanisha - 4.17 lbs

As you can see we had a good day but after the scales settled it was a huge disappointment to lose out by .01 lbs! We did have a fun day though catching a mixed bag of about a dozen fish with many of them being quality bass. We started on a large flat with cabbage and milfoil on it although this year the milfoil really exploded out there and was matted up everywhere. That is exactly what I was hoping to see and we got to work quickly by pitching various plastics to the clumps of milfoil. Most of those fish were smaller but one was a solid 3 pounder that stayed in the box for awhile. After the action slowed we headed out to a deeper rock area to see if the smallies were going. We were only able to get 1 bite out there but my dad put a nice smallie near 4 lbs in the boat on a green pumpkin football jig. Next it was off to an area I hoped would have cabbage but the milfoil had taken over just like everywhere else on the lake. Again we had only 1 bite in the area but it was our best largemouth of the day and a little over 3 1/2 lbs. After that we just bounced around between shallow rocks and milfoil switching back and forth between smallies and largemouth. As the day wore on it became apparent that the smallies were biting pretty well so we focused on that a little bit more and of the 5 bass we weighed 4 of them ended up being smallies.

Minnesota B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Tournament of Champions - Whitefish Chain

This tournament was held over two days on September 8-9th on the Whitefish Chain of Lakes north or Brainerd. There is really only one goal for this tournament and that is to make the top 12. Those top 12 anglers then advance to the Divisional tournament that will be held next year in Illinois. Coming into this event I had qualified for the previous three Divisionals and will also be representing Minnesota at the National Championship later this fall so I really wanted to keep my streak going. Unfortunately for me I was not able to accomplish my goal. Over the two days I ended up weighing in 10 bass for 20.72 lbs which put me in 24th place out of 160 anglers. To finish that high against such a large field is a pretty good accomplishment but anything outside of the top 12 is just a huge disappointment. At least my club, the West Central Bassmasters, has continued our hot streak in the event. We placed 2 anglers in the top 12 for the 4th consecutive year and also took 2nd overall in the final team standings. A big congratulations to Joe Patock and Ron Mehr for finishing 3rd and 8th respectively to advance to the Divisional tournament!

Day 1

I had a pretty tough practice which seems to be par for the course for me the last few years in this tournament. That doesn't mean a thing though since I was able to advance each of those years. I actually ended up putting a few things together that I really thought were going to be good enough even though I knew I would get very few bites doing them. It's not about the number of bites though at the end of the day and I really thought the few bites I would get would be the size I needed.

We blasted off at Moonlight Bay and I was fishing within about a minute after that. I started off throwing a Super Spook on a bank with milfoil and cabbage. I really didn't expect much for numbers but this is where I thought I could get a kicker right off the bat in the morning. As it turns out the fish were biting big time and they were keepers but none of them would be the ones I'd want in the box at the end of the day. After boxing a limit and throwing the Spook for about an hour it just didn't feel like a big bite was coming so it was off to the next area.

My next stop was a weedline area that is kind of hard to describe. Let's just say it had some unique turns and points all in one general area with the coontail growing out to about 18-19 feet and some thicker milfoil up shallower. Once again I did not expect a ton of bites but instead they were biting good here too and again they were small. I was able to upgrade though and after fishing this area for awhile I had now had a limit of 14 inchers in the livewell. These fish were caught on jigs, 6" finesse worms and my trusty Berkley HAVOC Pit Boss. At this point I had caught quite a few bass but had not seen even one of the quality fish I had found in practice. I did feel like the bite would be better in the afternoon though so I suggested to my non-boater that we try some of his areas and then return to this spot later in the day.

So it was off to his spots or large area as it were. It turned out to be pretty similar to my primary area with coontail out to around 19 feet adjacent to a large flat. We fished along the edge of the flat for a long time and the action was really slow but once we got to a nice inside corner I was able to put my largest fish of the day into the boat. That one went about 2 3/4 lbs and came on a 6" finesse worm. After fishing that corner for quite awhile it was pretty clear nothing else was going to happen so it was back to my area where we would end up closing out the day.

After returning to my weedline area the fish were still biting and still pretty small but eventually my non-boater was able to put a couple fish in the 2lb range in the boat so I really started thinking the afternoon bite was going to play out after all. For the most part it didn't until right near the end of the day when I hooked a good fish in the 3 lb range only to have it jump off a little ways from the boat. After such a tough day for the quality fish losing that one really stung! I knew I wouldn't be way up in the standings even with it but it was just going to be that much more ground for me to make up the next day. For the day I weighed in 5 for 9.59 lbs which put me in 51st place.

Day 2

Despite being so far back in the pack after day 1 I was by no means out of the game. I've been in these tournaments long enough to know that day 2 is almost always a much tougher day and the weights usually drop off quite a bit. I still knew I had a lot of ground to make up though but based on my practice I knew I was around the fish to make up that ground if I could just get them to bite and get them in the boat.

I decided to skip my Spook pattern in the morning in hopes that my primary weedline area, which I felt would be better in the afternoon, would also be on in the early morning. I hadn't fished it right off the bat in the morning so I didn't know what to expect other than that I knew there were quality fish there. Just like the previous day the fish were there and biting but also all in the 14 inch range. Eventually I was able to boat one on a jig that went about 2 1/4 lbs which was decent but I also knew that would have to be my small fish for the day.

After fishing awhile longer we decided to hit some of my non-boaters docks and hope that the afternoon bite would be better. The dock bite was tough and I was only able to put one keeper in the boat that didn't help me at that point. It was nice to be in the back of the boat for awhile though and recharge a little bit. I knew I would have to be on my game the last couple hours of the day if I had any chance to make the top 12.

We made our way back to my primary weedline area and I continued to catch fish, upgrading by ounces every once in awhile, instead of the pounds I needed. Eventually I came across a little spot on the weedline where the bottom was slimy and the fish were sitting right there. I was able to catch 4 keepers making the exact same cast and each one was bigger than the next, topping out at about 2 1/2 lbs. I just kept thinking please keep getting bigger but then the action just died. Those fish all come on a 6" finesse worm rigged on a drop shot. Eventually after about half an hour casting to the same little spot my non-boater hooked into a 3 lb fish which was the biggest fish in my boat over the two days. I really hoped that fish would fire the school back up and I could pull it out at the end of the day and I thought it had happened. I called last cast and pulled up the trolling motor when I hooked into a giant. I looked down into the clear water and saw a huge white mouth only to be heartbroken when it turned to the side and was way too long to be a bass. Turns out it was about a 6 lb northern. No last second heroics for me. I did end up with better weight than day 1 with 5 bass for 11.13 lbs but I ended up about 1 1/2 lbs short of the top 12 mark. The good one I lost on day 1 would have put me really close to the cut line but I think I would have still ended up just a little short even if I had boated it. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself!

West Central Bass League - Tournament of Champions Week

West Central Bass League TOC - Diamond Lake - August 31st

The top 10 teams, based on the final points in the TOY standings on Wednesday night were invited to fish the Tournament of Champions. Each team then threw their pick for a lake into a hat and Diamond Lake was drawn. Diamond used to be known as an extremely tough lake but also one that held giant fish. It has changed in recent years and the big fish are gone for the most part but it now kicks out huge numbers of fish. On this night most of the teams reported catching a lot of fish and some nice weights were brought in as well. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 11.39 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 10.55 lbs

3rd - Bill & Todd - 3 - 9.59 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Scott & Kelly - 4.41 lbs

Big Bass #2 - Ron & Joe - 3.92 lbs

Bill & Todd - 3.92 lbs

As you can see we finished 2nd to cap off a pretty good year on Wednesday nights in which we also finished 3rd in the TOY standings. For the final night on Diamond our plan was to primarily fish the docks and trees since that had been the main pattern all year on the lake. We did venture to the reeds a couple of times but were unable to get bit doing that although several other teams reported catching a lot of fish out of the reeds. We ended up catching a lot of fish on the docks though. All of our weigh fish came by pitching and skipping docks with various jigs and soft plastics.

West Central Bass League TOC - Norway Lake - September 1st

Just as on Wednesday nights the top 10 teams were invited to fish the Thursday night Tournament of Champions. We had fished Norway Lake on the last regular season night and by luck of the draw that is where the TOC was held. At least everyone in the field had been out the previous week so we all had a feel for the conditions. The fishing didn't end up being quite as good though. Here are the results.

1st - Ron & Joe - 3 - 9.39 lbs

2nd - Paul & Pete - 3 - 9.22 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 8.86 lbs

Big Bass #1 - Mike Nitchals - 3.85 lbs

Big Bass #2 - Ron & Joe - 3.70 lbs

We were able to end the Thursday night campaign which had us placing 2nd in the TOY standings on a solid note with one last in the money finish. As many readers know my preference is to fish in Games lake but that plan had not been working at all this year. The previous week we decided to abandon Games and Spend our time in Norway. We were able to produce a decent limit but at the end of the night we ended up culling all those fish out on a quick trip to Games. For the TOC there was no question that we would spend most of our time in Games. We were able to catch a pretty quick limit fishing deep with crankbaits and jigs but the fish were small and after awhile it slowed way down. We ended up running around a little bit but I knew we had to be back on our prime deep stuff at the end of the night. That is when my dad caught the big fish of the night on a Rapala DT 16 with about 20 minutes to go.

With the TOC's complete the summer West Central Bass League season is now over. The fishing is far from over though as the West Central Fall Bass League starts on September 10th and runs until the end of October. Since we run out of daylight on weeknights the Fall League is held every Saturday. This allows us to fish for 5 hours instead of just 3 which I enjoy because it gives a little more time to figure things out. Last year the fall fishing was extremely tough for the most part. Hopefully it will be a lot better this year!