West Central Bassmasters State Qualifier - Lake Minnewaska

Sunday June 13th marked the first West Central Bassmasters club event to determine which members will qualify for the Minnesota State Federation Tournament of Champions. It was held on Lake Minnewaska out of Starbuck Minnesota. We had 16 guys fishing, 12 of whom were trying to qualify for the state tourney. With 12 people trying we are allowed to send the top 6 to the state tourney. The conditions on Sunday were beautiful with light winds and cloudy skies with occasional rain showers. These are the type of conditions fish should bite well in but unfortunately for us it was just about the toughest I have ever seen the lake. Here are the results from the day's fishing:

June 13, 2010 Lake Minnewaska

Name # Fish Big Tot Wgt Place State Pts

Tim Stockland 5 3.50 10.51 1 12

Mike Nitchals 5 3.48 10.50 2 11

Andy Nitchals 5 3.96 10.24 3 10

Brian Krause 5 3.64 8.98 4 9

Dean Drexler 5 2.81 8.17 5 8

Paul Shimek 5 7.84 6

Joe Patock 5 7.59 7 7

Grant King 4 6.88 8 6

Ryan Brummond 5 2.32 6.73 9

Wayne Kitzmann 5 6.29 10

David Christinsen4 6.16 11 5

Jeff Wilke 5 5.48 12

Eric Tessmer 4 5.09 13 4

Solon Schaefer 4 4.68 14

Lenny Schaefer 3 2.89 15

Bill Neumann 2 2.83 16 3

Big Bass 3.96 Andy Nitchals

Before the tournament everyone I had talked to was complaining big time about the lake. Everyone is saying all the big fish were gone and the fishing was really tough out there. I spent about 6 hours on the lake the previous week and was able to compile 13-14 lbs pretty easily so I was really liking my chances going into the event. Of course practice and the actual tournament are much different things but I at least had confidence that I could get a few bigger bites than most of the field.

My plan was to fish weed lines in 8-14 feet of water and that is pretty much what I stuck to all day long. I did start on a rock and gravel area in about 4-6 feet of water where I was able to catch 2 quick smallmouth on watermelon/red flake Strike King Coffee Tubes but they were both only around 1 1/2 lbs. After that it was off to the weed lines for the rest of the day. I alternated between 1/2 oz and 3/4 oz watermelon jigs as well as a watermelon Brush Hog for most of my fishing. I just kept rotating through my old waypoints and some of the new areas I had found earlier in the week. I can't be too specific about the big fish of the day but I will say it came on a spot I found a couple years ago and every time I have fished it I have been able to catch at least one fish over 3 lbs off of it. It really seems like a consistent spot that doesn't receive a whole lot of pressure. That fish came on a 3/4 oz jig and if I hadn't caught that one I would have been really hurting since the rest of my limit was all small fish. I was just never able to get on the quality I had found earlier in the week although my dad, who was fishing with me, caught 2 fish in the 3- 3 1/2 lb range to enable him to finish 1 spot ahead of me. If only I had gotten one of those bites instead of him!

West Central Bass League - Norway Lake

Thursday June 10th was the Norway Cup edition of the West Central Bass Leauge. Basically the Cup night is just double the entry fee and 2 big bass are paid instead of 1. Otherwise all the other rules are the same. We had 19 teams fishing on another cool, windy and misty night. As has been the case the past couple of years there were a ton of fish caught by most of the teams but for the most part they were all small. Norway generally has one of the lowest average weights per fish of any of our league lakes. 1st place went to my dad & I with 8.15 lbs for 3 fish. 2nd went to Paul & Troy with 7.64 lbs. In 3rd was John & Jacob with 7.55 lbs and 4th went to Brad & Wayne with 7.28 lbs. The big fish for the night was caught by Paul & Troy. It weighed in at 3.93 lbs.

Our fishing for the night was extremely slow compared to many in the field. Most teams fished shallow and caught a bunch of little fish but we did the opposite and stayed out deep all night looking for a couple of the right bites which we were eventually able to find. We really only had 2 10 to 15 minute periods of activity all night long. We were able to fire up a school and catch 3 or 4 pretty quick and then just like that it was over. That is just how it goes when you are hunting for those deep water fish sometimes. I would have liked the schools to have more fish but it ended up being enough. We threw a variety of classic deep water baits including jigs, football jigs, brush hogs, 10 inch worms and Rapala DT 16 crankbaits but the 3 fish we weighed in came on football jigs and cranks.

This makes it 2 wins for us in 4 events so far this season. Hopefully we can keep up the pace and win every other time or so but with the level of competition that will be impossible. We are going to be giving it our best shot though. My next tournament is a club event to qualify for the MN BASS Federation state tournament. It will be held tomorrow on Lake Minnewaska. I enjoy the lake and have really gained a lot of confidence out there in the past couple years so it should be a good tournament. I'll update on that one as soon as possible.

West Central Bass League - Lake Johanna

We had another excellent turnout on Wednesday June 9th at Lake Johanna. 24 teams showed up to compete despite the cool and windy conditions. It seemed like a tale of two lakes while talking to the fishermen after the competition was done. Some teams reported catching a ton of fish while others including my dad and I struggled to get just a few bites. It sure seemed like one end of the lake was much more productive than the other. In any case the weights overall were pretty strong with 8 limits weighing over 9 lbs. 1st place went to Bruce & Cal with a monster 3 fish limit weighing 12.93 lbs which included the big bass of the night of 5.38 lbs. 2nd place went to Brian with 10.26 lbs. 3rd was T.J. & Isaiah with 9.98 lbs and 4th went Jeremy & Lee with 9.79 lbs. My dad & I finished 8th with 9.25 lbs.

As I mentioned earlier we had a tough time getting bites and only boated 5 fish for the evening. We did the same thing we always do on this lake which is fishing the reeds. We usually have a few boats around us in our starting area but on this night there were 5 other boats with us. It is not a large area so it was pretty crowded but we were able to start on the stretch we wanted and my dad put 2 fish in the boat within 20 minutes on a black/blue jig. After that we were out of fresh water so we began fishing used water and after about an hour we were able to pick up our limit fish also on the black/blue jig. At this point we decided to run to another area of reeds only to find that it had also been fished by several other boats. It was slow at first in the location too but as the sun got lower the fish pulled to the outside edge where I was able to upgrade twice with 3 lb fish on a Berkley Heavyweight Sink Worm.

Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain

The first event of five on the Big Bass Bonanza tournament circuit is in the books. It was held June 6th on the Horseshoe Chain of lakes near St. Cloud Minnesota. The tournament did not go as well as planned for my dad and I as we could only manage 14.07 lbs for our 8 fish limit. It was still not a total disaster though because even that small limit put us in 14th out of 32 teams. The winning team came in with 20.24 lbs and it took around 17.5 lbs to get a check. Obviously I would have liked to do a lot better than that but it wasn't a total bomb anyways. I also had the second biggest bass weighed in with a 4.18 lb smallmouth that just missed out on being the big bass of the day to a 4.26 lb largemouth. I believe big bass was worth $600 so coming so close but missing out hurt a little bit. You can also tell from doing the math that our other 7 fish weighed a combined 10 lbs. We just could not figure out how to get any more decent fish to bite despite having a fair practice period earlier in the week.

We started our day on an area with heavy vegetation in the form of curly leaf pond weed with a few pads mixed in hear and there. Normally I do not like fishing curly leaf since it rarely seems to hold bass for me but this area had a number of fish over 2 lbs during practice. We started by throwing frogs and flipping Sweet Beavers in the heavy cover but it didn't seem quite right. After longer than expected I had a blow up on the frog that missed but I was able to pick him up on a follow up cast but it was only barely over 12 inches. After that disaster struck. I had 3 fish hooked and almost all the way to the boat before they fell off for no apparent reason. The hooks were sharp as tacks and I really don't know why they came off. My dad then started getting bit on the frog but was never able to hook into any of them. Fortunately none of the lost or missed fish seemed to be the right size anyways. Unfortunately that meant our best area no longer seemed to hold the quality we needed.

After that we decided to go after smallmouth. They typically play a huge role in Horseshoe tournaments and we had found some good ones in practice. We had several spots within one general area of the lake and when we arrived there were boats on 2 of them. A third spot we had marked was vacant so we pulled in there and within 5 minutes I boated that 4.18 lb beauty on a watermelon/red flake Strike King Coffee tube. I really thought it was going to be on but that was the last good smallmouth we caught the rest of the day. After working the area thoroughly we slid up to a row of nearby docks where we caught a couple more small largemouth to get us closer to filling our limit. By that time the other boats had left and we fished the used water to catch a few more keeper smallies but nothing much over a pound.

The rest of the day was spent bouncing around between rocky smallmouth areas and dock/tree lined banks looking for a few more good fish which unfortunately never came. We were able to fill our limit with small largemouth but were just not able to find the right quality. I believe the winners were mainly fishing docks but we just didnt come across the right stretches I guess.

This tournament leaves me pretty unsatisfied. We are still in position to make the top 10 year end tournament so that is good and I'm not disappointed that we only caught small fish. We I don't like is the poor execution on the frog fish in the morning, even though I don't know what I could of done differently, and what I feel was semi-poor decision making on my part. I just didn't really feel it out there for whatever reason. Maybe it was because it was the first tournament of the year but it wasn't coming together in my head the way I would of liked. I'll chalk it up to being the first tournament and just move on. Even though it may seem like we weren't even close, just 2 more good bites would have moved us way up and into the money.

My next tournament is a West Central Bassmasters club event on Lake Minnewaska. This is the first of two events to determine which club members will go to the state tournament. I was out on Waska today and I probably shouldn't say anything but I will say I like what I see.

West Central Bass League - Solomon Lake

The first night of the Thursday edition of the West Central Bassmasters league took place last night on Solomon Lake. Solomon is known as a lake that kicks out numbers of quality fish and it showed again last night. Quite a few teams struggled but the weights at the top of the leaderboard were very solid. With 18 teams competing 4 spots were paid. 1st place went to "Superstar" fishermen Grant King and Tim Stockland with a 3 fish limit weighing 10.50 lbs. 2nd place went to David & Daniel with 10.37 lbs. 3rd went to Todd & Jeff with 10.26 lbs and 4th went to Dean & JD with 9.78 lbs. There was a tie for big fish by David & Daniel and Todd & Jeff. Those fished weighed in at 4.19 lbs apiece. My dad and I were out of sync all night and ended up with 3 fish weighing 7.83 lbs which was good enough for 7th place.

We wanted to start our night on a point in a slough area but we had a poor start number and ended up following another boat into the slough. They headed straight for the point and we had to go to some secondary areas. They were still within view though and it turns out there were no fish left on the point anyway. There were no fish in our areas either so we quickly moved to the second stop which was a mix of bullrushes and reeds. I boated one close to 3 lbs on a black/red flake Berkley Chigger Craw on my first cast. We continued along the reeds and ended up catching close to 10 fish but nothing over 3 lbs. All of those fish came on Chigger Craws and hematoma Sweet Beavers. After the action slowed we moved to an area with several fallen trees where we upgraded slightly. At this point it was about half way through the night and we never boated another keeper the rest of the evening.

West Central Bass League - Nest Lake

The first event of the 2010 West Central Bassmasters Bass League is in the books. We had a beautiful night to fish with cool temperatures and a light wind. I don't know if it was the weather or if people were just really ready to go fishing but for whatever reason we had the highest turnout ever for a bass league event with 26 teams showing up to compete. Most teams reported the fishing to be pretty tough and even though most of those competing were able to bring in a 3 fish limit the majority of the fish were quite small. There were some very nice bags as always though. My dad and I were able to get the year of to a very good start with a win in the first event of the season. We weighed in a 3 fish limit for 10.74 lbs. 2nd place went to Ron & Joe with 9.89 lbs. 3rd went to Jeff & Kris with 9.35 lbs and 4th went to Kelly & Mike with 8.60 lbs. The big fish for the evening was caught by David and weighed in at 4.04 lbs.

Our fishing for the evening seemed like it was pretty tough although in hindsight we really did have a pretty good night of fishing. We ended up catching around 15 fish and ended up throwing back enough weight to have had a high finish with the fish we released. The night did not go exactly according to plan though (but in fishing, it never really does.) We started on a deeper rocky area for smallmouth and after about 5 minutes I could tell the smallies were not "on" like they should have been. We still fished the area for another 20 minutes or so without a bite before moving to another area.

Despite realizing the smallmouth were not biting well our second stop was another smallmouth spot. This area was shallower with a mix of rock and weeds. On his first cast with a Strike King tube my dad boated a solid 3 1/2 lb largemouth. That was unexpected but a good fish none the less. A few minutes later I had a 5 lb largemouth shoot out of the water next to the boat as I was reeling my lure in. That fish caught me so off guard I was not able to drop my jig back to it quick enough to get it. We quickly realized that despite no smallies in the area there were a good number of quality largemouth around and we were able to move our weight up to the 10 lb range in the next hour. Those fish mostly came on watermelon jigs and tubes.

With a strong weight already in the box we were able to go back to our starting smallmouth area and really grind it out. Usually on a lake with both species you look for a largemouth to be your kicker fish but there are some really big smallies in Nest Lake and a 4 lb plus fish is a very good possibility. We did not find find one over 4 but my dad did finally catch a 3 1/2 lb smallie on a drop shot rig with a watermelon Lake Fork Tackle trick worm. That fish moved us up to our final weight for the evening. We were able to catch a few more 3 lb largemouth and smallmouth over the rest of the night but at that point they did not help us. It is always a good feeling when a 3 lb fish does not help your limit.

Thursday night league kicks off tonight on Lake Solomon and hopefully my dad and I can keep it going and win both events this week. We are sure going to give it our best shot!

Bass Fishing 2010

Well the bass season has finally arrived here in Minnesota and I've been going non-stop since Saturday morning. Saturday and Sunday were pretty tough days for me but I did manage to find a few nice fish. The past two days have been spent practicing on the Horseshoe Chain for the first Big Bass Bonanza tournament of the year. However, I won't reveal anything about my practice at this point. Our West Central Bassmasters Bass League also begins tomorrow night and will continue every Wednesday and Thursday until the end of August. With all that in mind I figured it was time to share my final tournament schedule for 2010. There are a few conflicting dates that I haven't decided how to deal with yet and July is very light on events but overall it is a good mix of lakes and should be a great tournament season! I'll try to update my blog as soon as possible after each tournament and league night.

June

6th - Big Bass Bonanza - Horseshoe Chain

13th - West Central Bassmasters state qualifier - Lake Minnewaska

20th - Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Ida

26th - West Central Bassmasters Summer Classic (Open Tournament) - Green Lake Spicer

27th - West Central Bassmasters state qualifier - Lake Osakis

July

11th - Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Minnewaska

August

8th - Big Bass Bonanza - Green Lake Spicer

11th - 13th - B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Northern Divisional

22nd - Big Bass Bonanza - Sauk Lake

September

9th-10th - B.A.S.S. MN State Tournament of Champions - Lake Minnetonka

12th - Big Bass Bonanza Tournament of Champions - Pending Qualification

12th - West Central Bassmasters Fall Classic (Open Tournament) - Green Lake Spicer

I am excited about this one since there has never been a fall tournament on Green Lake.