West Central Fall Bass League - Diamond Lake

October 23rd was the fall league's return to Diamond Lake. We have fished Diamond every year that the fall league has been running and usually it kicks out some really big weights. Generally we fish it earlier in the fall and fishing it later certainly affected the fishing. There were very few docks left in the water and most of the overhanging trees had no leaves on them so they provided very little cover. That left reeds as the primary cover. All 6 teams competing were able to bring in a 5 fish limit and every single fish weighed came from the reeds. 2 spots were paid and my dad and I ended up just out of the money in 3rd with 5 fish for 13.87 lbs.

1st - Wayne & Ralph 14.32 lbs

2nd - Dean 13.93 lbs

Big Bass - Paul 4.32 lbs

Just like the previous week my dad and I had a very good first 1 1/2 hours. We started in the reeds and were just a little bit off for the first half hour or so but once we figured out where they were it was lights out. We caught 20 or more bass in about an hour by pitching jigs and various plastics to the edge of the reeds. After that first hour or so of catching them really good the action really died. We tried working deeper into the reeds but that didn't work either so it was off to try some other areas of the lake. Nothing else was working for us though so we ended up going back to our starting area to try to pick up one more 3 lb bite that I knew we needed but it just didn't happen for us.

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Minnie Belle

October 16th was the West Central Fall Bass League's second trip to a lake that is not normally on the summer schedule. The first was to Red Rock and the fishing was extremely tough so we were all hoping that Minnie Belle would offer better fishing. The fishing turned out to be better overall but still not great. There were 5 teams competing so 2 spots were paid.

1st - Pat & Nasha Marting 5 17.01 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals 5 12.02 lbs

Big Bass - Pat & Nasha 4.13 lbs

The week before the tournament my dad and I had spent a few hours on the lake and determined that our best bet to catch bigger fish was on the docks. The problem with that though is at this time of year people are taking their docks out of the water. Sure enough when we came back a week later for league there were very few docks left in the water. We decided to start on the few docks there were and fish as many of them as we could before anyone else. It turned out to be a good move because we had our final weight after about 1 1/2 hours. All the dock fish came on jigs and tubes. The rest of the day was spent fishing mid depths and a couple deep weedline areas as well as another pass through the docks we caught them on earlier but we just were not able to catch anything that would help us upgrade and we were left almost 5 lbs behind the winners.

Bass League - September 1st & 2nd

I wasn't sure about doing blogs for these two nights since they were unofficial events but since I have blogged about every competitive fishing outing of mine for the past 3 years I decided to put them in for the completeness of the record. Our official West Central Bass League season had ended with the TOC's the previous week but since there were still people who wanted to fish we held two more nightly leagues the first week of September.

September 1st - Nest Lake

We had 9 boats competing and the fishing was pretty good as 8 of them were able to bring in a 3 fish limit but the weights were quite a bit lower than we had seen on Nest Lake earlier in the year.

1st - Paul & Brian 9.52 lbs

2nd - Lee & Nick 9.00 lbs

3rd - Andy & Mike 8.85 lbs

Big Bass - Paul & Brian 4.39 lbs

September 2nd - Lake Calhoun

There were 7 boats fishing this night but the fishing was much tougher as only 4 limits were brought to the scales. With so few competing only 2 places were paid.

1st - Ron 10.85 lbs

2nd - Andy & Mike 7.11 lbs

Big Bass - Ron 4.60 lbs

West Central Fall Bass League - Long Lake

On October 9th the West Central Fall Bass League visited Long Lake just north of Willmar. It's known for being a really tough lake most of the time but it also has a reputation for giving up giant bass. That all held true as the fishing was extremely tough but the fish that came in were good ones. There were 5 teams fishing and only 6 bass caught for the day. Here are the results.

1st - Andy & Mike 4 19.49 lbs

2nd - Roy & Daran 1 4.69 lbs

Big Bass - Mike Nitchals 5.56 lbs

With only 6 fish being caught all day I guess we were fortunate to end up catching 4 of them to walk away with the win. There really wasn't anything special about what we were doing either. We just happened to get in the right areas at the right time I guess. All of our fish came by fishing in the reeds. I caught 3 of them on a black/blue punch skirt with a Chigger Craw and my dad added the big fish on a watermelon weightless Ring Fry. Even though they all came from the reeds, they were all in completely different areas of the lake so it wasn't like we ran into a school or found an area holding more fish. It was just a matter of keeping our heads down and just grinding for every bite. I did end up losing one fish halfway back to the boat that would have given us our limit but it was only around 3 lbs. Despite being one fish short of a limit, it still ended up being one of our biggest 5 fish bags ever.

West Central Fall Bass League Tournament - Red Rock Lake

October 2nd was our West Central Fall Bass League Tournament on Red Rock Lake. The tournament is basically the same as any other Fall League day except that we fish a longer day and the entry fee is higher. Otherwise all the same rules as league apply. We had 10 boats fishing and it was a struggle for everyone. Even the winners reported getting very few bites during the day. My dad and I really struggled to catch just 2 fish for 2.96 lbs which put us in 6th place. Here are the results for the money finishers.

1st - Kelly & Butch 5 14.68 lbs

2nd - Dean & JD 3 9.16 lbs

3rd - Wayne & Ralph 5 7.19 lbs

Big Bass - Kelly & Butch 4.61 lbs

There isn't much to recap on my fishing for the day. I only had one bite the entire day and it ended up being short. My dad caught our 2 keepers on a watermelon Chigger Craw on the outside weedline in about 8 feet of water. That was the only way we could figure out to get bites but even then there just weren't enough bites to come up with a decent finish.

West Central Fall Bass League - Lake Johanna

September 25th marked the 3rd fall league of the season and we had our best turnout of the year so far with 12 teams competing on Lake Johanna. Most of the teams probably wished they had stayed home though because the fishing was extremely difficult. Only 1 team was able to bring in a 5 fish limit and 2 teams were able to bring in 3 fish. Here are the results.

1st - Brian & Scott 16.99 lbs 5 fish

2nd - Andy & Mike 11.03 lbs 3 fish

3rd - Dean & JD 10.19 lbs 3 fish

Big Bass - Andy Nitchals 4.60 lbs

Our fishing for the day actually started off strong. We got to our starting area which is just a bay lined with reeds and were able to catch 3 fish in the first 30 to 45 minutes. The two I boated came on a black/blue Chigger Craw and the one my dad caught came on a watermelon Senko. After that we never had another bite the rest of the day. We tried several different areas as well as going back and hitting our starting spot several more times but were just never able to make anything else happen. I knew our fish were good ones but I had no idea the fishing was that tough for everyone and we were able to get a decent finish even without a limit.

Big Bass Bonanza TOC - Lake Koronis

Sunday September 12th was the Big Bass Bonanza Tournament of Champions. The top 10 in the season points were all invited to fish and throw the name of a lake in the hat. Lake Koronis was drawn and the top 10 teams all got to fish for cash and prizes with no entry fee. I don't have official results for this event but first place ended up being and 8 fish limit for nearly 24 lbs. There were several other weights over 20 lbs as well. My dad and I struggled all day and only ended up with an 8 fish limit weighing 16.75 lbs. That put us in 9th for the day.

In practice we had 2 different patterns going but both were producing quality bites for us. One was fishing deeper weedlines in the 10 foot range for largemouth and the other was fishing shallower weedlines in 2-5 feet of water for smallmouth. We bounced back and forth trying each for awhile during the tournament day but neither one worked nearly as well as in practice. In fact we were barely able to catch our limit and ended the day catching only 9 keepers total. Our big fish was a 4+ lb smallmouth that came on a spinnerbait in the shallow weeds but it was the only smallie we were able to hook up with. The rest of our fish were largemouths caught on the deeper weedlines with watermelon jigs and Sweet Beavers.

Lake Koronis can be very spotty for us but I had much higher expectations coming into this event. I guess that has kind of been how our year has gone on the BBB trail this season. Every tournament ended up being just a grind with tough fishing conditions and uncooperative fish. Generally those are the conditions I like since I feel it is easier to win a tough tournament than it is to win a slugfest but things just didn't work out for the most part. We were able to finish in the top 10 once again though so it wasn't all bad but hopefully next year it will be even better!