Well, this tournament got off to a better start because I made it on time   This tournament our club decided to fish as a hole tournament, 5 holes, you draw a start position and rotate every 75 minutes and then 75 minutes of happy hour at the end.  I was hoping to draw holes 1 or 3 first, because those are really the only 2 holes I have any decent spots in.  My partner Chong drew hole #2 and going towards 3,4,5 for our rotation.  Also, Chisago is a immediate catch & release lake, so we are doing a paper tournament and then converting length to weight.

Chong had actually done a little prefishing, so we started in a slop corner that he had and I caught a quick fish on my Vixen, and one on a frog.  One at 13.75″ & the other 14.375″, not the size fish you need on this lake, but a start.  We kept on the move hopping around, trying to find some better fish and just caught a couple shorts.

On to hole #3, went to my 2nd favorite spot on the lake, no good weeds, ugh, the surprises you get when you do no practice.  I did manage one good 15.75″ keeper on a red shad jig worm, and we also caught several shorts and a walleye.  With about 15 minutes left, I hit another inside turn.  I caught a 16.75″ fish and Chong caught on just a little smaller, both on jig worms, then we had to move, obviously should not have wasted so much time on the spot before fishing memories.

On to hole #4, I know lots of good fish our caught deep in this area of the lake, don’t really know any of the spots, we spent the whole 75 minutes fishing deep with jig worms, cranks, carolina rig & jigs, never got a tap.

On to hole #5, we decided to try shallow, we got on a row of docks, shallow weeds and wood.  Chong quickly caught one close to 19″ on a texas-rigged ring fry, off a stump.  I then proceeded to boat 3 fish over 18″ off blue gill beds, the first one was under the back end of a dock next to a big set of beds, she fell for my 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig.  After that I came across a big school of gills all bunched up on beds so I made a pitch in there, the bluegills kind of scattered a bit, I saw a fish roll on it and point at my jig, twitched it once and she smoked it.  I then broke my jig off on a big fish that sawed my 20# Fluorocarbon on a boat lift.  The 3rd fish I saw in a weed hole patrolling some beds and I made a long pitch past her with a texas-rigged Sweet Beaver and it did not take long to temp her into eating.  Time ran out, but hole #5 was good, came in with less then a limit and left with a nice bag, my smallest fish 15.75″
 
Onto hole #1, we camped out for the first 50 minutes on weed point that is usually produces big fish, nothing happening, another case of not much good weeds there.  We then decided to try to duplicate the water we found in hole 5.   Chong missed a couple fish and I caught 16″ and 17.75″ fish to cull a couple times on my 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig.  With about 45 minutes left in happy hour we ran back to hole #5, caught a small keeper.  Running short on time, we headed back near the landing and fished some docks in the narrows.  I had a bite under a dock, missed and saw it.  I told Chong to throw under there, he hooked it, but it came unbuttoned right before the net.

I ended up eaking out first with 17.82lbs for 5 bass with a 3.96 big fish, Dave Ham was 2nd with 17.74.  That was a close one!  I also moved from 10th to 7th and I am lurking only about 3lbs out of 2nd place.  I am positioned well to make a run with 4 tournaments to go, 3 of which are on rivers.

Rich
RichLindgren.com 
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