Nothing like starting a day with the boat still soaked from the previous day…..   It was not overly windy, so Josh& I decided to head about 20 minutes north of Wabasha up Pepin to a spot we had found 3-4 weeks prior to the tournament.  We were the only boat out of 7 that went north of Ike’s park.  We got there, it was peaceful and quiet until the smallies started smashing our topwaters   Bass Fishing at its finest!!!

I started out with a bone colored Yellow Magic Popper (found at Basspro.com) and Josh was tossing a Parch colored Sammy.  We both were catching fish and some keepers.  I threw back 5 keepers and Josh threw back 2 or 3 before we even put one in the well.  Torturous decisions that no cull tournaments present.  I finally switched to a bone colored Barely Legal Vixen and that put a nice largemouth in the boat, kind of a bonus fish here.  Josh ended up boating two nice smallies on his Sammy.  I also added a quality smallie on a mojo’d Fork Craw and then one more nice smallie on the Vixen before we left that spot.

We then started working our way up Pepin further north, I switched to a 3/8oz Fall Craw Tru-Tungsten jig, as we were targeting isolated wood and structure.  I caught two keepers pretty quick, one was a nice largemouth and he went in the well, I decided to throw the other back.  We then moved up a little farther and I caught a 16″ smallie.  I made the decision to throw her back as well, as I really wanted a 3lb plus fish because I wanted to make a run for first place in the club.

We fished up to Colvill park, came back to our starting point, fished it for awhile, we missed a few and caught some shorts.  With a bout 90 minutes left we ran all the way back to Wabasha to fish some backwater.  We did not have much time back there as it was rougher on the way back down the lake.  We each missed a few fish or they missed us on Frogs, we each caught a norther and then Josh connected on a 3.8lb toad on his frog.  We high tailed it back to Ike’s and Josh caught his 4th keeper on a small finesse jewel jig right at the mouth of Ikes to give him 4 and I told him you beat me on the last cast.

We weighed in, most guys struggled, no limits, although myself, Josh & John A. all had 4 and we all threw back keepers.  But in the end my dad caught only two fish and Dave H. caught only 1 and I passed them both for the year, which makes me AOY Champ back to back years.  It was also the last day of Match fishing and I beat out Ryan for the Championship.  I weighed 4 fish for 10.3lbs, Josh weighed 4 for 10.5…..

Tomorrow, I am captaining some Jr. anglers on Bald Eagle Lake and Sunday I am headed back to the river for some more practice