Saturday morning came very early this weekend, as several Gopher members stayed up in Hinckley the night before and participated in the town festival on Friday night.  I actually was retying most of my rods as my partner Rick was parking the truck and others launched.  We were boat #2 and boat #1 actually went to the same area on East Rush that we did.  We set down about 75 yards apart and worked a weedline towards each other.  I made sure I had my buoy on my deck, so if we ran into the school that I hoped was there, we would be able to stay on them.  (More on Buoys here)  Sure enough a few pitches with my 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten jig and I had a nice fish hooked and in the boat, as I fought it, I kicked the buoy in with my foot and it was game on.  I was able to boat 6 fish on my jig, lost 3, and my partner got 2 and lost 1.  After that the fish stopped biting, we tried a few other baits, but then left.

On the next spot, I cracked a nice fish on a Mad Maxx frog in Bluegrass color, that was the only frog bite I got, but it called a small fish from my starting spot.  After that, we fished some shallow grass and docks on East Rush, I caught a few fish, but nothing that would help, but Rick got a solid 3lb fish out of some shallow grass with a jig.  We then decided to try our hand at West Rush, more of the same, we tried about 8-10 spots with little success.  On our last spot before coming back to East, we made a pass around the Cane grass on the north end of West Rush and I caught a nice 3lb fish on my jig; Rick also missed a bite there.

We ended the day on our starting spot, right when we got there, I caught another nice 3lb fish.  I ended up catching a few more smaller fish and it was time to go in.  My final weight was 14.86lbs and I won by about 3.7lbs.  I also advanced into the 2nd round of Gopher Match Fishing.  It was a fun day, we had a great weigh in at Flickabirds on Rush.  After that, it was back to the cabin to prepare for Knife Lake on Sunday.

Check back soon for the Knife Lake Report.
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