Josh Douglas & I headed out to one of our favorite south metro bass lakes, we were on the water around 7:30am, just after the rain had passed.  We also brought along Greg, as he had a camera and were hoping to shoot some video footage of fish catches.  We also decided to impose a challenge on ourselves.  We had a goal of trying to catch 20lbs plus by 2pm for a 5 fish limit between Josh & I.  We did a similar big bag challenge last year!

It took us about 20 minutes or so to get in the groove, but once we started catching them, it was pretty steady action for most of the day.  We did about 90% of our damage with Lake Fork Ring frys rigged weightless on 4/0 Heavy OWG Super Strong Youvella hooks.  I am really starting to dig both the hook up and land ratio with my new Youvella hooks.

We actually went through 3 full bags of the Ring Frys in the natural green colors, catching 2-3 fish on average per bait.  We also caught a few fish on paddle tail swimbaits, Swim Jigs, Frogs, and TT Jigs.  We caught a few fish off docks, but most fish came around emerging pads and old pad stem clumps.

Early on in the day, I actually busted a 5lb 5oz beauty.  This was a great fish to put us on the 20lb pace.  About mid day, I caught another nice toad that weighed 4 lbs 10oz; both fell for the LFT Ring Fry.  To go with those we had a bunch of 2-3 lb fish.  We knew we need one more 4.5lb fish to make our goal, but it never happened.  We ended up with 17lbs 13oz, still a very good day and only a couple ounces different then last year.

Stay tuned, hopefully I will have some video to share with you as well!  Next stop, time to start practicing Pool 4 of Mississippi River for the Bassmaster Weekend Series.

Hope all of you had a great MN Bass Opener as well!
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