It would take too long to break down every day of practice in to a separate entry.  So I will bundle all the practice into one entry and then each tournament day will get their own entry.

Day 1:
I left my house in Lakeville at 5:30am and met fellow club member John Fairbanks in Lake City.  I figured I would start my practice on Lake Pepin since it was on the way to Wabasha and it would save a little time & gas.  We spent the early part of the day checking spots that I have had success on last September during the Weekend Series tournaments.  The water was quite a bit lower and the current way slower then last fall, so I was anxious to see how that affected the fish.  The first stop resulted in each of catching a nice largemouth and we pulled on a couple more bites.  The next stop produced just one keeper smallmouth bite, not so great.  The next smallmouth area produced a 15″, 18″ & 20″ smallmouth, time to leave there.  The next area gave up a 16″ largemouth and 17″ smallie, kept moving.  The rest of the day was a bit hit and miss, but I found some isolated cover in a couple areas that we caught some fish on and I felt it would make good back up stuff.  We got off the water around 5pm and headed for the AmericInn.

Day 2:
Day 2 I fished with club member Rick Brennhofer.  According to the weather forecast, that morning would be the last time the wind would be calm enough to run the lake without beating yourself to death.  We checked a few rocky areas on the MN side just north of Wabasha, caught one keeper smallmouth and a few short fish.  We then hit a couple isolated areas on the MN side on the way back and found two small areas with some keeper fish.  We spent the rest of the day working our way south in the river.  The first area we checked looked liked a promising eel grass line with lots of bait, but no bites.  The next area was a nice duck weed mat, Rick caught a nice keeper on a frog and we both pulled on a couple.  We spent quite a bit of time looking and idling some areas after that.  We found pad fish way down near Alma, but not many keeper bites.  Got off the water around 5pm as well, I was completely wiped physically as I had a terrible sinus infection and the heat just beat me down.

Day 3:
I practiced with Gopher teammate Josh Douglas as he was having his water pumped fixed.  First thing we fished a wing dam north of Wabasha, no fish at that time.  We then worked some wood in the back water and were able to catch some fish on Black Neon Chigger Craws, Tubes and White SWL Buzzbait.  We then went to find some more wood, caught one fish and pulled on another.  Fished some eel grass in Robinson, no bites.  Checked some pads and duckweed from last year on bottom of big lake, not too much happening there either.  Found some great looking wood further north, but no bites.  It was 1pm and time for Josh to go, I dropped him off, and went back out until 5pm.  I fished some different areas around Peterson Lake, but just caught a few shorts, got off the lake and headed home so that I could work Tuesday & Wednesday.

I gave up a day of practice to save a vacation day.  Overall I felt decent about my practice.  Some of my old stuff was clicking when I checked it other areas not so much, but I also found some new stuff.  My plan was to fish my Lake Pepin fish as much as the wind would allow and take it from there.  Based on my practice and the 4 fish limit and no culling, I figured 9-10lbs a day would be the target to shoot for to qualify in the top 12 and move on to divisionals.

Rich
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Well I arrived at the Fortune Bay Casino RV Park around 4:30pm, just enough time to tie up some last minute stuff and walk down to the dock for a few minutes before it was time to head to the pre-tournament meeting.  The meeting was at BayView Lodge and it was packed with anglers for the meeting.  With my limited experience on the water, which is 5 hours, 3 weeks prior to this tournament, I was hoping for a late boat draw, so I would get the extra 30 minutes of fishing.  As it turned out, I was boat #2 and drew a guy from Hibbing, MN who actually fishes the lake occasionally.

The morning was cool, windy and a bit of a misty rain.  I decided I would stick with a shallow stretch that I had found late in my mini-practice.  I was the first boat there, but I was not alone very long.  It did not take long before Brad Leifermann and Josh Douglas started just down the bank from me.  I caught a 3.5lb smallie pretty quickly on a Black Yum 3″ Tube and then a 1.75lbs largie a little further down as the weeds started to show up, my partner got a 13″ largie as well.  I then met up with Josh Douglas and he said he caught one 4lb largemouth from where I was headed.  As soon as he left, Seth Feider pulled in just down where Josh left.  I fished for a few more minutes and Brad & I fished past each other, so I decided to hit some other spots across the bay.  About the 4th dock I fished over there, I boated a largemouth close to 4lbs on the tube again.

All my tubes & brushhogs were texas rigged with 3/16oz Tru-Tungsten Sinkers

I switched to a 4″ tube same color and hopped down a little further.  I threw up next to a dock and got a nice largemouth probably a touch under 3lbs.  He swam very quickly out from the dock, so I had a hunch there were more fish there, so I quickly boxed the fish and got my tube back in there and was rewarded with a 4lb largie.  That fish ate it aggressively as well, so I kept throwing back.  I got one pitch way back and felt some heavy pressure, I reared back and the line broke, felt like a good fish, tough to say.  Well that gave me a limit with about 4 really nice fish and one small one.

I went back across to my starting area, where I had a pick up and reared back on another really nice smallmouth that was a dead ringer for the first one, right around 3.5lbs on the tube.  It was 8:10am and I had 5 really nice fish, guessing my weight was nearly 17lbs already.  We refished a few areas hoping some new fish moved in or others were ready to bite.  Nothing doing.

We started working some docks out on the main lake, that I had never fished before, but they had a little wind on them and had the right structure around them.  On the second dock, my partner Mark got a nice 3lb smallie on a green Yum baby Wooly Hawg.  A little further down, I was sawed off under a lift on my tube, and on the next dock I got a smallie approaching 3lbs on a baby brushhog.  I put her on the balance beam with my smallest largemouth and the largie was still heavier.  We then tried some areas up near St. Mary’s Island with out any action.

We started working our way back, we got into an area where my partner Mark boated two more 3lb class smallies on the Wooly Hawg. I then caught another nice smallie, but the cull beam showed it was lighter then the green fish in the well.  Then I got a bigger smallie on the baby brushhog, that finally culled my smallest largemouth at 12:10pm.  I figured that fish at about 3.25lbs and that was my smallest fish.  We fished hard the rest of the day, running some new water and revisited some areas where we got big bites earlier.  Caught a few more fish but nothing that helped us.

Talking to Tournament Director Mike Wells as the scales zero in.
We hit a few docks back by Bayview and I actually got sawed off two more times on a brushhog.  Tough to say if those bites would have helped.  Either way, I was excited to see what my fish weighed and how I would fare.  Having never fished a tournament here before and not really any major tournaments being held here in recent time, I did not have much clue.  I was probably the 15th boat to weigh-in.  My partner weighed before me and Mark had 9.44lbs for his 3 nice smallmouth.  I weighed in next and my 2 largies and 3 smallmouth weighed 17.33lbs, with my big largemouth weighing 4.0lbs.  Neither lead at that time, I think was in 3rd at that time.

Holding up my two biggest largemouth that anchored 17.33lb bag
More & more nice bags crossed the scale.  I ended up 6th out of 47 boaters.  I was a little shocked that the weights were that big and consistent, it took over 17lbs to get a check.  See the full standings here.
It would have been nice to get a win or a higher finish to get a bigger check, but I was still happy with my limited practice and the outcome.  I also was able to move from 7th to 4th in the overall points with one tournament to go on Lake Minnetonka in late September.

A shot of my 4lb Largemouth and my biggest smallie before releasing the fish to be caught again

Well next week is the MN Bass Federation Nation State Tournament of Champions down on the Mississippi River out of Wabasha – Pool 4, I am pretty excited for that.  Mainly because I was so close this year at divisionals, I really want to qualify for next year’s divisionals and get another crack at making Nationals.  I also will be at the State Fair doing a Bass Tournaments 101 Seminar at the DNR stage on Thursday Aug. 28 – 1pm.  So if you are at the fair, check it out & say hi.

Rich
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Day 3, my partner convinced me it would be to both of our benefits to use his boat, as he had a ton of waypoints for good smallies out on Winnebago.  It took some convincing and some considerable thought on my part before I gave in.  We discussed, that we would go back and forth on our water which was actually close to each other if needed and that he would have about an hour to prove the worth of his smallies reefs, before I would go back and forth on my largemouth water.

There was a pretty decent wind from the Northeast coming down the lake, but we made it to our starting area.  Chris worked the boat off the edges of his prime area trying to get some bigger bites for about the first 30 minutes or so, nothing doing.  We then worked our way towards the sweet spot, he immediately boated a 14.5″ smallie and reluctantly put in the box.  I then caught a smallie on a Green Pumpkin Copper Flake tube that only the slime of his tail touched and I tossed him back.  I then caught a barely over 14″ and reluctantly boxed him.

Then we started whacking bigger fish, 15-18″ fish on almost every cast.  We had a nice double where both of us had fish close to 3lbs.  As Chris netted his 5th fish, I boated a skinny 16″ smallmouth, but decided to toss back to make up for that 14″ runt.  I caught another 16 incher and convinced Chris to let me throw it back and try to get a little bigger one.  Next cast I caught a fat 16.25″ fish and I was done.  We both double counted out 5 fish limit in the well and then we left to find his WI team members to put them on the fish.  Luckily we came across one of my team mates and practice partner Ryan Brant and I was able to send him to my are in South Asylum.  Also, one of my other team mates was in the back of the WI boat we found first I was able to throw him my other tube that I had rigged.  (He ended up getting 4 fish on that tube on that spot and his WI partner got none )
The tube I was using was about a 3/8oz Zone Bite Me rattle headrigged exposed with a 4″ Mizmo Tube.  It seemed to be the deal that day.

After we found a couple more WI boats, we cruised through Miller Park bay to see if anyone else was tied up and done for the day.  In just that short 15 minute ride through that bay we almost lost a couple fish.  After some quick attention to the fish with fresh lake water, Rejuvenade and Ice we got them back in good shape.  We then decided to moor up in the river in front of the Park Plaza as the water in the river would have good oxygen levels.  After sitting there for 4-5 hours, we slowly made our way to Miller Park, got checked in and tied up a little early and waited to get our weigh bags.  I must admit I was very anxious.  I knew I had a decent bag, and that I had at least caught enough to keep Rick Billings & Bill Ludenia honest in the fact that they would both at least need a solid limit to beat me.  That 14″ fish haunted me all day to, thinking what could have been if I had one of those 16″ fish instead of that one.

Day 3, John Stewart announcing I had taken team lead
We weighed early, I had 11lbs 4oz and that put me in first at the time, so now I just had to wait.  It did not take long, Bill Ludenia brought 12lbs across the scale and put me in 2nd.  I am almost glad that he put me out of my misery early, otherwise I would have had to wait until the bitter end to get told I was not going to Nationals.  At the end Rick Billings had 10lbs and overtook Bill as well.  Congrats to Rick Billings, he will represent MN at Nationals well.  MN took remained in 2nd as a team, we passed OH, but WI leap frogged us both, much to thanks of Chris Johnson’s honey hole reef that produced a few additional limits after we left for his team.  But we only beat OH by 6 ounces, so the fish that I was able to put my 2 guys on, was big there.  I think we get to split $11,200 as a team, so that is not too bad.  I ended up slipping one spot to 7th overall, not too bad.  I was one of only 5 anglers out of 96 to bring a limit to the scales all 3 days.

Final Leaderboard
In retrospect, I guess I needed to fish to win a little more, and thrown back the 14″ fish that I kept on both days 2 & 3 to have  a shot.  Live & Learn, good thing is, I am young and I will have plenty of more shots at Nationals.  As soon as I congratulated Rick Billings, he said “Thanks, don’t worry you’ll get your National trip soon enough”  Then I said, I know

Saturday, I fish the 4th Weekend Series stop for MN on Lake Vermillion.  I got a total of 5 hours or practice on the lake about 3 weeks ago, so wish me luck!!!!

Rich
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My goal on day 2 was basically to repeat day 1, I figured that if I caught a 10lb limit every day, that would keep me moving up.  My 2nd day partner was Robert Sullivan from Iowa, he had 2 keepers on Day 1, so he was up for letting me fish my fish, as long as we saved a little time for one key bank that he wanted to work.

We were boat #36 out of 48, yet had no problem getting into my area first.  The bites were a little slower this morning.  I caught a couple short fish early and my partner had one that looked like it would have kept jump off.  I then got on a little run and caught 3 keepers by about 8am.  Here is how the flurry went down.  I caught the first one on a dock piling (baby Brushhog) where there was some clumped weeds where a rock bank transitioned to a sea wall.  The bite was kind of weird and I suspected there was another fish there by the way that fish bit.  So I quickly pitched back and caught a 13″ fish.  I threw back in several more times, but nothing.  We worked down, when I turned around, I switched to a 3/8oz Black Blue Tru Tungsten Jig with a Zoom Speed Craw trailer.  About 5 pitches later I caught a 14″ barely keeper, I made the decision to box that fish.  As I worked back to that same pillar, I caught a nice 15″ keeper off it on the jig to give me 3 keepers.  I then worked on trying to expand my area and caught some 13″ fish.  I then stopped on some docks outside of the cove that had a little wind on them and caught a nice 2.5lb fish on the jig.  That gave me 4 fish at  9:30am. 

We then decided we would head up the north end of Winnebago and fish some grass lines that we had both prefished around the mouth of the south Fox river by the lighthouse with swim jigs.  We worked it over pretty good, I may have had one bump but that was it.  We then worked a few GPS points I had on lighthouse reef for smallies, we each caught some shorts.  We then tried a shallow part of the Reef that Robert had caught fish in practice, still nothing.  It was almost noon, so we agreed that I could hit some isolated trees and docks on the way back to his bank in the Fox river down in Oskosh.  The first dock & tree produced nothing.  On the 3rd stop, I threw my baby brushhog under a dock that I had caught a good fish back on Sunday and was rewarded with a nice 3lb largie to round out my limit.

Talking to John Stewart about catching my fish on a Tru-Tungsten Jig on Day 2
Robert spent 2 hours working his bank in the Fox river, it looked like great flipping water, it was hard to sit and watch.  He caught one that almost measured, and lost one other good bite.  He wanted to make sure I got my fish weighed, so we headed back a little earlier, which I appreciated.  My day 2 weight was 11lbs 5oz.  That propelled me from 21st to 6th overall and to 2nd on my team, a little over 2lbs back.  I was in a great position to make Nationals with a single day to go.  I drew a local Wisconsin angler for day 3.  Chris Johnson had a very nice 14lb bag of smallies on Day 2 and was 3rd on his team.  After the weigh-in, we talked briefly and agreed to work together to both of our benefits on day 3.  Also, our MN team moved into 2nd place, so there was a nice buzz around our team meeting that night.  It felt good to execute my game plan two days in a row and be in contention and so far I had fished clean and not lost any bites.

Rich
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One thing that I forgot to mention about practice, is how bad the power situation for charging batteries was at the hotel before the official practice.  There were a bunch of guys sharing plug-ins and many guys woke up the next morning with almost no charge on their batteries.  Guys had to give up time on the water to come in and charge their batteries or try to practice with no trolling motor.  My StayNCharge and All Charge systems that kept my batteries charged from my outboard and tow vehicle were a life saver until the actual boat yard was ready.  It sure is nice having piece of mind, not worrying about getting a charge no matter where you are.

Day 1 – I drew David Thompson from Illinois.  Talking to him, he seemed like a good hook, fished a lot of the Stren Series & Opens.  He had some pad fish going in Buttes De Mortes, so he agreed we would fish my fish first and save his fish for the afternoon.  We were boat #21 and made it to my area in South Asylum as the first boat there.  I started on some point and docks that produced one evening on the second practice day, but all I got was a rock bass there.  We jumped to another area with a sea wall and David quickly got a nice keeper on a Sweet Beaver.  From there I caught 4 keepers in a row ( 3 on a blk blue 4″ Yum Tube / 1 Green Pumpkin Red Flake Baby Brush Hog)  We each also caught a couple shorts and had some short bites.  With 4 fish in the well, I ran some areas up further north looking to get a 3lb class largie on Winnebago.  I caught a couple more shorts, then it was time to give my partner his time up front on his water.

The first area we pull into has some great looking Cow Lilys.  I start with the a Black Cane Toad and get two hits, but both of them missed the bait.  I also noticed they were hitting way on the end of my casts.  David then got a nice 3lb plus largie on a fluke.  I then switched to a white floating frog, figuring I could cast it further where I felt the fish were.  About 5 casts later,  I had what looked to be a good fish hit my frog, I felt him it, but he did not take it down.  About 5 casts later into that area, one ate it and I reefed the fish across the 25yds of pads.  It was a nice 2.75lb fish and that was my 5th and I was done at 10:15am.  My partner continued to work this area and one other and finally got his 5th fish around 1:10pm.

We took a leisurely ride back to Miller park as we were not due in until 2:15pm.  I weighed 10lbs 5oz and David had a few more ounces then that.  That bag was good enough for 21st out of 96 on day 1.  Overall I was pretty happy, I was still in the running, I felt I managed my fish well.  I was 3rd on my team and only about a 1.5lbs back, which is nothing in a 3 day event.  My plan for tomorrow would be similar.  The MN team was also in 3rd after day 1, so we were in good position to make some good team $$$.

I will leave you with this parting photo of the leader with the Appleton Hooter’s Girls that attend the Weigh-In
Photo courtesy of BASS
Rich
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Too speed things up here, I am going to combine practice days 3.  There was a whole lot of fishing done in those 2 days, but only 4 or 5 keepers caught in my boat those days.

Day 3 was calm as predicted, so Ryan & I launched my boat at Miller’s Park and ran across to the Stockbridge area, hunting and pecking on reefs.  We caught a couple smallies pretty quickly, but nothing that would measure.  We kept working our way down, visiting areas around Winnebago point as well.  Same story, nothing but small smallmouth.  The last area we visited was in front of Pipe Creek / Calumet Harbor.  There we found a nice rock pile that lined the channel and we actually caught one nice keeper and had another 3lb fish jump off. Both of those fish fell for a Green Pumpkin Fork Craw on a Picasso Shakedown head.

From there we came back across the lake and started looking for largemouth down around the Long Point Island.  We caught fish all around working our way up towards the mouth of the Fox river.  We consistently found fish holding on rocky points with swim jigs, baby brushhogs & tubes, but not a single keeper.  So Ryan had 3 keeper smallie bites on that shakey craw setup and I was skunked that day as far as keepers go.  Far cry from the 5-6 keeper bites that I had on the 2 previous days.

Day 4 we ran up to Blackbird Island to try some swim jigs around shallow grass that we found on Day 2, Ryan caught a walleye on the first cast and that was it.  We then worked Cowling bay, I was able to get a largemouth close to 3lbs on tube around a willow tree.  We caught several more short fish in the area.  We tried some weed edges in 5-7 feet, catching a few short smallmouth & largemouth in Cowling and the Asylum bays.  We also made a quick pass through some pads between Asylum bays and got two good bites in 15 casts and got out of there.  Time was running short and we had not visited Buttes de Mortes at all, so with 2 hours of practice remaining we headed in there.  The very first clump of pads we pulled into, Ryan got a nice 3lb largie on a dark swim jig.  I had a couple follows as well.  At that point, we felt we had made a mistake not spending more time earlier in the week in this lake.  It was actually quite different then Poygan.  So we spent some more time, found a couple more promising areas and it was time to load up and get ready for the registration & dinner meeting that night.

Based on practice, my game plan was to start in a small section of South Asylum bay and scratch out 3-4 keepers and then spend some time looking for bigger fish and fall back on getting a fish or two off my partners waters if needed.  I felt this area had a decent population of keeper fish, but I did not know if it would hold up to 3 days of my fishing it, let alone any potential competitors as well.  So I knew it would be in my best interest to manage these fish as best as I could.  Practice had been tough and I figured that 5 keepers each day would give a guy a real good shot winning his division and moving on.

Rich
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Practice day 2 started with me figuring our why I was not getting power to my front graph.  It only took me about 20-30 minutes to get that squared away.  Ryan & I got the boat gassed up and launched just south of the fox rive on Lake Winnebago.  We started fishing some weeds and scattered rock in 3-5 feet in North Asylum bay, this was an area that we fished in the June Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament.  I quickly caught several fish on White/Blue Secret Weapon Spinnerbait, none of them were keepers and Ryan got a short smallie on a Gold 1/4oz Rat-L-Trap.  We moved down and I tried some soft plastics and caught a short largemouth, I had one other good bite, but that was it.

From there we moved into the docks, we fished about 40 of them and got bites on 3, I marked those with the GPS to revisit later if I was looking for a good bite, as the one fish I caught was over 3lbs on a tube.  After docks, we spent a couple hours hopping reefs looking for a smallmouth bite.  The first half dozen left us with a single walleye to show for it.  Finally we started working lighthouse reef, we found a couple key areas with zebra mussel beds where we got a few keeper smallmouth in the boat on soft plastics.

After that we worked some grass areas with swim jigs and caught a handful of smallies that were just short of 14 inches.  We then tried some pads in the south river up in that area and got a couple largemouth keepers but nothing too exciting.  We then moved back out on to the main lake and hopped down the lake working weeds in 2-5 ft of water with swim jigs, caught a few more short smallies.  We ended our evening in South Asylum bay, we caught several largemouth on docks, but none of them measured.  I then moved back into the bay and Ryan got a nice fish on a baby brushhog and I caught another on a tube, then pulled on another good bite.  This was the best area we had fished in two days.  This was another area that produced for us back in June, things had changed but it was clear that there was some good potential left.

It was after 7pm again before we loaded the boat, got some burgers for dinner, another team meeting and only a slightly earlier bed time.  2 more days of official practice left, tomorrow is supposed to be calm, so my plan is to run the east side of Winnebago for smallies on reefs.

Rich
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First off, I brought my laptop along intending to blog while I was there, but left my charger at home   Sorry for that, but I intend to bring you all up to speed quickly, but if you cannot wait, check out bassmaster.com and look at the results under Federation Nation.

Ryan Brant & I got on the water at about 10:30am on Saturday morning.  My intention was to spend a day fishing the south end of the Wolf River and around Poygan and some of those lakes so that I would have water in that area if my partner took his time over there.

We started fishing the lower Wolf, we caught several short smallmouth and largemouth.  I did get one nice keeper largemouth on a black blue fleck tube on some eel grass near a cut. We then ventured out in to Poygan, we fished a cut on the north end and I got a keeper largemouth on a Stanley Ribbit using the new 4/0 Tru-Tungsten Hack Hook.  We got a couple more bites theres in the duck weed, but that was it.  We then headed to Willow Creek on the Southwest side of Poygan, the water looked awesome, we got one nice 3lb largie on a white 3/16oz Secret Weapon Lure Buzzbait and a 13 incher on the buzzbait as well.

We ran some docks on the south side of Poygan, the bites were far & few between, but I did get two really nice fish including a fish close to 4lbs on a 4 dock stretch on the black tube.  That was the conclusion of our bites, we fished several more docks, some cane, some reeds, nothing else.  We fished until 7pm.  If you add up my 5 keeper bites, I had a very good day, probably 13-14lbs, but the bites were far apart and no apparent pattern.  Also, at this point, none of it was where I planned to spend the rest of my prefishing time.

It was a late night by the time we ate, had a team meeting and got settled into our rooms at the Park Plaza in Oshkosh.  3 more days to dial into a more solid pattern for the tournament.

Rich
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