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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I was able to get on the water before 8am on Friday before the tournament to do a little practice.  I went out on the water with my dad.  On our first stop, my dad pulled on a good bite and I caught a 3lb plus smallie on a 3/8oz Texas Craw TT Jig and we got out of there.  We spent the rest of the day checking some new & old water, getting no more them one quality bite and moving on.  I would have had 14lbs plus, but I was pretty sure I could have done better catching multiple fish from some of the better areas.

I drew boat #15 out of 52, so I was able to get to my first area with no competition.  We pulled up and no bites right away, after about 20 minutes my partner & I had each boated a small keeper largemouth, which was weird, because this was a big fish smallmouth area.  We then headed to my next deep smallie spot and caught nothing there.  From there I hit up some reeds and caught one decent largemouth on a 1/2oz Fall Craw Tru-Tungsten jig.

Honestly I spent most of the day back and forth between deep smallie and shallow largemouth areas and it took until 10am to get my limit.  Between 11am & Noon I got on a bit of a run on some docks and was able to cull a few times on both a pumpkinseed Ring Fry and 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown TT Jig.  At about Noon, I am guessing I had about 11lbs in the box.

It was then back to rotating through some deep areas and I managed one good smallmouth bite at about 1pm, it was probably just over 3lbs, which I caught on a baby creature bait.  Which gave me an hour to get a few more of those big bites, but that never happened.  My partner caught 4 or 5 keepers and was able to cull, but nothing big for him either.

My total was 12.96lbs, which on a lot of lakes is pretty decent, but I got destroyed.  That was only good enough for 23rd place.  The money cut was mid 15lbs and it took almost 20lbs to win.  I keep rethinking how I should have done things different, but I am not really sure.  I feel like I fished good areas and did not get any quality bites.  The only thing, is if I had a little more time prefishing, I could have had a few more deep areas to rotate through and one of them would have paid off.  Or maybe it was on of those days, where my timing was off and they were biting on my spots when I was some place else, tough to tell, because they sure bit for some guys!!!

Well, the next day I headed to Vermillion, to practice for the 4th Weekend Series event that is just a couple weeks out.  I caught a lot of smallies, no real size.  Got some ideas for tournament day, hopefully I can get back up there closer to the tourney to get dialed in.  As for this week, time to focus on the Federation Nation Divisionals in Oshkosh, WI on the Winneconne / Winnebago system next week.

Tight Lines all!!!
Rich
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Well Rick Taft and I hit the water launching out of Gray’s bay hoping to turn Saturday’s performance around.  I started on my favorite weedline in Wayzata Bay.  It only took me about 5 casts to lose a 1/2oz TT Jig to a toothy predator.  I then picked up my trusty bluegill Vixen topwater and started working over the top of the Milfoil.  About 10 casts later a nice bass crushed it, I finally dragged it out of the milfoil and it was a nice 3lb plus bass.  Way better start to today then yesterday   We continued to work this area on top and the deep edge, only to come up empty handed.  We then headed to where I had caught a 3lb bass late in the day yesterday, I managed to pick up a small keeper there on soft plastics, but that was it, a little disappointed.

The next area I wanted to hit had a boat on it, so we fished a few boat docks and I ended up getting 3 more small keepers on a 3/8oz Texas Craw Tru-Tungsten Jig, but nothing to brag about.  We hit a little slop pocket next, Rick got a frog bite but lost it.  Back to our first weedline, a couple shorts.  We then hit a an inside turn off an island and I caught one keeper that culled and Rick got two fish on a Senko.  At this point it was almost noon, so I wanted to run some shallow milfoil that had produced for me in the past.

It was kind of a long run with some no wakes.  We got in there and it started to pour for about 10 minutes then stopped.  I finally worked up to the prime area and made a pitch and my jig started moving off, I reared back and a sow came up out of the water.  Rick grabbed the net and she was in the boat.  I was pretty jacked as this fish was probably my biggest of the year.  I quickly grabbed one of my 13″ fish out of the well, dropped her in and got back on the deck.  Made another pitch and with my glasses I could see a big bass swimming to the right of where i just casted, so I tightened up the line and sure enough she already had it.  Set the hook, she came straight up and she looked almost the same size as the first one.  Got her in the boat and tossed back another 13″ fish.  Talk about 2 major upgrades!!!!

We continued to work down this shallow milfoil, caught a 2lb fish that helped.  We then hit some docks, I lost one and caught another one that got rid of my last real small fish.   Time was running short, so we made a swing though the sweet spot, I let Rick get a cast in first and he caught one over 3lbs on a ring fry.  It was time to go, we got to make a few casts back near the ramp, but no more bites.

My final tally was 5 fish for 17.5lbs which was good enough for 1st place by about 2lbs.  I also had big bass of 4.9lbs and I weighed my other big fish, she weighed exactly 4.9lbs as well.  It was a great flurry to end the weekend.  So other then the Vixen fish, all my other fish came on the Texas Craw Jig tipped with a green pumpkin chunk.  This Friday I leave for Pokegama Lake for the 3rd Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament, I will probably need another bag like today to be in contention there as well.

Rich
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Saturday morning was Gopher Bassmasters 5th tournament out of 8 this year.  We launched out of Maxwell bay public ramp on famed Lake Minnetonka.  Minnetonka is an interesting lake for me, I know its one of the best bass fisheries in the world, yet i rarely make it out there.  It really seems unless I have a tournament out there, which is rarely, I don’t venture out that way.  I really did not practice for this tournament, other then a guide trip that i had back on July 4th.

My partner was David Larsen and this was his first time even on Tonka, so I was kind of winging it and kind of fishing on a few distant memories for this club tournament.  We decided to start on a set of marina docks, this place has a history of giving up some big bites, but all we caught were a few barely legals and shorts there.  I threw back 2 or 3 fish that were probably keepers that I did not want to waste time culling later and David boxed one small keeper there on a Ring Fry.  One cool thing that happened there, was that I had a small keeper on and about a 6-7# Northern grabbed the fish right after I set the hook and knocked the fish off my jig.  About 5 minutes later, David had to wrestle his keeper away from that same northern.  Then about 15 minutes later, I had another 12-13″ bass on and 8-10lb musky grabbed it and we literally had to nudge the muskie with my net to get him to let go of it, I ended up throwing that bass back because he looked like he would have died in my livewell.

It seemed like the fish could be active, but we were in the wrong area.  So we headed to some milfoil spots in Crystal Bay.  I caught a small keeper on a smoke purple flake senko on an inside weed edge, I was getting a little concerned, so I threw him in the well.  We then dropped out into the deeper edge and nothing.  We then fished a couple inside milfoil turns on another spot in Crystal, more shorts there.

We then hit a stretch of docks in Crystal, I got bit off 3 times, Dave lost a decent fish, I lost one and then finally with my brand new JKruz Storm sunglasses I spotted a shadow next to a dock pole that looked like a fish.  Flipped my tube in there and sure enough, that was my second keeper bass.  I also picked up another small keeper on a watermelon Swim jig along that stretch.  Dave had another fish on briefly by the channel to Maxwell, but I think it surprised him and it evaded him.

Things were not looking good, so we ran to Wayzata bay to a milfoil stretch that had always been pretty good to me.  We got a few short fish right away, then I caught a small keeper on 4″ green pumpkin senko, we then hit an adjacent dock and I was able to get my 5th keeper on a Green Pumpkin tube.  At that point, I am guessing I had about 6lbs   Not the sack that one looks for on Minnetonka.  We fished that weedline a little more, then we hit another inside turn that I had discovered on my guide trip.  I actually caught 3 or 4 fish pretty quickly there, one of them being a 3.4lb largemouth and at least one other that made a small cull.  That fish lifted my spirits at least temporarily.  Time was starting to run short, so we ran back to Crystal to fish some docks before time ran out.  The first dock yielded another small keeper that was a small cull for me on a 3/8oz Texas Craw Tru-Tungsten jig.  3 or 4 docks later, Dave caught a nice 2lb fish on a ring fry and it was time to go.   We made it to the landing with 10 seconds to spare.

We definitely struggled as a boat, my fish only weighed 8.8lbs and placed me 11th out of 24 guys at this tournament, actually finished higher then one would think with that weight on Tonka, but several other guys struggled as well.  I guess the good thing is that we stuck with it and both caught some good fish at the end to turn a complete embarrassment into a slightly more bearable disappointment.  The good news, is we were fishing Tonka the very next day out of Gray’s bay for club tournament #6, so I was going to have a chance to redeem myself and get revenge on the Tonka bass.

Rich
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I was able to practice for this event only on the Friday before the tournament.  I spent about 7 hours out on the water and found a few decent deep weed edges that were producing and checked a few shallow areas with mixed results.  I drew boat #21 out of 50.  Not too bad, but I actually would have preferred the 3rd flight and the extra time to fish.

I started out on a deep weed edge that created an inside turn that had some good coontail clumps on it off of Swede’s Bar.  I caught 2 small keepers there, but nothing like the bites I had in practice.  I then ran to a small shallow weed depression near by and caught a quick limit on a green Brovarney Swim Jig and actually caught one nice fish that was over 2.5lbs.  From there I hit another deep coontail area and we caught a couple more small bass.  I then ran some docks that had been good to me in the past and another weedline and just a couple short fish.  So I hit a small slop area that I had checked the night before and instantly started culling on a frog.  I think I caught about 8 keepers and culled all but my biggest fish in there in about 90 minutes.

From there I started running docks again, I could not buy a bite on docks.  I ended up getting one small keeper and a short off about 20 docks.  I saved about 20 mins for my starting spot at the end of the day.  Quickly after arriving I hooked into a good fish on my jig, she came straight up and spit the hook.  Looked to be about 2.5 – 3lbs, probably would have been a solid 1lb cull.  I kicked the buoy over and worked the area over with jigs and soft plastics, caught one more small keeper that did not cull and it was time to go in.

Me Pictured, hoping some how these fish would grow to over 12lbs
The result of this year’s Whitefish tourney were very similar to last year.  I caught 11.14lbs which was just out of the money, my dad won the non-boater side and Dean Capra won again.  Although last year, I do not think I dropped the fish in the last minutes that would have put me in the money.  Oh well, it was still a solid finish and I am guessing I am in 7th for points after 2 tournaments and only 10 points from first and my favorite body of water is next.  Congrats to my buddy Josh Douglas who is tied for the lead in points, but at the same time, I will be gunning to take the lead from him on Pokegama! 

Rich
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So yesterday I fished the Pan-O-Prog tournament on Lake Marion for the 4th year in a row.  The 3rd time with Ryan Brant as my partner.  We took 3rd the previous two years and really had our sight on trying to win it this year.  Its hard to have a real solid game plan, because with 40 boats on this little lake, boat draw can really dictate how you start your tournament day.

I stepped up and drew boat #38 out of the bag, so that means we had to kind of wait and see what would be left for us to start on.  Most of our good areas were already covered up, so we made a quick 15 minute pass in a shallow area and I got one decent keeper on a 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten Jig.  We started down the lake and saw an opening on one of our deep weedlines.  I quickly boated another small keeper on the jig and lost another one that was pretty small as well.  I did not feel bad about losing that one, because we would need to get rid of him anyways.  We tried two more deep areas, Ryan got two more small keepers and a pike.

We then started running our shallow water and Ryan put a solid 2lb bass in the boat on a Smallie Beaver.  The next area, I boated our first 3lb class fish on a baby brushhog.  That was also our 6th fish, but really only one fish of the size you need to contend for the win on this lake.  The next shallow area produced another 3lb bass on the jig, seemed like we were getting some traction.  We then fished a mid-depth grass point and I got one close to 4lb on the texas rigged baby brushhog.  Now we had 3 really nice fish, 1 decent fish and 2 that we needed to cull.

We fished hard the rest of the day, culled twice, lost two good fish in shallow cover, but that does happen.  When you fish heavy cover, some will fish will elude you.  In the long run, we still had one really small fish and that hurts in this tournament.  Our best 6 fish weighed 16lbs even, I believe our big fish was 3.77lbs.  We ended up 8th, which we felt was pretty fortunate to even finish that high.  It ended up being the last money spot.  It was a little tougher then most years, some years 16lbs will not even get a check.  All the fish we caught either came on Tru-Tungsten jigs or Small creature bait Texas Rigs with Tru-Tungsten sinkers. 

Time to start preparing for this Saturday’s 2nd MN Bassmaster Weekend Series event on the Whitefish Chain north of Brainerd, MN.  Last year, I was on some really great fish that eluded me in the tournament, so I aim to track down this good fish this year and have a solid finish to move up in the Weekend Series standing, as I am in 8th right now.  I will be prefishing on Friday and fishing the tournament on Sunday.

Tight Lines,
Rich
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