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.  And then maybe I will be caught up through my Bass Weekend Series tournament by Friday.  This would be the start of 9 straight days of bass fishing

I left my house in Lakeville before 5am on Saturday morning, picked up my dad and we launched on Boy Bay. It was a windy first day, but we went right to the spot where I had caught 19lbs last year in a club tournament and my fellow club member Dave Ham was there and so were the bass.  We spent the rest of the day checking other areas and looking for new stuff in Boy Bay.  The best baits were texas rigged plastics, cane toads, & Stanley Ribbits.

Day two I spent in Steamboat area, found some new stuff as well as checked some old stuff.  Most of my bites came around reeds that day.  Stick’Em Lures Salty Sinkers & Tru-Tungsten Jigs were the ticket, and 1/2oz Black & Blue was the best by far.  In the evening I jumped in Ryan Brant’s boat with Josh, and the three of us went looking for Frog fish and we found them.  We probably had 20-30 blowups in 2hrs, we tried not to hook to many of them, being the tourney was a few days away.  I did the best on a white Optimum Furbit frog.

Here is a largemouth that fell for the Salty Sinker
Day 3, Josh Douglas & I launched near Brevik to add to the Boy bay water I had found, we started the morning by running to Horseshoe bay, that is where the tournament would launch from.  We looked for areas to fish on the way back to Headquarters.  I did catch a really nice smallie on the south shore, but only found one. 

Here is a my nice random smallie from Practice
 We also found a couple nice stretches of rice in Headquarters bay where we had several bites on jigs and a SWL BuzzR Bait Midnight Snack.  I also checked my best area in Boy and they were still there.

Day 4, was back to Steamboat.  Josh & I ran up the Steamboat river to Steamboat lake, we caught a few fish up there, but both agreed it was not worth the run.  We then found some Rice points in the upper end of steamboat that had good numbers and quality.  Check a few more things, found a nice marina where we got a big bite and kind of called it a day.  Tru-Tungsten jigs did the best again today.

Overall, I felt good about my practice, I had fish going on both ends of the lake, I could fish areas no matter the wind and had a good mix of types of spots.  I was going to wait until after the pairings meeting to finalize my tournament game plan.

Got on the water around 7:30am, tried a few points on the mouths of some cuts with a few bites but no fish.  Then moved to a wing dam, caught a near 3lb smallie right away on topwater as well as a couple largemouth.  We then ran some backwater, had a few blow ups and caught some northerns, not real impressed.  Went to the next backwater area, caught some solid fish on the black Furbit in the slop.

We then ran some other areas, had some boils but no hook-ups.  We ended the day on a eel grass line where we did real well on soft plastics, overall, a productive day. Added some areas and eliminated some water.

Its the end of the week, I am packing for Leech tonight and leaving very early tomorrow morning, probably no blog entries between now and Sept 10th.  I will be fishing the MNBF TOC on Leech and the 4th Weekend Series tournament on Pools 4 & 5, so two tournaments and 9 straight days of fishing!!!!

Tight Lines,

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

Well, let’s just start by saying it was the soggiest tournament that I have participated in since the Weekend Series Regional down at Patoka last October.  My partner, Ricky, & I were first off, we went straight to a stretch of pads in the back of a lake.  It is where I had not a lot of bites, but they were all big.  I threw swim jigs, Black Furbit and a dark colored Gambler Cane toad and managed just one 16″ bass on the cane toad in just over an hour.  We then went back towards the main river to a slough to fish some channel banks, with grass, wood & rock.

My first cast with a junebug swim jig got me a 14.5″ fish that I threw back because it was a ‘no cull’ tournament.  I then started throwing a bone colored Yellow Magic popper (I get mine from Basspro.com), caught some short fish then caught a 3.3lb largemouth.  I continued throwing that popper for the next hour and caught 10+ fish, none of which I actually put in the well.  I then switched to 1/2 oz Fall Craw Tru-Tungsten jig with Black Neon chunk and boated a nice keeper.  Rick then also boated a nice fish on a jig.  I then switched up and started flipping a Green Pumpkin Chigger Craw right up into the grass & brush on the undercut banks.  My flippin’ setup consisted of 50lb braid, 3/4oz Tru-Tungsten flippin’ weight and a 3/0 BMF hook tied up with a snell knot.  I caught several fish with this technique, two keepers, but both of them went back in the water.

I then went back to the jig and boated another nice largemouth for the well.  At the same time Ricky started building a nice limit on a Green Pumpkin Fork Craw on a mojo rig, he even threw back a 15″+ smallie and then caught another nice largemouth before I got my limit.  Finally at 1:30pm, I threw my Fork Craw on a mojo rig up next to a weed clump and boated a 2.8lb smallie.  That fish rounded out a nice limit of 14.0lbs, which I felt very good about in a no cull tournament.  Until weigh-in, when I ended up 4th out of 13 guys.  Several guys had 4lbs+ fish, I guess never got that big bite I needed.  Well it was time to dry off, retie my rods and get ready for Sunday on Pool 5.  I made up a bunch of ground on the guy in first, but the guy in 2nd beat me and now he is the new leader to chase.  I came in about 9lbs out of first, now I sit about 4lbs back, still in 3rd.

Man, I cannot believe I only got out bass fishing one day this weekend.  My partner (Lil’ Gin Rickey) and I got out on Pool 5 around 7:30am.   I caught two quick short fish on a bone Pop-R along a deep bank in a slough.  Fish were jumping and busting all over, some were bass but I think most were rough fish.  I then switched to a 1/2 oz Fall Craw Tru-Tungsten jig and caught a pretty quick limit of 2-3lb plus fish, Ricky also caught a handful of fish on a Mojo Rig with several different plastics.  It was about 9am, so I wanted to check where I had found some big fish previously.

I got back to the pads and I started tossing a floating frog, about 15 minutes later I had a 4.5lb bass in the boat, shortly after that Rick had one just as big on a white cane toad and then a little later I had a big one miss my swim jig.  I was pretty excited with the quality, but it was not fast and furious by any means.  We spent a few hours trying to find similar water and I only caught one small keeper in the other areas.

We checked a few other areas later, I caught several fish Flipping plastics on a snell rig, with a 3/4oz Tru-Tungsten flippin’ weightand a 3/0 BMF hook.  Actual plastic did not seem to matter, caught them on Yum Vibra King Tubes, Gambler Ugly Otters, and few other things.  I did catch one more decent fish out of some duck weed closer to the main channel, then we had to go.

Overall, did not find anything but I have a lot of confidence in two areas.  I am torn, because one area is really good and had quality fish, the other has big fish but numbers are few.  Because its a ‘no cull’ tourney, I think we will run to the big fish first, give them 30-45 minutes, if its not happening we will come back to the other spot & try to fill the wells. 

On Sunday, we fish Pool 4, I have not been there since July 21, about a month, so I hope my fish on the top of Pepin are still there and the wind does not blow too hard, otherwise I have some back up slop on the WI side of Wabasha.  I am excited about this weekend.   Also, welcome email subscriber # 43!! 

I arrived to prefish around 3pm on Friday afternoon, found some decent smallies deep and a few good largies in the reeds.  Saturday was much of the same, not much for size except for a few fish I was able to flip up on soft plastics in the river area of the lake.  I did not have near the fish that I had going last year for this tournament.  I drew boat #32 and had a pretty solid non-boater, he ended up being a lot of fun to fish with.

I decided to fish some reeds that I thought would produce a solid 10-12lbs, but I ended up wasting over an hour fishing reeds, we each had a couple fish in the well when we left, but nothing special.  The first weedline that I pulled up on, we had a near double and I soon caught a nice smallie and largemouth on a drop shot with a little 4″ Chompers worm in a watermelon flake color paired with a 1/4oz Tru-Tungsten drop shot weight and a drop length of about 16″.  A northern bit of my drop shot weight so I switched to my finesse carolina rig (a.k.a. Mojo Rig) which was sporting 1/8oz Tru-Tungsten bullet sinker pegged about 20″ up from a Green Pumpkin Fork Craw.  Within the first 5 casts I whacked my 3.94lb smallmouth, I continued to fish with that and filled out a nice limit of fish.  I mixed in some docks as well and caught one of my nicer largemouth on a 1/4 oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig.
 
We hopped docks and weedlines the rest of the day, the docks did not produce any more good fish, I had one decent one on and he jumped, but it was marginal in whether I would have culled with him.  I culled a few more times deep with the Fork Craw and my partner finally put on the Fork Craw with about 90 minutes left and he culled his entire well with two nice smallies and a largemouth.  His 3 fish total was 9.86 with a 4.59 smallie which put him in 5th.  I also lost another good smallie that leaped next to the boat where he caught the 4.59, that is the nature of smallmouth bass fishing though.  My total ended up being 15.99lbs and that was good enough for 12th place.  The positive news is that I moved from 8th to 5th in the point standings, which is keeping me on pace to qualify for Nationals on Clarks Hill reservoir in November.

I think the biggest mistake that I made was starting in the reeds, had I started deep, I think I would have had a little better bag, maybe moved up in to the middle of the Top 10….   I need to quit playing it safe sometimes, live and learn.   Also of note, my dad took 4th as a non-boater with just over 10lbs and had moved to 6th in his point standings.  I hope to have some pictures to post here later as well.  On to the river for the next few tournaments and the State TOC on Leech is just around the corner as well.

Well, I got a handful of tournaments coming up on Pools 4 & 5, and I never really have fished them much, so this is the weekend where I start putting some time in.  I have two club tournaments on Aug 18 & 19 on Pool 4 one day and Pool 5 the other, then there is a Weekend Series tournament on Sept 9th out of Wabasha as well as a two day Weekend Series out of Wabasha in early October.

My club partner for Pool 4, Josh Douglas, and I took his Ranger out on Saturday morning and launched out of Colvill Park just south of Red Wing.  The second spot we stopped at, I caught two nice chunky largemouth on a mojo rigged super fluke in an Arkansas Shad color.  Josh also caught a keeper on a Baby Brush Hog.  We worked our way down Pepin and found some nice smallmouth on some rocks & grass.  We initially caught them on a Bone Pop-R and a Perch Sammy.  It was just good plain fun whacking some smallies in the 3lb + class on topwater
I also caught a nice one a Brovarney Swim Jig that was kind of green pumpkin with matching single tail grub trailer.
        
We hit a few more spots and around some marinas down further on Pepin, we caught some fish but mostly small.  It proved to be kind of a lull in the day.  We then turned around headed back up the lake.  We were able to catch a few fish working a Baby Fork Creature Watermelon/Red Flake on a mojo rig along the rocks.  I was also able to catch some really nice smallies and largemouth flipping a 3/8oz Watermelon/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig tipped with a green pumpkin candy Gamble Gambler B.B. Cricket on isolated structure in some areas.  All in all, we had a pretty solid day, we both would have had our limits, mine would have pushed 15lbs for my best 5.  Check back soon, should have a report from Sunday where I fished out of Wabasha and even dipped down to Pool 5.

Also, hats of to Peter T. on his second Bassmaster Memorial Win, it looks like he will be the only winner of that event as the majors are going away and he won the tournament last year. 
“He had numerous rods on his deck, and he picked up one with a modified version of a Carolina rig that Kenyon Hill had dubbed the “Petey rig” in his honor. It consists of a 1/8oz. Tru-Tungsten sinker above a Tru-Tungsten smart peg  placed 8 or 10 inches above the hook. He attached a super fluke and went to work.”

Funny enough, the “Petey Rig” sounds a lot like what I call a mojo rig……

Also, hats off to email subscriber #42