Well, due to me missing half my tournament last week because of work related travel, I got to leave early on Friday.  Drove up to Fifty Lakes, messed with my tackle and spooled some new reels I recently got and was on the lake a little before 4pm.  The campground was just minutes from Big Trout, so I decided to practice there for a couple hours since it was so late in the day.  I started on a sharp point that I had caught good fish in a previous State TOC, plus I really wanted to try out my brand new Crucial Drop Shot Rod that was paired with a 2500 Stradic Mg (What a SWEET Setup!).  I drop shotted a few dinks & small keepers on a little 4″ Chompers worm.  Then I checked a few docks with a Paca Craw, plenty of fish, but not great size.  Then I checked a weed turn, small keepers on a 4″ jig worm.  I then found a hump that I started fan casting with a Parrot DT6 and it was unbelievable to say the least.  2-3.5lb fish and at one time I had two on at the same time, they also were willing to come up for a Bone colored Vixen.  Left there pretty quickly, checked one more spot, caught some keepers on the DT6 and called it a night.

The next morning, I wanted to see if those bigger fish were still there, made one cast with a Bluegill Vixen and I got my answer    So I spent the majority of the day on Main Lake Whitefish checking old coontail areas and docks.  Found plenty of fish but nothing like the size in Trout on the hump.  I even caught some fish on a frog in the duckweed, but most of my fish came on the DT6, 8” Lake Fork Worm or my Tru-Tungsten Jigs.  It was about 2pm, and on the way back I decided to check my hump in the high sun, since I had only fished it during low light to this point.  I made about 5 casts with my DT6, my rod loaded up, I pulled the fish to the surface and I let about 3.5lb fish toss my crank and I put her on the trailer in anticipation of tomorrow

I drew boat #5 at the pairings meeting and was stoked that I had nearly no worries about being the first one there.  I spent the rest of the night getting my tackle organized and tied up.  I had not felt this confident since Pokegama last year…..   Check back tomorrow for the rest of the story.

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Rich
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Time to get caught up a little big……

I came into this tournament feeling pretty confident and hoping to make a dent in the deficit from 1st place in the club standings.  My optimism & confidence train wrecked into two keepers.

I ran up to Afton, only to arrive simultaneously with another club member.  Turns out the fish never really went on that spot.  My partner Art & I started working the adjacent weed beds and edges.  I started catching some short fish on a white swim jig and then missed a few others that felt bigger because I could not catch up to them before they spit the jig ( I have since ordered a new Curado DHSV Reel ) 

We then followed the weed edge to some docks, I quickly caught a short smallmouth and largemouth off the first dock and missed another fish.  Art then caught a nice keeper largemouth on the inside weed edge on a 4″ Fork Craw Green Pumpkin that he texas rigged with a 1/8oz screw lock weight.  I then caught my first keeper on a swim jig.

We checked the starting spot again and each got a few dink smallmouths. We then moved to another weed area and each caught a nice 16″+ smallmouth, mine came on a Zoom Speed Craw and his on the Fork Craw.  We went back to the original weed area & docks, Art caught 3 more keepers on the Fork Craw by casting into openings and then pulling it into the next hole.  The two big fish hit as he was pulling it over a weed clump into the next hole.  I broke off twice and lost another fish next to the boat off the docks.  It was the story of my day, I caught tons of fish, most of them short and I managed to screw up my keeper bites.

Art ended up with 5 fish for 10.7lbs, 2 smallies and 3 greenies, all out of the weeds.  I two fish for 4.1 lbs.  Art won the tourney and had the only limit out of 18 guys. So I only managed to gain .1lbs on the leader this weekend, but did move from 7th to 3rd.  One thing is for sure, I need to clean up my fishing before the weekend series on Whitefish, I cannot continue to drop and break off fish like this.

Hats off to E2 (Edwin Evers) on his big win on Lake Eries, he pulled away with a bag of smallies over 23lbs on the last day!!

Rich
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It will not take long to cover this tourney because I only fished half the tournament, but that is all I needed to get 2nd place I guess….  I was traveling for work on Friday and due to mechanical issues with Delta Airlines, I got to spend the night in NYC and was not able to get to my tournament until 10am at Big Marine while everyone else started fishing at 6am.

Fortunately I was fishing alone, so I did not have a partner that was effected by my misfortune.  I got to the lake, picked up my 3/8oz Green PumpkinT ru-Tungsten jig and targeted shallow cover.  I quickly caught a nice keeper out of a piece of brush in some dollar pads and then started methodically working docks around the lake.  I managed to catch 9 keepers and several short fish.  I did pick one up on a Sweet Beaver, but he was quickly culled, so all my weigh fish were on my go to jig.  It turns out most people struggled in my club that day, not very many limits.  My final weight was 9.9lbs with a 3.2lb big fish, good enough for 2nd and propelled me from 7th to 3rd at the end of the day.

If you have not heard, Tim Tucker, outdoors writer was tragically killed in a car accident this past week.  He was a long time journalist that covered bass tournaments and it is sad to lose his talents.

Congrats to Tim Horton for lapping the field at Champlain and Steve Clapper for dominating at Lake Erie.  I visited Tim Horton’s Website and he has a cool little blog section where he updates after every tournament, very nice.

Should have an update soon on my St. Croix tourney as well….   Also, I found some good info on the lures that Tim Horton used that I found….

Rich
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Wow, this is great, I actually got out on the water for this club tournament two different days, once for about 3hrs on Memorial day and now about 5 hours this past Sunday.  Mr. Veech and I got out on the water a little before 7am.  Nothing really happened topwater wise for us and the first 3-4 spots we hit produced nothing.

We then worked our way all the way down to the bottom of the St. Croix just so we could see what it looked like, we did manage to find a few fish down there on a white super fluke.  On the weigh back up, we caught a keeper on the west side on some chunk rock bank.  We then rode all the way up to the Afton area and found a sand bar with some rocks on it and few other areas.  We even found some shallow grass, wood and rocks that were able to pluck some nice largemouths with a swim jig & tube.
  All in all, it was kind of hit and miss, we did find some good areas with good quality fish, which will be key as we are fishing a no-cull tournament.  So my strategy will be to start fishing for big fish first.  I feel pretty good about this tournament, but Saturday is another story.  We have a club tournament on Big Marine on Saturday and I have not been there for two years…..  It is a hole tournament, which suits my preferred shallow water power fishing style

I am traveling for work for the rest of the week, so check back early next week for entries on my tournament finishes.  I also forgot to mention how key my Stay’NCharge – All Charge unit was on Lake Marion last Saturday, as we ran a ton of docks and every time we fired up the big motor my trolling motor batteries got a little boost that kept us going all day.

Tight Lines,
Rich
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Forecast was to be very hot and little wind, it lived up to the prediction for heat but with less wind.  My partner Ryan drew boat #22 out of 40 for us.  We decided to start deep and make adjustments from their.  There were two boats positioning themselves on the deeper hard bottom area of where we wanted to start so we went straight for the inside turn that had some really healthy coontail clumps.  We fished around for about 45 minutes without a bite, we then went out on the edge of the two other boats and I was able to boat a nice 3lb fish on a Bluegill DT10.  I also had another bite on a C-Rig.  We then dashed into this the inside turn one more time and I immediately loaded the rod up on a 4lb fish that sucked down my ever reliable 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig.  We only had two fish in the well after 90 minutes but they were both nice fish.  After no more bites there we decided to try some shallower water.

We started running some docks that we had caught fish on the previous summer.  First pitch with my jig put another 3lb fish in the well.  Then Ryan got a small keeper on a Tru-Tungsten jig as well on the next dock.  Ryan then rolled a good fish that came unbuttoned and then I put another 3lb plus fish on the well to give us 5 fish.  We then worked a shallow point, nothing happening there.  We then hit the next stretch of docks where I got sawed off way underneath a pontoon on a lift, it was a big fish.   The next dock produced a 2lb fish to fill out a limit.  So we have 4 good fish and two small fish at around 10am.  We decide to keep running shallow water.  We try some slop with no luck.  Then another set of docks.  I catch a couple short fish and cull up a little on our smallest fish along with getting broke off twice with 20lb Fluoro, not good.  We run back to our first set of docks and Ryan has another good fish get off, we are just not being fortunate in converting the good bites.

We pondered and decided to check back on our deep spot, but there are still two boats there, so we pull into docks that are similar to our first stretch but that I had never done well on.  2nd dock yields a 3lb fish, nice cull on the jig again.  We run to another 3 dock stretch and I catch 2.5lb fish on a jig.  We have a solid limit, we figure somewhere near 18lbs.  We decide to finish out on the deep area.  Ryan catches a solid 2.75 fish on a drop shot and we cull about a 1/4lb.  We felt that we had a good bag, but knew we missed opportunities on 5 good fish today and were pretty confident it would cost us.

We weigh our fish, 6 fish 18.68lbs with a 3.96lb big fish that at the time put us in 2nd.  One more team weighed in later and bumped us to 3rd.  Winning weight was 19.64lbs, how frustrating to lose so many fish and come up that short.  Oh well, it was still a good tournament.  The Pan-O-Prog can be tricky with 40 boats on such a small lake, our primary plan was foiled by other boats that beat us there, but we adjusted well and made a nice finish.

Ryan is toying with fishing the Celebration Tournament on Marion on July 21, but I cannot as I will be up fishing the Weekend Series tournament on Whitefish Chain.  Tomorrow, I should have an entry from my trip to practice on the St. Croix with Mr. Veech and then club tournaments this weekend on Big Marine and St. Croix.

Tight Lines,
Rich
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Well, almost time to jet out of work and get ready for some bass fishing this weekend.  Tomorrow Ryan & I try to take Lake Marion by storm and keep Shawn Frame & Jerry Hawke from going back to back to back.  We have not been out but one evening to practice and that was a couple weeks ago.  Let’s hope my fish on my hard bottom spot go this year or we are going to really have to scramble.  Weigh-in is at Casperson Park at 1pm, its worth going to, there are surely to be sever 20lb + bags again this year.  Bring refreshments, its going to be a hot one out there.

Then on Sunday Mr. Veech and I are going to practice the St. Croix river for a club tournament next weekend.  That is if he gets an okay from the boss at home :0
Practicing for a club tournament is kind of a novel idea, maybe I will have more time now that I have closed and moved from the home I just sold.

Rich
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Well, this tournament got off to a better start because I made it on time   This tournament our club decided to fish as a hole tournament, 5 holes, you draw a start position and rotate every 75 minutes and then 75 minutes of happy hour at the end.  I was hoping to draw holes 1 or 3 first, because those are really the only 2 holes I have any decent spots in.  My partner Chong drew hole #2 and going towards 3,4,5 for our rotation.  Also, Chisago is a immediate catch & release lake, so we are doing a paper tournament and then converting length to weight.

Chong had actually done a little prefishing, so we started in a slop corner that he had and I caught a quick fish on my Vixen, and one on a frog.  One at 13.75″ & the other 14.375″, not the size fish you need on this lake, but a start.  We kept on the move hopping around, trying to find some better fish and just caught a couple shorts.

On to hole #3, went to my 2nd favorite spot on the lake, no good weeds, ugh, the surprises you get when you do no practice.  I did manage one good 15.75″ keeper on a red shad jig worm, and we also caught several shorts and a walleye.  With about 15 minutes left, I hit another inside turn.  I caught a 16.75″ fish and Chong caught on just a little smaller, both on jig worms, then we had to move, obviously should not have wasted so much time on the spot before fishing memories.

On to hole #4, I know lots of good fish our caught deep in this area of the lake, don’t really know any of the spots, we spent the whole 75 minutes fishing deep with jig worms, cranks, carolina rig & jigs, never got a tap.

On to hole #5, we decided to try shallow, we got on a row of docks, shallow weeds and wood.  Chong quickly caught one close to 19″ on a texas-rigged ring fry, off a stump.  I then proceeded to boat 3 fish over 18″ off blue gill beds, the first one was under the back end of a dock next to a big set of beds, she fell for my 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig.  After that I came across a big school of gills all bunched up on beds so I made a pitch in there, the bluegills kind of scattered a bit, I saw a fish roll on it and point at my jig, twitched it once and she smoked it.  I then broke my jig off on a big fish that sawed my 20# Fluorocarbon on a boat lift.  The 3rd fish I saw in a weed hole patrolling some beds and I made a long pitch past her with a texas-rigged Sweet Beaver and it did not take long to temp her into eating.  Time ran out, but hole #5 was good, came in with less then a limit and left with a nice bag, my smallest fish 15.75″
 
Onto hole #1, we camped out for the first 50 minutes on weed point that is usually produces big fish, nothing happening, another case of not much good weeds there.  We then decided to try to duplicate the water we found in hole 5.   Chong missed a couple fish and I caught 16″ and 17.75″ fish to cull a couple times on my 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig.  With about 45 minutes left in happy hour we ran back to hole #5, caught a small keeper.  Running short on time, we headed back near the landing and fished some docks in the narrows.  I had a bite under a dock, missed and saw it.  I told Chong to throw under there, he hooked it, but it came unbuttoned right before the net.

I ended up eaking out first with 17.82lbs for 5 bass with a 3.96 big fish, Dave Ham was 2nd with 17.74.  That was a close one!  I also moved from 10th to 7th and I am lurking only about 3lbs out of 2nd place.  I am positioned well to make a run with 4 tournaments to go, 3 of which are on rivers.

Rich
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This tournament did not get off to a good start, I did not have time to rig up everything I wanted the night before and I was late getting to the landing because I did not get out prefishing and was not sure where it was and made a wrong turn.  So everything I caught was going to be docked 10%

We ran to the far end down by the private landing and started working an inside turn that I had caught fish on before.  I caught 3 quick fish on a bluegill colored Reaction Innovations Vixen, they all crushed it. 
After another 10-15 minutes with no bites on topwater, I tried my Parrot DT6 and then a white Secret Weapon Lure spinnerbait and whacked a nice keeper on that in about 5 casts and then caught a northern on it as well.  I decided to make one more pass through with my Tru-Tungsten jig and caught my 5th fish pretty quick.  Fished it out a little further had a couple hits on the jig, but did not convert.

I then told my partner John (a.k.a. Brushog) to run the boat on the weedline while I rigged some rods for some other areas and for potentially finding bigger fish, plus he had not had a bite yet.  He quickly had one on and lost it, then as I was almost done tying up he landed a keeper on a Texas rigged Green Pumpkin Super Hog.  I then picked up my Berkley Watermelon Red Flake shakey worm on a 1/8oz Shakedown head that I just rigged up and whacked a keeper that culled on my first cast.  John then got his 2nd and I got bit off, end of flurry.

We then moved across to a deep point, John caught a two nice keepers on his Super Hog and I caught small ones, just one of those things.  We then jumped to another cabbage turn down the lake, once again I caught small fish and John was able to catch 3 good keepers to fill out his limit and cull twice on a Lake Fork Baby Creature on a mojo rig.

With about an hour left, we moved to the west side of the lake and started fishing shallow.  I was able to cull 3 times, two out of the reeds and one on a dock, caught on soft plastics.  I weighed 8.5lbs, but got docked .9lbs for late and John weighed 9.9 and he was docked 1lb.  I think I ended up 12th out of 16, not so stellar, and would have only moved up a couple spots without the penalty.  I ended up slipping two spots from 8th to 10th for the year, needless to say, not what I was looking for, took 14lbs to win.  On the bright side, I fished clean, did not lose fish, just did not get the better bites, could have been better had I practiced and found better fish.

On the bright side, just like in May, I turned it around on Sunday after a tough Saturday.

Rich
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