My tourney partner Ryan Brant and I decided that it would be a good idea to reinvest some of our Pan-O-Prog tourney winnings into the Celebration Outdoors bass tournament 3 weeks after that event.  Didn’t really have time to prefish with the Weekend Series tourney in Wabasha.

Last minute, Ryan had to work, so his brother Corey jumped in the boat with me, no big deal, as Corey is quite the stick as well, he currently sits in 3rd place for Silverado points after 2 events.  We drew boat 12, and decided to start shallow like we did in Pan-O-Prog.  The first area yielded only a single short fish, but Corey quickly boated a 3lbr in our second spot with a Ring Fry using a Force Bead as weight.  We continued with the shallow pattern, I put two decent 2lb fish and a three rats in the well on a 3/8oz Green Pumpkin/Brown Tru-Tungsten jig .  During that stretch I got sawed off by a good fish and had another 3lb fish get the best of me and spit my jig. 
 
But now that we had our limit, we decided to test some deeper spots that had produced in the past, we were just about to leave our 2nd deep spot when Corey hooks up on a tube with a 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten sinker in about 13 feet of water and lands a nice 3lbs plus fish that culls are first rat.  Just as I was thinking it was time to move on again, i got picked up dragging my ring fry on a mojo rig , another 3lb fish to replace rat numero dos.  We tried quite a few more lures for quite some time and that deep spot would not yield another good bite for us.  Corey’s fish was hooked deep, so I got to use some of my livewell care tricks to ensure his livelyhood.

With about 30 minutes to go, we revisited an area where that 3lb fish had given me the slip, I pitched my jig in between a dock and boat lift.  As I started to lift my jig , a fish grabbed it and started to head for the lift.  When I set, my 17lb fluoro got cut off pretty clean, feeling pretty dejected as it seems there is always a good fish or two that do this late in the day that cost me money.  Grumbling under my breath, I grab a fresh jig from the deck of the boat and slap a used chuck on their quick and flip it under the front of the boat lift.  It did not take long to get picked up again, it did not take long to realize this would be the best fish of the day.  After a brief struggle, she was in the net, it was pretty obvious I had got my revenge on this fish, as it had 18″ of my line hanging from its mouth and the old jig was already in her stomach.  This tank was a huge cull over the 13 incher that was still in the well.  Corey got wrapped right after that and lost a good fish.  We hit a few more spots in the last few minutes, but could not improve on either of our 2lb fish.  In the back of our minds, we knew we had a good day, but know we had 3 missed opportunities during the day to probably crack the 20lb mark, which is not uncommon on Lake Marion.

That  4.66lb fish is in my left hand, could not keep his lips of my Tru-Tungsten jigs!

In the end, our 18.61lbs was more then enough and gave us a 2lb margin of victory, but my lake 4.66 fish was beat out for big fish by a 5.3lb beauty.  It was nice to get a win for this year, now I will probably turn my attention to Minnetonka in preparation for the Minnesota State Bass Federation Tournament of Champions in early September.

Hard to find time to blog with the new addition in the house.  I suppose I would have more time to blog if I fished less, but what would I blog about?

Last Sunday, I hoped to get down for some early practice on Mississippi River pool 4 near Wabasha, but things did not work out, so I just went to local Lake Marion for a few hours in the afternoon.  I hoped to find some new fish for the upcoming Celebration Outdoors tournament this coming Saturday, that did not really work out, caught a few decent fish, but I did not feel like I unlocked any new secrets by any means.

I did get down and practice both Thursday & Friday for my Bassmaster Weekend Series tourney this past weekend on Pool 4.  Both days were kind of short, only about 6 hours on the water each day.  Thursday was very windy and it rained for all but the last hour, I learned a little new water at the top of Big Lake, got one big bite and found a few fish close to the ramp that I felt could be a good back-up plan.  Friday I practiced with my dad, checked my Pepin fish, they were there but small and then loaded boat and headed to Wabasha, fortunately I found some good fish on one of my favorite eel grass lines. Checked a few more things, eliminated water after that more than anything.

My plan for race day was to get some solid keeper in the well on my grass line and then spend the afternoon on the upper end of Big Lake going for a big bite.  I got some smallmouth bites early on a bone colored Vixen topwater, then found better quality fish flipping the edge of the eel grass with a beaver bait on a 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten flipping weight with MiHatchii OWG hook .  My last two fish were probably my biggest and they both came on a Mad-Maxx frog in Busta Slime color.  The 2nd generation Tru-Tungsten frogs are unbelievably soft and durable, really hard to beat this frog.

In the end, I weighed 4 largies and a single smallmouth that went 13.93lbs, good enough for 5th place in a pretty good field.  This next weekend, another tourney on Lake Marion.

This past Saturday my buddy Ryan Brant and I fished the Lakeville Pan-O-Prog bass touranment  on little ol’ Lake Marion presented by the Gopher Bassmasters.  This was the first year the Gopher Bassmasters ran the Pan-O-Prog event, previously run for so many years by the Minnesota Pole Benders. 

I did get a chance to spend a little practice time out here the two weekends prior to the event.  Man it was brutal, I never caught a limit either day and only caught one deep fish.  I am kinda concerned all the weed spraying by the home owners on this lake is really taking its toll on the fishing.

Ryan & I drew boat #8 out of 40, we decided we would start shallow, because that is where we had the most bites and wanted to get to what few fresh biting fish there were, since we did not have any deep spots that we felt produced with any consistency.  Ryan quickly caught a nice keeper on a 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten jig  and I followed up by catching a quality fish on a Black Secret Weapon Lures buzzbait.  We then follwed up with 2 more nice jig fish all in about the first hour or so.  Nothing huge, but we were happy with our start.

Well things got really slow from there, about an hour later, I caught a 13″ keeper on a Tru-Tungsten jig , then we did not get our last keeper until about 45 minutes to go, I did have one other good bite that I rolled arounda  bluegill bed.  So in total, 7 keeper bites, 6 fish caught that total 14.58lbs, which on a tough bite was good enough for 3rd place.  Not pretty, but we stuck to our plan and ground out a nice check!

Check here for full results on this tourney!  Hats off to Gopher for funning an excellant tournament!  I am planning to take another crack at Lake Marion during the Celebration Church bass tournament in a couple weeks….

Spent two days practicing for upcoming Pan-O-Prog bass fishing tournament on Lake Marion, neither day went well.  Not sure if I got too caught up with my new side imaging unit, but I spent a very full day fishing on Monday, only caught 4 bass and a pike, plus a few more bites.  At least one of them was a good fish, I got this 19″ largemouth off one of my spot, which gives me a little confidence for Saturday.

It was good to get out, most of my holiday weekend was consumed with out of town guests.  At least this gives me one more fish for BP’s Blog Derby!  Guess I will have to work on fishing the moment on Saturday!

Hope you all had a safe and wonderful 4th of July weekend!

A hectic schedule has not really allowed me to get out bass fishing as much as usual, I guess a 2 yr old and daughter #2 will likely be arriving any day will slow even the most dedicated bassers down.  This past weekend I had 2 small tournaments on Mississippi River Pools 2 & 4 respectively.

Friday afternoon, I was able to get out for a couple hours to check water levels and a few areas on Pool 2 for Saturday’s tournament.  Caught a few fish flipping a 4″ black neon tube on a 3/16oz Tru-Tungsten sinker .  Also, inspired by K-Short’s performance on Lake Pickwick I threw my Ima Shaker around on Friday afternoon.  It did not take long for my road to bow over with a beautiful 4.5lb largemouth cranked up off a shallow laydown.

Needless to say, this fat largie had to have this Shaker and CHOKED IT!!

The bite on Saturday morning was slower than I anticipated, it took about 3 hrs of tube flipping and one nice smallie on the Ima Shaker crank before I had my limit.  It was time to start covering some new water.  In the next area I started working my shallow crank around laydowns and quick culled 2 fish and caught a couple others with the Shaker .  Now my bag was all 15″ plus fish, with one 17″ class fish.  Hit a few more areas with nothing, returning to a stretch that produced several bites the evening before resulted in one broken line on a big fish and a nice keeper for my partner.  The next area gave up a few more small keepers and than finally a nice 17.25″ largemouth.  The last 90 minutes we spent in an area closer to the main channel for smallies.  The area gave up many smallies earlier in the day and a few later in the day, but we did not get anything to help us.  I ended up with a respectable 14.83lbs but that was only good enough for 5th.

My Key Gear from the Past Weekend

Sunday we launched from Colville Park near Red Wing.  Again I started in a back cut with wood & grass.  I caught a nice keeper largie pretty quickly on the Ima Shaker and my partner and I also both flipped one keeper each.  My next area was occupied by a competitor and we cranked the outside edge, I got one squeaker smallie on the Shaker and several shorts, white bass and walleyes.  We then tried some new water, caught some short fish and then ran to Pepin to try some other areas.  My 2nd Pepin area produced keepers for me and my partner.  My Ima Flit and a small beaver bait on a 1/8oz Picasso Shakey Football head worked best on my Lake Pepin rock spots.  I was able to fill out a small 4 fish limit on the lake; we then returned to Red Wing to look for some better fish.  Nothing happened, just a few more walleyes and shorts on the crank.  My 4 fish weighed 6.7lbs, which on a tough day was good enough for 4th.

No wins this weekend, but the weather was beautiful and it was great to get out fishing against the guys in the club.  I hope to get out on the opener to film an episode of “All About Bass”  Catch ya’ll later!

I got back into Grand Rapids right before the pairings meeting after taking two days to work and skipping a day of practice.  Gopher Bassmasters, my club, was the host club this year and ran our annual raffle and raised about $4,300 for local 2nd Harvest Food Bank & 4h-Club.  My drew boat 44, my partner was Nick Madison from Golden Hook for day 1.  We were greeted by a 3 hour fog delay on day 1.

The first area we hit was a stretch of docks, it yielded one 12″ fish for me and a nice 2lb fish for Nick out of a patch of reeds.  We then hit two weedline areas and I caught a couple more small largemouth.  I then hit a few other docks, where i was able to get a nice 3lb largemouth and then another good keeper on weightless ring frys.  It was finally good to get a couple good fish in the box.

The next area was rock and weed area with a good drop off.  After a few casts I hooked and landed a big smallie on a Baby Fork Creature.  That did not yield any more bites, so I tried a 5″ Gulp Leech on a drop shot, on my first cast I caught a 3lb smallmouth.  I was able to catch another nice smallie and Nick caught a 4lb smallmouth on a leech i hooked him up with.  The bite quite, so we went to try some of Nick’s water.

The long and short of it, we tried some of his water and mine and caught no more fish that we could use.  My total bag ended up being 15.34lbs anchored by my first smallie at 4.25lbs.  That put me in 3rd place after day 1.  I was very happy with the day, but a little irritated I could not get a cull in the last 2 hours of the tournament.

4.25 Smallmouth on left

Day 2 my partner was in 11th place coming into the day.  To make a long story short, we both only managed 4 small fish each, fishing both our best water all day.  We simply just did not get the bites.  I am still scratching my head to what happened, the bite seemed so tough for us, yet other people caught plenty of fish.  My 4 fish weight a little over 6lbs and I slid back to 28th place, well out of the top 12 that was my main goal.  All i needed was 9lbs.  I think this is the first time i ever caught less then 10lbs on this lake.

Oh well, time to move my focus forward.  Congrats to those that caught them, see full results here.
Rich
RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

I am actually blogging from the road right now as my club member Henry navigates 169.  Overall I had a pretty productive practice over Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  Getting plenty of bites, catching a few and pulling on most fish.  I found fish from a foot deep to 15ft, plenty of fish biting soft plastics and Tru-Tungsten jigs, but no huge concentrations of fish, so I have a lot of areas to run and gun come tournament time.  I found lots of good keepers in the 1.5 – 2lb range, with a few big ones, hopefully the bite holds for tomorrow and Friday, should be a very good tournament.

Here are a few pictures from my practice, check back soon for tournament report, hopefully another Top 12 and trip to divisionals is in my future.

TIght Lines!
Rich
RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

This past weekend we had our last two regular season club tournaments on Lake Minnetonka, we fished the West side on Saturday and the East on Sunday as two separate events.  There were quite a few things on the line this weekend.  I was in the final four for our Match Championship, I was leading the Angler of Year by a tiny margin and in position to be our State Team Captain and guaranteed boater next September at the MNBFN TOC on Lake Minnetonka.

On day 1, I had practiced one day the previous weekend and tried to find some deeper fish on the west side with my partner Henry.  We caught some fish, but nothing consistent, big or schooled.  With the mostly unproductive practice and my limited knowledge of that side of the lake, I decided to stick to my strength and fish shallow with a jig for the majority of the day.  I caught about 15 keepers, one on a black Secret Weapon Lure Buzzbait and the rest all came on various 3/8oz and 1/2oz Tru-Tungsten jigs flipped around shallow cover.  I varied the colors and trailer based on the color of the water and depth I fished them in.  The result was 14.24lbs and it was anchored by a hefty 4.63lbs largemouth bass.

Another Big Bass that could not resist my Tru-Tungsten Jig!
My win stretched my lead in AOY standings with one tourney to go and advanced my past Ryan to the finals of match fishing.  I was feeling pretty good, because traditionally I had done better on the east side.

Day 2 I decided to try 3 deeper weed edges in Wayzata Bay, I spent about 2.5 hours fishing those spots and only one 13″ bass, not what I had hoped, I had a limit by that time on Saturday.  Time to run to my favorite shallow areas, I put together a pretty quick limit and culled once by about 11am.  I caught several more keepers that day, but they were all 13″ fish and I could not improve my weight, very frustrating not to get any quality bites.  Hindsight, I wish I would have started shallow, I think I would have done a little better then 9.03lbs.  Turns out it was just good enough to hold on to Angler of the Year, but I got edged out by Corey Brant in Match Fishing, nice job Corey!

Now it’s time to turn my focus to the MN Federation Nation Tournament of Champions on Lake Pokegama in Grand Rapids.  This is one of my favorite lakes, i am excited for this event.  I really would like to win this tournament, and will be disappointed with anything less then a Top 12 finish and a return trip to Federation Nation Divisionals.

Rich
RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog