Gull Lake | Rich Lindgren's Bass Fishing & Bassin' Blog

Sorry for the delays between blogs, been one of those summers, I intend to back fill a few entries as well.

I qualified for this event through the MN TBF TOC on Mille Lacs Lake in late July. The event ended up being 51 total boats from Minnesota and Wisconsin, in true Pro/Am style money tournament with top boater and co’s from each state qualifying for the TBF National Championship next spring.

Monday thru Wednesday were off limits, so I practiced a few hours late on Thursday after work and Friday until the 3pm off the water deadline. I practiced mostly off shore in practice and felt pretty solid about morning topwaters, transitioning to flipping weed edges to catch a quick 11-12lbs+ and then I would go shallow for a couple upgrades.

Example of quality Whopper Plopper Fish from Practice

Day 1, I hit several spots only to catch a few small fish on deep weed edges and losing one decent fish rushing a fish to the boat. My non-boater had a few decent fish as well. On about our 10th stop we finally hit a group of fish to fill our limits and I got one decent 2.5lb fish. It was about 2hrs left in day and I decided I need to try to find some fish shallow. After a few stops, I finally hit a short stretch of docks where I busted a 3.5lb and 5.25lb pair of studs for Gull on a 1/2oz Okee Craw BassTEK Tungsten Jig, tipped with a Strike King Menace grub.

With about 90 mins to go, I had 3 of the right fish and two 14″ fish. I worked my butt off, caught lots of fish, but only upgraded once for a few ounces, and my co-angler got one decent upgrade as well. My day one weight ended up being 14.9lbs, which is solid for Gull, but wasted opportunity with a 5lbr in the bag and not being able to catch a few more of the numerous 2lb class fish that reside in Gull. I was in 10th place and 3lbs off the lead going into Day 2.

Day 2, the fish came quicker, but they were even smaller for me, my co-angler once again caught fewer fish, but seemed to get a few of the right bites on a Flick Shake Green Pumpkin stick worm, while I continued to flip a Tube Craw on a 3/4oz Tungsten weight.

I went shallower a little earlier on day 2, but took longer to connect with quality fish, but I ended up getting on a stretch where I culled everything in my well in about 45 minutes. Then I bounced around hitting key docks and got 2 smaller culls in the closing minutes. I ended up with a touch over 15lbs, which propelled me to 4th place and a decent finish and check. The leader only weighed 14lbs on day 2, which left the door open, and made me realize even more, I missed my chance to win on Day 1.

Gull Lake Bass Fishing — 4th Place TBF Gull Lake

In retrospect, I think if I would have committed to shallow for 8hrs each day, I think I would have gotten the extra bites to be right there for the win, but that is fishing and easy to see looking back.

Big Fish Setup, 1/2oz Okee Craw BassTEK Jig, 20lb Fluoro, Dobyns DX705C

This is the end of my tournament season, hoping to get in some fun fall fishing in the coming weeks and fish well into November like last year.

Maybe find more giants like this…..

Talk about a blog long overdue, this tourney ended the Friday after Labor Day. After a disappointing BASS Nation Divisional event on Vermillion, I was anxious to get back on the path back to BASS Nationals and possible another shot at getting to the Bassmater Classic.

After winning the TBF TOC on Gull earlier in the year, I did have a little confidence coming into the tournament. I only practiced 3 of the 4 official days allotted, saving some PTO time and being home for first day of kid’s school. All in all, I had a pretty rough practice, spending the majority of my time deep and checking occasional shallow areas, I think I only got a single 3lb bite in 3 days of practice. While not a great practice, it was actually better then the practice I had for the TBF and that turned out just fine.

I had one area that I was pretty confident that would produce a decent limit on a topwater bait or by flipping the edges of the deep weed edge. On Day 1, that spot gave up a few small fish on chatterbaits and crankbaits, but nothing that I was looking for. The day continued, mixing in some offshore with some shallow and ultimately all my fish came shallow skipping a 3/8oz Bluegill Colored BassTEK Tungsten Flipping jig around boat docks. My best weighed 11.32lbs and had me hovering somewhere around 33rd place out of 188 anglers and after 2 days the top 20 would advance to Lake Guntersville in April 2016.

Going into 2nd day, I felt like I need to have about 12lbs to move up enough to make the top 20. I started out offshore and alternating again and did get once decent keeper flipping a tube craw in 8ft of water, but ultimately leaned on the dock pattern most of the day to fill a limit and catch a few decent 2lb fish. About mid day, I caught a fish punching a shallow milfoil mat around some wood and it was a nice upgrade at the time. I took that as a clue and ran that pattern for a bit and culled most of my early limit almost calling my shots for about 90 minutes. Check out the following video to see some of the fish caught this way. These punching fish all came in Big Bite Bait Tube Craws in Green Pumpkin with a 3/4oz BassTEK Tungsten Flipping Weight, 20lb Sunline Fluoro on a Dobyns 765 Flipping Stick.

Havaing a box full of 2lbr mid day on this pattern, I was feeling decent knowing I really just need one more good bite. I spent the rest of the day shallow chasing that bite, but it never materialized. I ended up with 10lbs on day 2 and remained in about the same place as I stared the day, 34th place. Kudos to the angler that caught them and are moving on to Guntersville. I fished very clean and my weight reflected what I caught during practice, just never got those key bites I did in the TBF tournament earlier in the summer. One slight bright spot, is our bass club Twin City Bass won the team portion of the event for the 3rd year in a row and Brian Bengston is moving on to Guntersville to represent our club.

This was pretty much my last tournament of the year, except for participating in a Minnesota Match Fishing event that was a lot of fun as well. I did do quite a bite of fun fall fishing in October and early November, I will have some videos coming soon on that, in the mean time, check out my Instagram account to see some of my best catches and 15 second fish catch videos.

Drop a comment if there are things you would like to see on my blog this winter.

Thanks!
Rich

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