Lake Minnetonka Sept. 21st. Lakes Area Bassmasters

The Lakes Area Bassmasters concluded their 2008 tournament schedule on the renown Lake Minnetonka. After a couple weeks to lick my wounds from the state tournament, I was excited and optimistic to finish the season strong and go out with a "bang". Our club launched out of Maxwell's Bay along with a few other clubs or tournament folks, as many bass boats filled the launch before 7am. Gumby and I were all set to fish, with gas in the boat, livewells fixed and in working order, and batteries charged. Our gameplan was to stay in the shallows the majority of the day, fishing lilypads and docks, and hopefully each of us would bring a limit to the weigh-in.

We started the day fishing some pads fairly close to the launch. Gumby started throwing a green buzzbait across a point and landed two keeper fish within 15 minutes of fishing. This would seem like a good sign. Hopefully the fish would continue to be aggressive throughout the day, as our plan was to fish a lot of frogs across various lilypad regions. We moved on from that spot and headed to the Narrows. The Narrows is a slow zone area that connects a few main lakes. It handles a lot of traffic during the day and we thought we could hit it early and try our hand at some pad fishing. We encountered many blowups with few hookups. I was also trying my hand at pitching a black and blue, 3/8ths oz jig and pig into the small pad openings with no success.

As we moved on, I wanted to find a spot I had fished the year before with some friends. It was an out of the way spot with a ton of pads and a current that ran under a culvert. As we were working the pads, I had a nice fish blow up on my Kermit and was hooked momentarily until it freed itself. A huge disappointment, but I continued to fish the same section of pads as oftentimes the same fish will continue to strike on repeated casts. Bam! It tried to eat my frog again, and again I failed to hook and land the fish. At that point my dad wanted some of the action so we both started to repeatedly work over this section. Bam! My dad rears back and hooks and successfully lands the big fish we were seeking. The fish is pictured above, a nice 3.54 lb fish, which I believe is his largest largemouth of the season. An added bonus was that this fish was the first fish he has ever caught on a frog. Although I was disappointed that I couldn't add this fish to my livewell, I was proud that he caught this elusive fish, especially on a technique that he has been trying all summer.

We ended up moving around a bit more, seeking other pads and fishing a few docks and milfoil. I ended up with 2 fish for the day, a bag weighing in at over 3 lbs. Gumby finished the day with 3 fish, good enough to earn a plaque for 4th place and a nice way to finish the season. Top weight was around 11 lbs 8 oz and big fish weighed in at a healthy 4 lbs 11 oz. That fish was awesome and really showed what Minnetonka could produce. Concensus showed that it was an overall tough day on the water, with only 3 limits brought the table. Most of the fish were caught in the pads with topwater lures. If I could do my day over again, I would have just stuck to the pads all day and really worked them over until I landed my five fish. It was a fun tournament to end the season, and my dad and I had a successful year in the fact that we fished almost all the tournaments and had a great time. I'm looking forward to next year and some new bodies of water.

Only one tournament remains: Lake Waconia with Buzz for a Fisher's of Men Open event. Each tournament Buzz and I have been steadily increasing our weights. We we able to get out and prefish the lake last weekend, and we think we have a decent gameplan. This will be the pinnacle of our season and I know both of us are ready for a great showing. As I look at it, this is the main event, with all other tournaments having prepared us for this upcoming tournament on Oct. 4th. Plus, my birthday is the following day, so it would be nice to place in the money as an early birthday present to myself. I'm looking forward to wrapping up the season in style and success. Check back after the fourth for some hopefully good news with regards to this final tournament.

Team BassAckwards... "We're the one's hooked!"

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MN Bassmasters State Tournament, Miss. River Pools 4 & 5

I was extremely excited to be a part of this year's MN Bassmasters State Tournament held in Wabasha, MN on the Mississippi River Pools 4 and 5. With approximately 150 anglers trying to fish their way to be in the top 12 and move on to next year's divisional tournament, I knew the competition would be fierce and the fishing tough. What I didn't account for was the unforeseeable cold front that came in the night of the tournament, dropping the air temps from 80s-90s to the chilly 50s. According to those that prefished the weekend before the tournament, the bite was on and the river was producing nice fish, some in the 5+ lbs range. I was excited to get back to the river, as my last tournament was successful in the fact that I brought my limit of 4 fish to the scale, weighing in at 10 lbs-14 ounces. My hopes were that I would have comparable success, and at the very least, bring a limit to the scales on each day of the two day tournament.

As a non-boater for this tournament, I was paired each day with a fellow angler who brought their boat for the tournament. The first day I fished with Trevor Rogge, a member of Classic 7 Bassmasters, and we fished out of his Nitro. Trevor has wealth of tournament fishing experience, fishing the Bassmasters Open tournaments across the country, and he nearly qualified for a run in the Elite Series, which is the top professional circuit. He had success prefishing, so I was hopeful that we could get on some fish early, fill our limits, and then go hog hunting the remainder of the day. The morning started off cold and I was thankful I brought enough warm clothes to weather the day. We started the day blasting to a backwater area that I fished in my last tournament. I was glad and excited to be in this area, as this is where I caught my four fish a few weeks back, so I was familiar with the techniques I used previously to bag my fish. Logs, trees, laydowns, and lily pads were our first targets. My sticks carried an All Terrain rattling green jig and craw trailer, a black and blue Zoom Brushhog, a Spro Bronzeye Kermit, a Booyah white buzzbait, a white tube/creature mix bait, and a wacky rigged All Terrain stickbait.

We started the morning fishing laydowns along the bank of the river in backwater country. These spots looked great from a visual standpoint and I have had success in this first area before. We mainly were pitching jigs in and around the cover hoping to find some fish over the 14" size restriction. We steadily made our way deeper into the backwater areas, catching a few short fish along the way. Eventually, Trevor hooked into a couple that went into the box, and I finally caught my first fish for the box on an All Terrain wacky rigged stickbait, pitched close to the shore and away from cover. As the backwater area opened up, there were less trees layed down and more lily pads. We started to work frogs aggressively across the top of the vegetation, inciting many blowups but no hookups. It was as if the fish were just not committing themselves to eating our baits. We stayed in the backwaters all day and Trevor ended up catching his limit of 4 fish for a total weight in the 7 lb range. I caught one more keeper fish on the white creature/tube bait for a total weight of 3.66 lbs. I definitely had my work cut out for me for day 2 and would need a huge bag to be in contention for the top 12.

Day 2 started out terrible. We were on a fog delay until 10:15am, which sacrificed over 3 hours of fishing. My partner for the day again was from the Classic 7 club, Rocky Kaupp, and we were fishing out of his Ranger boat. Again, we made the same run to the same backwater area as the previous day. On the way to our first spot, Rocky hit a wingdam and spun his hub, which means that the prop was loose and we could not reach a speed above 3 mph. This was a total downer, not only because he hurt his boat, but because we were going to have to leave our spot about an hour and a half early just to make our weigh in time. Also, this eliminated any chance to move to other locations on the river. So, we made the best of it and started fishing the shoreline laydowns and eventually the pads. Again, we had a ton of blowups on our frogs, with almost no commitments. Rocky and I both ended up with one fish for the 4 hrs we fished. Rocky is a great guy and he took the motor problem in stride and was a fun fishing companion. My one fished weighed in at 2.37 lbs for a grand total of 6.03 lbs and 3 fish.

Overall, my tournament was a lack luster performance as far as fishing goes, but it was a great time to get to know my club members better and meet some new guys in the other clubs. Also, it was fun to finally fish out of a bass boat and have a little bit more room in the back of the boat. I ended up in 108th place out of 149. I actually was the top fisherman from my club, which helped my pride a little bit, considering I was our 5th man and not a part of the team competition. It was fun to fish the river again, and I can't wait to eventually get my own boat so I can have a little more control of where and how I want to fish. My goal is to be a part of the state tournament team next year, so I will continue to try to do well in our club tournaments and earn my way onto the team.

Sorry for the delay in posting. I will have another update soon that highlights my final club tournament on Lake Minnetonka.

Thanks for reading!

Team BassAckwards..."We're the one's hooked!"

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Think Big Fish!

Hello Everyone! This Thursday and Friday, Sept. 4th and 5th, I will be competeing in the Minnesota Bassmasters State Tournament. This year's location will be Mississippi River Pools 4 & 5. We will be staying down in Wabasha, MN for this 2 day event. Please think Big Fish for me, as I need to place in the top 12 out of 200 in order to earn a spot at next year's divisional tournament.

Thanks!

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