Upgrades in the BP Derby...

Lakeview Church Eddy's Launch 6/17/08

For the 2nd year in a row Lakeview Community Church and Immanuel Lutheran Church got together for a launch trip on Mille Lacs out of Eddy's. Dad spearheaded the effort and it was a lot of fun. This year featured the 5 F's: Fellowship, Food, Fishing, Fun, and Film. We had burgers, turkey burgers, hot dogs, baked beans, bars, chips and pop. The food was a nice way to kill time until the prime time for getting bites.
Katie Hayes caught the 2nd Walleye of the day and it was a keeper. The protected slot on ML this year is 18" to 28".
We fished on Eddy's Flagship which is the biggest launch on Mille Lacs. I think we had 26 people total.

I had a bite right away when I was rigging up Dad's rod. Unluckly there was no slack in the line so when I picked up the rod it pulled the hook right away from the fish. We really didn't have anymore action until after 8PM. One of the lady's went to use the restroom and she got a bite when she was in the facilities. Another person ended up reeling in her fish, but she got to keep it. The youngest fisherperson, Katie Hayes, caught the 2nd fish. Dad caught 2 walleye's that were to small and Don Weinmeister caught 3 eye's. The boat got around 4 keepers, 6 that were to small, and 3 that were to big. I ended up with the skunk.

Even though we took this launch in the middle of June, we were fishing the exact same spot we fished the 1st launch Dad and I went on last year on May 16th.

FLW Fantasy Bass Fishing Near Miss

At the FLW Fort Loudoun-Tellico tournament my Dad's fantasy team had 5 guys in the top 20, but 3 of them were on the wrong side of the Top 10. His lowest placing angler was Dan Morehead at 89th, so his total line up was quiet strong with 7 in the top 50. Because of FLW's sucky scoring all of this doesn't mean a thing in the big picture unless he lucks out and hits exacta's. My line up which is nowhere near as good could beat out Dad's by a mile with one exacta.

I think Fort Loudoun-Tellico is going to see the highest scores yet for FLW FBF because from what I have seen of the top 10, a number of favorites made the cut.

Pre-fish Big Birch

I am grateful that my partner for the next Bass Snatcher tournament Barry was willing to take me out to Big Birch to do a little pre-fish. It is quite helpful to get a feel for a lake so I can know what to bring and what to leave. Barry fished the lake one other time this year and really got into em, so he was enthusiastic about our prospects. Last night was quite cool and that might have had something to do with the fact that we hardly found any fish in his primary areas. The first few hours this morning were quite slow. We ended up seeing quite a bit of the lake and I'm not really sure how much of what we did today will help us out tournament day. I suppose I should be encouraged that I did catch a keeper, one that might have been a keeper, and I shook off a few keepers as well as seeing some. Unfortunatly we did not crack the smallie code. I will be somewhat surprized if I catch a smallie, but you never know.

One thing I like about the lake is that we will probably be fishing some area's that call for slop frogs. If the fish are in that stuff come tournament day than I think I could do pretty well and have a lot of fun. I am a little unsure just how much the swim jig will come into play but I do plan to throw it. I actually played around quite a bit with a texas rig today but I will not have a rod for this on tournament day.

Barry has a big Ranger walleye boat, so I really don't have to worry about pairing down my equipment to much. Today I only had four rods, but I will probably double that come tournament day because the passenger rod storage area can accomodate it.

We did not run into any pike, dogfish, or carp which is maybe a bit of a surprize cause with the water we covered I would have expected to come across them all.

Based on today, I think getting a limit could come really easy or be really hard depending upon the mood of the fish. Barry assures me there are a lot of bass in the lake, but today did not really reflect that so much. If today had been tournament day, I doubt I would have gotten a limit. Hopefully I learned a few things and can make the proper adjustments.

This week...

I will be somewhat busy this week. On Monday I am heading out in the morning to pre-fish Big Birch lake with my partner for that event. Then in the evening my friend, Operation Iraqi Freedom vet Pete Kimmer, and his dog Sandy are coming up for a few days of fishing. He just bought a boat and I think we are going to try it out on Mille Lacs for both eyes and smallies. Tuesday night we are going on a launch out of Eddy's on Mille Lacs with Lakeview Community Church. I am not sure how long Pete plans to stay but my guess is that he will be here till Thursday. I will not fish Friday in order to rest up and prepare for the tournament on Saturday.

Kevin Van Dam...

...IS THE MAN. After finishing in 2nd last week at the Wheeler Lake BASS Elite Series stop KVD went on to win at Kentucky Lake leading wire to wire. It is his second tour victory of the season, his 4th victory on the 3 year old Elite Series Tour, and his 14th Top finish with BASS. He also took over the points lead in the Angler of the Year race with 3 stops left.

There is a reason why he is my fantasy team captain.

The computer issues made picking my FLW Fantasy Fishing line ups a chore, but at least I was able to figure out a way to do it. For a few minutes there it was looking like picking the team I wanted was going to be a near impossible task with the page scrolling issues I have. FLW has a feature on the angler selection page where you can search for an individual angler one at a time and that was how I was able to put together my roster of choice.

For right now the computer issues are keeping me from updating the Derby Standings on the sidebar and adding those BassNblogs to the blogroll. PITBudinski!

BassNblogs

Thankgoodness for the Blogger autosave, or else this entry was a gonner thanks to my computer problems.

Haulin' Bass: "THE" Bass Fishing Blog This blog from ? has been around since Dec 2007.

Fishing the Trail(TN) This blog by David Gnewikow (Geneva-Ko) is pretty much a tournament fisherman blog and it is a very good read. He has a main website called DavidGfishing.com He has been blogging since Jan. 2007. I wonder if he and TN BassNblogger Billy Harris square off often? I bet they do as DG fishes the Weekend Series.

Speaking of Billy Harris, I believe he is fishing as an AM at the BASS Elite Series at Kentucky Lake, so hopefully will get a blog about it.

Bassluresreview.com(PA) It would seem the main aim of this blog is in it's name but there are also fishing blogs that aren't a specific product review.

Another Minnesocold BassNblog

Fishinghype.com This is the website of MN Pro/Semi-Pro Brian Brown. He is blogging about his tournament experiences this year at least in a minimal way. He just fished the Bass Weekend Series at Le Homme Dieu and finished strong.


(for links go to BassNblog MN Blogroll in the right column, sorry but due to computer problems in post linking is hard for me to do)
Check out MN BassNbloggers: Hellabass, Josh Douglas, and Bass Fishing the Midwest for their Le Homme Dieu blogs.

MN BassNblogger Bob fished the Silverado on Green as an AM...

BassAckwards blogged his weekend too...

Platte/Sullivan Report at the BP Fishing Log Blog...

Farm Island Tournament

Saturday, June 7, 2008

I met my partner Herman a little before 5:30PM in Pine Center. Pine Center is only about 10 miles straight North of the house and it was cool that Herman met me somewhere familiar. We loaded my gear into his 20.5" Ranger Dual Console and were off. I soon learned that Herman was about the nicest guy you would ever want to meet. This is his 27th year as a Bass Snatcher so he told me lots of things about the club. He used to be heavily involved in the Minnesota Federation before it was the Federation Nation and had lot of stories to tell from his involvement. He fishes the club for fun and fun is what we had.

I think we were boat #4 on take off and we were the first ones to head South on Farm Island Lake. We ended up starting on the SE shore of Farm Island. It was a sandy area with some weed growth towards shore. It was calm so I went with the Zoom Super Fluke. As we were working the shoreline Herman had a good fish take his spinnerbait but throw it half way to the boat. Just after that, I had a swirl on the Fluke but my hookset came up empty. This was my first time throwing the Fluke this year and I didn't use it much last summer when I hardly fished at all, so I was a bit rusty. Not long after this, the Fluke disappeared and I set into an 11inch fish. We have a 12inch minimum. I caught another 11" off the end of a dock. We worked the whole East shore of Farm Island but didn't have a keeper to show for it.

From Farm Island, we headed West a little way and went to a protected shoreline. I think Herman said there were normally reeds in this area but just like Sullivan Lake, the reeds in Farm Island are almost non-existent this year. The area was sandy bottom with some weeds. Something came to the surface and left some bubbles. Herman had me cast over there with the Fluke. I worked it slow and sure enough, my big bass of the day picked it up and I got her in. A little way down the line Herman got on the board. We eventually worked ourselves out of the weeds so we headed farther West. We were going to fish some emergent weeds at the mouth of a slop bay East to West. As we pulled in another Bass Snatcher boat pulled up to the West thus cutting us off from fishing the shoreline unless we wanted to fish used water. We worked the emergent vegetation which looked perfect for the Horny Toad. Herman got his 2nd keeper here but that was all we got on two passes.

We went somewhere to the North and I lost a Fluke to a Pike.

From there we went back to our starting spot and I started catching some dink bass on the Fluke. There was a 13"-14"keeper up on a bed but I could not get it to go. We then pulled out a little deeper and I got my 2nd keeper on a Blue/Black Monsoor Swim Jig with Junebug Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw trailer. I got the fish jigging the lure, not swimming it. We fished a cabbage bed without any luck. Before we were off to the North end of the lake Herman made me a sandwich.

We headed to the access bay and fished some emergent vegetation where I got my 3rd keeper. We moved off the emergent veg. and onto a flat with docks. I think I got 2 more keepers on this stretch and Herman got his final keeper of the day.

I am not sure where on the lake we went next but it was a good looking area where there were the remnants of a pencil reed bed. We had zero luck in the old reeds, but we really were fishing it wrong with horizontal presentations instead of pitching a jigNpig. We worked out way onto a weed flat and I broke a fish off at the knot so it may not have been a pike.

Next, we headed to the best looking water of the day. It is a bay where emergent vegetation lines water with some depth leading to a weed flat with rice and pads. We worked the sweet looking emergent vegetation but only drew fish in one spot. I got my limit fish on the Fluke and Herman caught two shorts. Eventually, we got to the flat which had the wind blowing in on it and I switched to the Blue swim jig. I got 2 fish to cull and missed one really good fish. We worked our way off the flat to where there was an old ugly orange runabout that had been half sunk in the previous day's heavy winds. The motor was fully submerged and the left front of the boat was up on the dock damaging both. The scene was quite a mess.

Time was running short so we ran into the access bay and worked more of the emergent vegetation off which I had got 1 keeper earlier. We got a few dinks on the stretch and I think Herman might have missed a keeper on a jigNpig. At the end of the emergent vegetation, there was a pretty good size chunk of wood in the water and I told Herman to try that. He didn't get anything but I noticed a smaller piece of wood quite a bit further in towards shore so I cast my swim jig at it. Sure enough, I got my last bass of the day, a fat 12.25" that didn't help me. We worked out way back a little on the emergent vegetation than called it a day.

Results:
I caught my 6 Fish limit for 9lbs 8ozs which put me in 16th out of 28 anglers. My big fish was 2lbs 7oz. The winner was our club President with 14lbs15oz and the big bass was only 3lbs 8ozs. Herman finished 27th. 20 limits were caught.

Dogfish

6-10-08 Monday
I hit the water a little after 6PM. It looked like it was going to rain, but it didn't. There was a pretty stiff breeze out of the West when I first put in, but by the time I was done on the docks it had lightened considerably and the sun came out. Towards dark it got calm.

The plan was to catch some quality bass off the Big West Bay South shore docks primarily with a jigNpig with a possible Fluke thrown in here and there. I put in at the Platte Lake access and put the trolling motor down right away headed west. I missed a bass on the very first dock. I didn't have my reel dialed in and my pitching form was quite rusty from a lack of practice and I was undoing a backlash when the fish picked up the jig. I didn't get a good hookset, but I did see the fish as I pulled up and it was a solid 15" or so. I continued to move West without a whole lot going on except having the claws bit off the jigs craw probably by a pike. I eventually got down to my milk run and missed a pike on a bubblegum Super Fluke. On the very last dock I got 2 dink bass on a Blue/Black Monsoor Swim Jig with purple/wht grub. I worked into the weed flat with the swim jig and then drifted back with the wind throwing the purple Berkley Frenzy Popper in the sparce reeds and rice. I had what were probably a couple of small pike show at the Popper but they did not hook up. After a while of working the flat with nothing to show I decided to hit the North side of the Big West Bay where there is rice and pads.

I started by throwing a white Horny Toad, but had one of the legs get bit off. I got nothing in the emerging rice and pads and eventually drifted over to some fine looking green bullrushes. At the back end of the bullrushes I had a solid take on the swim jig by what felt like a good fish but it got off. I worked the North shore a little bit more without any action. The sun was getting low now and I headed to the docks on the point of the Big West Bay South shore. I didn't get anything from the docks but pulled a 16" from between the first and 2nd dock. There are now 3 docks off the tip of this point. I continued to work my way around the point into Channel in bay. I was throwing the wht. Horny Toad when I had a solid blow up that cut off the last leg. I fished the Toad with stumps and got a 15.5" at the NW cut.

I threw the purple Frenzy Popper at the cut and had something wake behind it. I slowly worked the popper and sure enough it bit and it was what I thought, a dogfish. I let him fight it out then I netted it. It went 24" and I released it back to get bigger. Soon after that I caught a 15.5" bass on a pumpkinseed Horny Toad. I was having trouble with the bait keeper on the Horny Toads so I switched to a Black/Chart Nose River2Sea BullWa Frog. I got a 13" bass on that and had a couple of other hits from small fish or pike. It was getting dark and the mosquito's where awful so I called it a night without heading to the PRO.

6 Bass, 1 Dogfish, 0 Pike

I will have a full Farm Island Tournament blog once I know what my final place of finish and official weight was. I did catch a 6 fish tournament limit, but it was small maybe the smallest limit of the tournament. I think I lost a couple that would have helped me out, but as they say that's fishing. Whatever, I had a lot of fun and my partner Herman was the nicest guy you would ever want to meet.

I still had a little fishing in me after the tournament so after resting for a couple of hours I headed to Rock Lake to fish the RPRO. I got skunked, didn't even have a bite. I ended up packing it in early but it was a little to late for me to put in at another lake. Next time I fish Rock, I will need to bring cranks, texas rigs, jig worms, drop shots and jigs and have the Vexilar on the bow.

Mille Lacs Report 6/9/08 Today Sunday was a nice day with light wind so I decided to head out to Mille Lacs. By the time I got there at 5pm it was overcast and getting ready to rain which was fine with me because there was a lot of Cottonwood cotten on the water. I fished out of Isle Bay and started out by hitting some docks that can be good at spawning time. I was in a pretty good groove casting to the docks but I wasn't getting any action. After hitting more than 10 docks I finally had a nice fish follow my bubblegum Super Fluke but it didn't hit it. It had stopped raining by now. I then tried a watermelon tube and came up empty. I switched to a white Strike King Zero (Senko) and the smallie took it, but I came up empty on the hookset except for getting caught up on the boat lift. Had I hooked the fish it could have wrapped me up pretty good in that boat lift.

The space between docks was getting wider so I decided to throw out a white with Chart. nose Rapala Subwalk between docks. Almost immediately I was rewarded with a solid 18.25" Sally Smallmouth. Not long after that I had another hit on the Subwalk but it got off pretty much right away. On the next dock I connected with a 16.25" on the Zero. Not long after that between docks I nailed another 16.25" on the Subwalk. I ran some more docks and worked in between with the subwalk and saw 2 fish that would not commit. The action slowed so I decided to head North to hit a reef that has been good to me in the past. I got out there and the buoys were not configured like they normally have been in the past. I swear the area covered by the 4 buoys was quadrupled. I drifted with the light wind and manuevered with the trolling motor while throwing topwater and made a pass on the reef without a sign of a fish. I then made a 2nd pass with a white X-Rap and was rewarded with a 17" Sally, but I could not get anything else to go. It was about 8:30 so I decided to hit Malone Island Reef on my way back in. The sun actually came out for a bit and it sprinkled again too. I started out working topwater, then switched to the subwalk, then went back to a purple Frenzy Popper which produced a 17.25" smallie. It was getting dark and I wanted to avoid the 10pm night ban rush so I made 1 last cast and something (I think a small pike or muskie) came out of the water missing the popper. That was it and I called it a night.

1st Tournament Tommorrow

My first Baxter Bass Snatchers tournament is tomorrow on Farm Island Lake. I don't think I've even seen the lake so I will be relying on whatever my partner can put me onto. My partner has been in the club for 26 freakin years. I was 12 then. He has fished a number of tournaments on the lake and usually finishes somewhere in the middle of the pack. He thought he was going to get out on the lake this week, but with the weather being the way it has maybe he opted out. I think he probably fishes the club more for the fun of it than to qualify for the Bassmasters Classic. I guess I am in the same boat so to speak. If I can catch a limit and finish in the top half of the standings than I'll be satisfied. A bigger bass to cull out that 17.25" in the Derby wouldn't hurt.

My partner clued me in that we would be fishin shallow and looking for a reaction bite, which serves my topwater and swim jig mania's just swell. If we have to go deep I could be in trouble as that I didn't pack for that.

Computer Quirks continue

This has not been my week. Don't ask.

One of the frustrations is the way the computer is acting. I thought I might have gotten to the bottom of it thanks to McAfee (yeah right) but when I tried to remove the questionable PUP the computer would not let me do it. I tried to out and out delete it, but the stupid thing "recycled" itself. Now this PUP may not be the offender at all but I thought I was on to something. I will run another Virus Scan and hope the recycled version pops a trigger. But that will have to wait for later.

BassAckwards and Bob's Fishing Blog have tournament blogs from Tonka...

Sport and John Haynes of Bassfishing the Midwest were out catching Larry and Sally on an unnamed lake (I think I know where they were and it is somewhat close to me)...

Bassfishingdem gives a great product review of the Strike King Rage Tail Toad...

Easy Go Again

I headed out to Platte/Sullivan around 7AM. It was cloudy and threatening rain with a 5-10mph breeze out of the NE. The first order of business when I got on the lake was to see if I could find that white Rapala Subwalk that a pike bit off last week. I got into the general area where I thought it would be and there it was sitting on the bottom. I scooped it up with a rod on the very first try. The line was broken about 6 inches up from the line tie. I ended up using the Subwalk at the PRO river mouth and I caught a pike and several bass, nothing big and some of them were 10inchers. The Subwalk has to be a 4 inch bait and it is thick like a spook, but those little bass sure loved it. I did get some 12-15's on it as well. The Subwalk was working great over the emerging wild rice in the river, but I played my hand a little to long. I got about 150 yards into the river and I caught a small pike. He seemed to have frayed the line a little bit so I retied. On the very next cast I had one of those toothy lure poachers steal the white subwalk for the 2nd time. The water was deeper and there was significant grass so I was unable to relocate the lure this time. At least the lure was productive while I had it; I figure the lure cost me around 50 cents a fish which is many times less than the going rate of a Zoom Horny Toad.

Fishing Report: I fished the North Flat of the PRO first getting a 18.25" Larry on a Horny Toad with the buzzing legs bitten off. I also caught a 28.5" Pike on the North Flat, this fish put up quite a battle. I did catch a few more bass and pike on the Pro North Flat mostly on a black/blue Monsoor Swim Jig with either a purple/clear or purple/wht grub. I also got a couple on brown Horny Toads, but the little pike were really into stealing the legs and small bass were hitting it too, screwing things up. I tried to fish the purple Frenzy Popper on the North Flat but it just wasn't happening.

When I got to the PRO river mouth I did catch a 15" on the Frenzy Popper but that was it for that. To get the fish to go at the river mouth I used the white, clown, and wht/chart Subwalk. I probably got about 10-12 bass and a couple of pike as I fished from the mouth down the river to the damn. After losing the white Subwalk I got a couple of pike on the "lost jig" in the river.

From the river I went to work the W/S flat of the PRO where the breeze was blowing onto. I started with a bang landing a 18" Larry on the black/blue Monsoor jig, but that was it for the bass. I did catch about 3-4 pike on the W/S flat. I got done with my pass and was amazed to see it was 1:30pm, so I called it a day.

I caught 24 bass and 11 pike total.

Computer Quirks

My computer is back to acting funny again. Early last fall the page scrolling on the computer went haywire and some other little quirky things like changing of the on screen text size. I figured that I got some type of virus and so I updated the McAfee Anti-virus software that had lapsed. However, when I ran the virus scan nothing came up and the quirks continued. At the time I figured a few work arounds, but it was a pain in the butt. The problems would happen intermittently and they eventually went away, until last night. The problems are back again full force.

I don't think I did much blogging back when I was having the problems. I don't know what effect this will have on my blogging and I certainly hope it is not something I can pass on to others or get embedded into the blog. Wish me luck.

Bassfishingdem status: Is a second complementary blog to I am a bass fisherman by Bassfishingdem of coarse.

DNF

It was a beautiful day for Smallmouth fishing on Mille Lacs. Low 80's, partly cloudy, light wind, and I did not fish. The tow vehicle was tied up for most of the day is one excuse. Rather than make an effort to get on the water I went into Pierz for dinner is another excuse. I had to help dad unload the trailer and Explorer is another excuse. We brought my Ranger from the lake place to here where I started to unload the bed is another excuse. I did spend a little time tonight sorting out tackle is another excuse. I could have done a milk run of shore fishing spots but with the nice weather many of those spots probably got hammered today and that is my final excuse. My heart just wasn't in it to put in that effort for what would likely be little or no fish.