Hack Wins FLW Angler of the Year

You heard it here 1st. Greg Hackney caught 14-06 at the Potomac today which will put him in the Top 10 Cut and seal the deal for Hack to have the points to win the Land O Lakes FLW AOY for 2006.

Note: Ok it's not "official" until the final day because "Toshi" Namiki made the Top 10 as well, but gaining 7 spots on in field of 10 over Hack isn't gonna happen. If Toshi is 1st then Hack needs to be 7th or better, Toshi 2nd then 8th or better, Toshi 3rd 9th or better, Toshi 4th or worse and Hack wins, not to mention the posibility of Hack beating Toshi outright. Go Hack!

2005 Minnesota Bowfin Grand Champion Announced

This is the Press Release from the MN Bowfin Club to the Brainerd Dispatch:

Owatonna angler wins 2005 Bowfin Championship
Alan R. Stienbauer is the Grand Champion of the Minnesota Bowfin Club (MBC) for 2005. Stienbauer, of Owatonna, MN, was visiting relatives in the Brainerd area when he caught and released a 28.5 bowfin on Lower Mission Lake. The winning fish was taken on May 30, 2005, using a white jig/craw artificial lure in the bulrushes. Mr. Stienbauer credits his brother, local angler Chuck Stienbauer, for putting him on this pattern for bowfin. Many of the best bowfin fishermen are also accomplished bass anglers. The patterns and techniques used in bass fishing are easily adapted to catching bowfin early in the spring.

Finishing close behind Stienbauer this year were Dennis Lothspeich and Todd Berghuis, both of Brainerd, with fish measuring 28 and 27.5 inches respectively. Last years Grand Champion, Dave Maas, finished a distant fourth place with a fish of 25.5 inches.

This is the seventh year that the MBC has held it’s annual competition which is open to the public. The MBC tournament occurs each spring to see who can catch and release the largest Bowfin (dogfish). The Bowfin is considered a “rough fish,” and is not traditionally sought after by sports anglers using artificial lures. The MBC promotes fishing for these fish using artificial lures, and releasing them unharmed. Bowfin play a valuable role in the eco-system of any lake.

The MBC tournament season is held from ice out until June 15th each spring, and results are reported on an honor system. The individual reporting the largest fish each spring is the Grand Champion for that year. For a complete listing of tournament rules and registration procedures, please visit the MBC website at

Past MBC Grand Champions are:
1999 Ken Fields
2000 Chuck Fields
2001 Guy Henkensiefken
2002 Dean Sauer, and Tom Swanson,
2003 Dan Quinn
2004 Dave Maas

The BP would like to Congratulate Alan Steinbauer and welcome him to the fraturnity of Bowfin Grand Champions.

The Gar of The Bass Hole has been doing some bass tournament fishing in Korea (Scroll down to June 16th).


In other news Jerry Williams Land O Lakes FLW Pro that I fished with on Peavy Lake a couple of years ago is in 1st Place after day 1 of the FLW Tournament this week at the Potomac River. BassFan Story Flw Story

time fly's

Lets see KVD won another E-50, FLW is getting ready at the Potomac (Hope you have your Fishing Challenge Roster in) I've been busy catching hawgs and guiding others to them (Pics to come), spending time with my niece, brother, and sister IL from Florida and doing lots of family stuff. Also the first week of GEM was held at LutherDell and the 1st week at Lindesfarne, which was to be my first week, was cancelled.

I've gotta get those Fantasy Bass Fishing scores and the Bass Pundit Championship updated. Cyberfish may be in the lead, eggads! Maybe I shouldn't.

Be-lated Happy Birthday to Todd

Ahh the Baby of the family is turning 33.

Lets take a look back at some of his finest moments in life. Like this...

Todd getting psyched up for the Kennedy/Jefferson Sectional Championship Hockey Game.

Or Todd all dressed up for the Christmas pagent as a sheep.

(Yes that is Twin brother Steve on the left)

Then there was this quiet moment in the stroller with none other than Scooby Doo.


and of coarse there has to be a fishing pic. Not the one I wanted, but it was the only one handy. The Three AMaasigo's:

That's my Doggy, Erskine Lake

My final night trip to Rock may have produced a couple of doggy strikes and follows, but all I caught was Bass. So the one pictured below is my entry.

Last night I fished Erskine in open water for the 1st and last time. I caught a few bass and I'm sure it has a Toad or two, but I'd much rather fish Rock, Platte/Sullivan, Bulldog, Long, or even Peavy. The one good thing was that I got to work on flipping and pitching to wood which should help me at Horseshoe Chain.

MN Bowfin Contest's Final Day

That's right June 15th at Sundown is the end of the annual MN Bowfing Club Tournament.

Try as I did it just wasn't my year at least I don't think it was. The numerous trips to WI and cool, rainy May and early June kept me and the Big Dogs away from one another. I think I might have lost 1 really nice one in May on Platte. I saw lots of small ones this year. A couple of times in the past week I've tried to catch a doggy that was being swarmed by it's fry ball, didn't get either and neither were that big. The only one I've caught this year was this past Sunday on Mille Lacs, it went 25.5 inches. Here it is...

As you can kind of see, it had a vibrant lime underbelly and a very prounced false eye at the tail. I got it from under a dock on a jig after it had had chased several other offerings and then went right back under the dock. I don't think it will be good enough to take the 2006 Grand Championship.

I'll probably hit Rock tommorrow and give it one more last minute shot.

Some more South Korean Bass Action Blogging over at the Lost Nomad.

5000

I guess I'm not too excited about this milestone cause I thought I would be over 10,000 by now. For whatever reason about 3 months ago my blog traffic started lowering and leveled off with about 25 or so unique visits a day at most.

I definitely haven't been publishing like I was when there was ice on the lakes and maybe that explains it. I sure would like to see more bass bloggers. That reminds me I need to update my blogrolls, along with the Fantasy Bass Fishing HQ, and get the Fishing Log Blog up to date.

Oh well fishing takes priority over blogging for now anyway.

Twenty +

Ahh finally one of them Platte/Sullivan toads decided to eat my lure. I got it off a dock in Platte. The Docks were not really going all that well. I fished a bunch of docks and got the "Twenty" yes but beyond that I only got two 15's and missed one nice fish at the boat (17-19er). Also had a 5lb pike eat my jig and got a couple of other hammerhandles.

As it got dark I tried some slop and got a 17" a couple of pike and had a few misses.

It was a beautiful day. I didn't get out until after 4PM and then I had to come back when Lilah fell in the water and while fishing her out my line caught on the trolling motor. Would have been a great day to chase smallies on Mille Lacs , oh well.

Here's the Twenty next to a 17" which is a low 3lb fish.

of Late

Monday June 6th:
Heard about a hot smallie bite on Mille Lacs and headed out at 3:30PM to Cove Public Access. Decided to try largemouth 1st right by access. Missed several fish, caught zero. Moved to fish docks and caught a Rocky. Moved to Reeds, saw doggy no bites. Moved to Isaty's Reef, saw nothing. Moved into Isaty's Marina mouth nothing. Sun was going down 9PM decided to beat the 10PM traffic and get to ramp early; Big Mistake.

I get to access park at dock and go to car. 1 boat at ramp, 1 boat waiting. If you don't know Cove P.A. has 1 main ramp and a smaller ramp that boats like mine can land and launch at just fine. I pulled out a little bit and was gonna wait until the waiting boat was in place at the ramp before pulling out and into the 2nd ramp. As the boat that was loading was just about to pull forward, a guy who was at the dock runs to his truck jumps in and starts backing towards the ramp area right behind the guy that was waiting and now backing into the ramp. This yahoo ends up backing right in front of me and so I roll down the window and tell him I was next in line. He says to me, "Settle down" and continues backing up and then add's "I was before you." BS it's who is in their truck and established position with "in line" with the truck that determines who gets the ramp when, not who landed the boat first. He proceeds to back right in front of the second ramp and block the space, get out of his truck and run down to the main dock.

I was mystified by this moron, what was he doing now? So I get out of my truck and go to look for him. The guy loading his boat was quick and started pulling up from the ramp and Moron Man comes hustling off of the docks towards his truck. I point out to him that he was blocking an access, the access I was gonna use. Moron Man says, well why didn't you park your boat over there? I didn't even bother to answer that when I pulled up to the dock not a single boat was on the ramp and only when I was tying up did a trailer back down. Anyway you don't block access to an access, WHAT A FRIGGEN MORON!

As Mr. Moron is backing in I pull out and put my trailer in the water. As I get my boat I notice that the 3 people with Mr. Moron are doing nothing to help him load the boat, What is with that. I get my boat and pull it out just after Mr. Moron pulls his boat out and pull into the spot I had parked in for getting the cover on and boat ready for trailering.

I get out of the truck and start preparing things when the guy next to me starts pulling his truck out; it was getting quite dark at this point. As he started turning his trailer around my trailer I noticed it would be close, but he was going slow and it looked like he had room if he was being careful. He kept movingly slowly and was almost past the end of my trailer when he cut the wheel sharper sped up and ended up clipping my back tail light. The light holder bent and the lights still worked but he broke the side red light shield along with part of the black plastic light housing. The guy and his friends were very apologetic and rectified the situation immediately. Personally, I hold Mr. Moron responsible because if he was not such a TOTAL MORON I would have been gone by then.

Tuesday June 7th:
Went down to watch thunderstorm pass to the North. Caught some nice Gills and Pumpkinseeds off the dock. Was quite windy out of W SW.

5PM Eventually went out in boat to fish docks and in North Bay. Started on Rock Inlet Bay Point Docks, missed a good bite, got a nasty backlash that took a while to work out, caught a small bass, then had to run home cause nature was calling. Wind had shifted to NE and it was cooling down.

Had dinner, went out to PRO Bay North and went in by Pontoons going West. Got a couple as I headed to the PRO. At Pro got a bunch of bites, working into river as it got dark and missed one.

I'll be back out in a little bit.

BP's Koronis Tournament Report

Now that is one beautiful smallie. Hit in a rain storm over a flat 1n 6-10ft of water on a Frenzy Pop Bullfrog Color. The Report is at Tourny HQ or click on title of this post.

Bass Tournament on Platte/Sullivan

Today the Range Bassmasters MN BASS Federation club had a tournament at Platte/Sullivan and of coarse I had to make it to the weigh in to see how they fared. Originally I was gonna "mock" fish against them but I was too tired from Koronis and slept in.

The Range Bassmasters is a Brainerd Area Club and has Steve Quinn of In-Fisherman as member. Other notables in the club are Bill Bongs, Brian Brown and I recognized a couple of other guys, but don't know their names. It was nice to see a few teens in the club and even a woman or two. It looked like there were about 10-12 boats.

The tournament was won by Emmet Smith who had a 5 fish 16lb+ bag and many of the bags were 12lb+.

This was Big Bass:

caught by Tyler Malloy. I believe the bass was 4lb13oz???

Brandon Jedlenski with another 4lber.


Here's a couple of more Platte/Sullivan Specials:
Perry Alfords with a fish that had to be a 4lber.

A typical P/S 3lber. Lots of those were weighed in.

BP's Notes: Surprisingly, not a single 5lber came in and I've yet to catch one since opener. Where are the Super Toads? I did get a couple before the bass opener and some guys reported losing large fish in the thick stuff. Maybe it's post-spawn and the fish just didn't have the feedbag on yet. All in all lots of 17-18inch Platte/Sullivan specials. The post weigh-in environment reflected a tournament where people caught fish and had a lot of fun on the water. The top sack of 16lbs is very impressive when you consider it is 2 people fishing out of the same boat for 5 fish limit separate weights.

I didn't hear much talk about "the rice," which is a bit of a surprise because their are some good beds forming this year. But then again I haven't found em there either.

If anyone from Range or who knows these guys wants to let me know names or wants to tell about the tournament than leave a comment.

Fish Pics

If you want to look at some of my most recent catches than click. I have stories coming on the MN Fishing Openner and the conclusion of the Bass Openner with Cyberfish but if you want to see the pics now than feel free.

Kevin Van Damage

This guy may not win E-50's but he sure kicks butt in the first round. Last year he was the overall champion and it looks like it will be a repeat.

Check the TOAD!



Story from BassFan here and Bassmaster here.

Another Look!

11-13 is what she weighed anchoring a 24lb sack.

I don't feel like blogging...

I feel like fishing!