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.