Bass Snatchers North Long 8/23/08

Just a bit of frustration is starting to sink in.

It was still pretty dark when I arrived at the public access a little before 6AM. It was cloudy, cool but not cold, and quite windy, which had everyone a bit put off. I brought a raincoat but didn't have a bib. I was surprised that my partner Chuck's boat is one of the smaller tiller model Rangers. I had just assumed being the hardcore bass fisherman that this guy is that he would have a pretty good sized rocket ship. The boat has a non-divided main live well and a bait well, so it is actually more of a walleye rig. When we got out on the water we discovered his aerator pump wasn't working, so he kept his fish in the bait well and I had to continuously scoop fresh water into the main livewell where my fish were throughout the day. It worked out as all my fish were alive at weigh in. The tournament blast off was at 7AM and we headed for the big water in the middle basin of North Long. North Long runs pretty much East to West and has 3 pretty round bays and is not small with almost 6000 acres of water. The way the wind was blowing I thought it would be much rougher once we got into the middle basin but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

We started on a mid-lake hump where my partner had found a school of big fish. Neither of us got a bite. We then moved to another hump close by that already had a boat on it. We saw them land one fish as they were drifting their way slowly with the anchor down. We didn't get anything but weeds.

Next, we headed to a fairly protected shoreline to try some reeds. Almost right away I lost a small fish on a swim jig and that was all we got there. Next, we moved out to the weedline and on our second stop started getting some action with the noise of Brainerd International Raceway in the background. I got my first fish on a pumpkinseed Monsoor swim jig with Zoom Speed Craw Trailer. I think I next caught one or two shorts. My partner was landing keepers on a Texas rigged craw tube and I made the switch to a black/blue JigNpig. I caught two nice keepers on my first two casts. After that, the fish seemed to shut off. The wind seemed to increase while we were on that weedline. I would say it was gusting over 30.

We then hit a couple of weedline spots on the North End of the middle basin. My partner filled out his limit and I got two more keepers plus about 4 shorts on the swim jig.

Next, we headed out to the humps we started on. The clouds had started to break up and the wind came down to about 15mph instead of 20-30mph. My partner landed his best fish of the day on the first hump, but that was it. Eventually, I filled my limit and got my first cull. We then ran back to the weedline where we had caught the bulk of our fish but didn't get anything except one short for me. I don't remember where we went next, but we got nothing there. We then headed to a cabbage weed bed on the southern part of the middle basin. I caught a couple of shorts on the swim jig and Chuck got his craw tube bit off by a pike.

With about an hour left with the sun completely out and the wind died down we tried a nice looking steep break on the North end of the middle basin without any luck. Next, we headed into Merrifield Bay (the east basin) and went dock fishing. My partner was skipping a jigNpig under the docks with a baitcaster and he was sure good at it with extremely accurate casts. Meanwhile, I was struggling to get accustomed to my new St. Croix Avid Spinning rod rigged with a bass tube jig. Chuck managed to cull up slightly a couple of times and caught a couple of fish that would have helped me. On one of the docks, I made a bad cast got hung up and broke off. This allowed me to switch up to a bubblegum Zoom Super Fluke which I am much more comfortable throwing around docks because the hook is not exposed. Chuck let me get the first crack at a likely looking spot and I caught yet another short. We kept moving around hitting docks. We came to a spot where there was a boat lift about 35 feet out from the end of a dock. Chuck had a fish pick up his bait and spit it, while I was casting into the shadow made by the lift. After a couple of jerks of the Fluke, I had on a 16.5" which was my big fish of the day. It was also the last fish of the day for us.

My partner weighed a respectable 13-7 which was only good enough for 7th. My partner had won the two previous club tournaments at North Long in 2006 and 2004 with weights in the 14's. The winning weight on this day was 15-11 with 2 other bags in the 15's and 2 bags in the high 14's.

Results:
I was pleasantly surprised to hear 11lbs 01oz with a big fish of 2lbs 9ozs. I thought I had somewhere just under 10lbs. From past history, I figured that 11lbs would get me a solid finish in the middle of the pack, instead on this day it was only good enough for 17th out of 24.

My Thoughts:
As I said before this is starting to get a little bit frustrating. I am catching fish from the back of the boat, but the size of fish I am catching just isn't cutting it compared to everyone else. This tournament I caught all but 1 fish on a bass jig which is known to be a bigger fish bait, but I caught my big fish of the day on a Super Fluke.

I now have a 15th, 16th, 17th, and 23rd place finishes. This tournament moved me ahead of the other club rookie, who didn't fish North Long. I am currently in 17th place and well back of 16th place and that is out of 22 people that have fished a minimum of 3 out of the 4 tournaments. (Place is figured out with the lowest score thrown out so only 3 tournaments at this point count for a person's points.)

Our 5th tournament is not until September 20th at Serpent Lake and the last tournament of the year is October 4 at Mission.

North Long Bass Snatchers Preview

Tomorrow is my 4th Bass Club tournament of the year and it is being held on North Long Lake just North of Brainerd. Once again this season I have never fished the lake before tournament day. Unfortunatly I did not get out with my partner on Tuesday morning when he went pre-fishing. My partner for this tournament is Chuck Steinbauer. Chuck is probably one of the most experienced and best bass fisherman in all of Minnesota. I think he has been to the BASS Federation National representing MN 3 different times. No doubt Chuck knows North Long well.

The fishing is probably going to be a lot of deep weedline stuff and a pretty good cold front is moving through. I have 6 rods rigged but don't expect to use the topwater or Froggin rod. I've got 2 rods for JigNpigs and 2 spinning rods for plastics. Fishing might be kind of tough, but I don't really know what to expect. Hopefully I will bring in a limit.

Minnesota's Mike Thompson Wins Fantasy Bass Million

Unfortunatly it isn't Mike "Cyberfish" Thompson.

BassNblog Found

Once again thanks to Hellabass, I was made aware of another BassNblog.
On the Water I believe this blog is about the Ohio Bass Federation Nation.

Federation Nation Northern Divisional

This past weekend the BASS Federation Nation held it's Northern Divisional Tournament at Lake Winnebago, Oshkosh Wisc. The Divisional determines each state's Federation Nation qualifier for the Federation Nation National Championship that determines which Federation anglers make it to the Bassmasters Classic.

Bill Ludenia, my Bass Snatcher partner at Pokegama Lake came in 5th place at the Divisional. Unfortunatly an angler from Rochester Minnesocold came in 4th place and will be the MN representative at the Federation Nation National Championship. Bill was 1lb 2oz short. In the 3 day tournament he caught 14 out of a possible 15 keepers, so basically he was 1 keeper shy of the Championship. WI has a no cull rule, so it's possible that Bill threw back that 1 keeper in the hopes of getting a larger fish.

Also fishing the Divisional were BassNblogger Rich "Hellabass" Lindgren and the Baxter Bass Snatcher who will be my tournament partner next Saturday on North Long Lake, Chuck Steinbauer. Hellabass came in a very respectable 7th just 1lb 11ozs from being the Minnesocold top stick. Chuck came in 47th in the field of 96.

I am sure Hellabass will have his tournament blogged soon.

Bummer

BassNblog Getting Reel is shutting down. Hopefully Don will start a new blog.

Fantasy Bass Fishing Last Hurrah

This weeks Forrest Wood Cup brings the 2008 Fantasy Bass Fishing year to a close. As per usual I am really into it in the Winter and Spring and then my interest falls off in the summer. Once again this year I forgot about the BASS Elite Series Super 6 Pick'em on a number of occasions and I also forgot to put in rosters for the new in 2008 Evinrude Fantasy Fishing Game that had prizes far surpassing what BASS/ESPN were doing.

In the BASS/ESPN Game I had a pretty good year, qualifying for a prize once, but I didn't find out about it until it was too late to get it. In the FutureBass.com league I ended up finishing 8th out of 70 which is a bit disappointing because I was at or near 1st at the half way point. Bass Pundit 1 didn't fair so well and finished 39th in the league.

The FLW Fantasy Fishing Challenge didn't go nearly so well. I will salvage something if Jay Yelas manages to win the the FLW Cup, but the season as a whole hasn't gone that well. I really do not care for the changes they made in the scoring in the FLW game not that it made that much of a difference, but I think my Dad probably would have been in the prizes once under the old system and overall our teams would have faired better. I will be shocked if they have the same kind of prize structure next year.

Anyway GO JAY!

GEM Camp

This week I will be volunteering with Great Expectations Ministries at one of their summer camps. This will be the first ever camp that GEM has done at The Land of Promise retreat center on Beebe Lake near St. Michael Minnesocold. I have no clue how the week is gonna go. We will be sleeping outside in tents (oh boy, sigh) and I am unsure about how meals will go other than the fact that we have to do the cooking and the cleaning (oh boy, sigh). Even in my younger days I was not much fond of roughing it, but they needed my help, I was available, and if it wasn't for GEM I wouldn't have a nice boat.

I don't know what lakes we will fish other than Beebe. I suspect we will fish Beebe on Monday and Tuesday and other lakes on Wed. and Thur.. I have caught some monster bass out of Beebe in the past. I hope getting kids into fish won't be that difficult but we are bound to be fishing waters that see a high amount of angling pressure and that has me a little concerned.

Hopefully all will go well.

GEM blog here...

New BassNblog

It is simply called Bass Blog: Not a whole lot of info is available at the site about the blog owner but he seems to be someone in the Bass Fishing industry. For some reason the Bass Blog has caused my Internet Explorer to close twice.

BTW almost all the Minnesocold BassNblogs have been really active this summer. Go to the Blogroll-O-BassNblog and check them out.

In other BassNblog news: The Brushpile is now Ted Anderson's Fish-Wrap... I'm not changing the blog roll.

David Gnewikow has a great story at Fishing the Trail I really like this BassNblog.

Fishing w/Pete Sullivan Lake

Today I was the putz holding things up. It was a bit on the warm side and I didn't want to head out in the heat. We ended up waiting till after dinner and we did not get on Sullivan Lake until after 7PM. Conditions were ideal. It was calm and overcast and things had cooled down into the high 70's.

I started us off on a reed bank that has been productive for Pike and Bass in the past. It was dead (Pete might have missed one hit and I had a weak surface strike on the black/yellow head Snagproof Bobby's Perfect Frog) although we really didn't get to fish some of the prime stuff because Pete was not really able to fish the heavier cover.

The sun was starting to get low so we headed over to the GOMH and I got a look at the bridge construction for the 1st time. It looked like they dammed up the channel and it also looked like there was a lot of work to be done. The rumor is that they are supposed to finish the project in late August. I have never seen so many lilly pads in the SW GOMH bay. I fished the frog and Pete fished a buzzbait and skitter pop. He was having major casting accuracy problems with the skitter pop. I managed to get a 14" Larry back in the slop and I missed one real good hit. Once again this was an area that used to be a consistant producer of more action than we saw. With the Sun basically down we headed to the PRO river mouth. The River doesn't seem to be flowing as strong as usual and the area has more vegitation than I remember it having in the past. My plan was to let Pete have things all to himself, but Pete's casting problems were keeping him from working the water so I decided to fish. I hit the prime stuff at the river mouth and didn't get any blow ups. I did get a 13.5" in some more marginal water. Pete decided to switch to a frog and we worked our way inside the river. I missed one blow up and that was it. Much to my astonishment the river mouth was a dud too.

We motored out of the river mouth and stopped at a good looking area about 50 yards out from the PRO river mouth. Pete had a blow up that didn't hook up while I was busy doing boat control as the wind had kicked up pretty good out of the SE. It was a wet ride back in.

Site Meter Trouble

If you are having trouble getting to the blog it apparently is Site Meters Fault.

I can view my stuff just fine,but my Site Meter widget is gone. Also I cannot view MT Bucket which I think is due to the Site Meter glitch. I am going to see if things are different under Mozilla because Tigerhawk says it's a SiteMeter/Internet Explorer problem.

Well I can view MT Bucket with Mozilla and he has a Site Meter. My Site Meter widget is not visible under Mozilla either, hmmm.

Fishing w/Pete Rock Lake

Tonight was the annual Immanuel Luthern Corn Boil. I went to that with Dad and we got home around 6pm. At the Corn Boil dad found out that Jenny had something wrong with her water flow at the house and so this was the plan: I would hook the Trophy up to the Explorer and go to Jenny's and drop off dad. I would then go and see whether Pete wanted to hook the boat up to his car or leave it on the Explorer and let dad take Pete's car home. By the time I got my gear squared away and everything in order it was after 9:30pm.

Pete was sound asleep when I got to the "Lake Place" and it took about half an hour for him to get up. Once he did, he decided that we would put the Trophy on his car and I would bring the Explorer to Dad and Pete also wanted to organize and put a bunch of stuff away in his car and the garage. As I drove to Jenny's Dad was walking back on the road and was almost to the Lake Place. I gave Dad the Explorer and walked back to the Lake Place. I grabbed my frog rod out of the boat and went down front to throw a few casts. No luck.

I headed back up and not to suprizingly Pete was not ready to go for about another half an hour. It was after 8PM when we arrived at the Rock Lake public access. Much to our surprize when we were getting the boat ready to go in the water another boat showed up wanting to put in. This made sure we got the boat off the trailer about 10 minutes quicker than we would have other wise.

Once we were on the water the plan was to use the trolling motor and fish starting at the access and go North. Unfortunatly the trolling motor didn't run. The battery meter in the trolling motor wasn't getting any juice. We tried to clean off the contacts but that didn't do any good. It was as if the battery had completely died. While Pete was working on the battery I fired up the gas motor and we decided to go out and fish without a trolling motor.

Near the access I caught a 14.5" Larry on a black/yellow head Snagproof Bobby's Perfect Frog. As the sun went down we hit several good looking area's North of the access. Pete missed a couple of hits on a Chart/red Skitter Pop. It got dark in a hurry and we headed in. We maybe got to fish for 25 minutes.

Some Fishing Tales

Monday July 28th.
Pete woke me up at about 3:30PM and asked me if I wanted to go fishing. I wasn't enthusiastic about it but I said OK. Then Pete informed me we would be going to fish Smallmouth on the Mississippi with his friend Greg Jones from Mid-West Outdoors. This perked me up quite a bit and we were out the door around 4PM.

We met Greg in St. Cloud around 5PM and headed North. Greg is a Salesmen, Editor, and TV guy with Mid-West outdoors and he is also a Mississippi River Rat. His command of the river was impressive as we ran the river at full speed even though the area we were to fish has a lot of shallow stretches. I saw a couple of eagles and a bi-plane.

I started out with a Frenzy Rattlebait, Pete tried a Strike King Rocket Shad, and Greg had on a small white buzzbait. Greg started getting some hits on the buzzbait and I switched to a swim jig. Greg kept showing us we were around fish and so I switched pretty quick to a purple Berkley Frenzy Popper. It didn't take long and I was catching fish. I think my 3rd fish was a small pike. Basically we drifted down the river until it got to dark to fish. The fish were not suicidal but the action was pretty steady. Sometimes they would nail it and other times they would just suck it in. I got the biggest smallie at just under 19 inches and that was the only one we got over 18." There was a good mix of fish between 10" and 17" plus Pete got a nice Pike. I think all but 1 fish were on topwater. I swear I casted that Popper straight into the big fishes mouth cause I didn't see it hit the water and there was no swirl but the fish was on immediately.

I had a lot of fun. Greg is a really good guy and even had an interesting story about seeing a UFO on the river that looked like a flying telephone pole. Someone was with him so he has a witness. Unfortunatly they didn't get close enough to find out what they were actually seeing but it was flying and it was big. He asked Pete if it might be something the military was doing. Pete had no knowledge of flying telephone poles used by the military.

Fishing with Pete Part 1...

Fishing with Pete Part 2...

Bass Snatchers Pokegama Tournament Report

I had a close call with a deer on the North end of Mille Lacs lake on my way North to Grand Rapids, no harm no foul. I got to Grand Rapids a little quicker than I thought I would but that was OK as my partner Bill and some of the other guys were already out in the motel parking lot. I got my gear into Bill's boat and then spent probably an hour shooting the breeze before we left.

The access we went out of is on the NW end of the lake and we headquartered out of a public beach just North of there that is right by where the Mississippi flows into Pokegama lake. Our plan was to head up the river and try to catch some big fish, but if that wasn't working to go back down into the lake and fish cabbage.

We were boat #2 out of the gate and boat #2 heading into the river. By the time we got to the spot where you can run the river at full speed, we were the #1 boat. We ran all the way past the Hwy 6 bridge to a spot Bill calls "Dogfish Corner". We started out pitching jigs and I got messed with by a small pike. I also threw some slop frogs and Zoom Horny Toads having a small pike strike on the toad. We got nothing on this spot and so we headed up the river some more to another great looking area with rice, rushes, and wood, but we could not get anything. We then made our way back down the river. The story from all the river boats was slow fishing. A few guys had some small fish. We stopped at the Hwy 6 bridge and I caught a small pike there.

Bill got his first bass in some reeds on Jay Gould Lake (at least I think that is where we were). We then headed to the lake to fish weedline/weedbeds. Bill quickly landed two keepers before I got number 1 on a watermelon tube. I don't remember if I got another keeper bass on the tube before I had a pike break it off. I put on what turned out to be a grey tube, I thought these tubes were watermelon too, but it was just the green packaging. I may have got 1 more bass off of this first spot in the lake.

Next, we hit some reeds and I missed a couple of hits on topwater. We then went to another cabbage weedline spot and Bill filled out his limit while I got to fish #4. It started to sprinkle while we were on this spot and it continued to lightly rain until the last half hour of the tournament. We headed in to try some slop and I got #5 on a Snagproof Bobby's Perfect Frog. Next, we worked some rushes and reeds and I got my limit fish on the Bobby's Perfect Frog.

Now with two limits in the well, it was decision time and we decided that our best shot for kickers was in the river and so we made our way back there. We started working the Power Plant area and I missed a bite that I probably should have caught on the Horny Toad as that I saw the fish wake towards the bait before it hit. It could have been a dogfish though. We turned a corner and started working into the wind. After quite a while of fishing, Bill landed a nice dark mid 3lb fish. A little while later he got some pike. Bill was pitching a jig into the weed edge and I was casting out the front of the boat parallel with the weed edge. A fish showed itself and so I was careful to cover the spot and I was rewarded with a 17.5" largemouth. We worked our way down the stretch several hundred more yards, then we turned around to hit it again. Now with the wind at my back, I was really able to cover the water. I was distracted by a boat running the river and took my eye off the Horny Toad and I missed a hit. A little while later I got a solid strike and landed another 17.5" in largemouth. That was the last fish of the day. I think if we would have gotten another hour in the river I could have caught some more nice fish.

Results:
I ended up with my best weight of the year so far with 6 fish for 12lbs 8ozs. I tied with a guy for weight and big fish and lost the coin flip tiebreak, so I ended up in 15th out of 25 guys. My partner Bill was 13th with 13lbs 5 ozs. Winning weight was 20lbs 3ozs and he spent the whole day in the river and didn't catch his limit fish until the last 1/2 hour. The guy in 2nd also fished the river all day. Big fish was 5lbs 10oz and there was one other 5lber caught.

Overall I had a really enjoyable time. It was nice that the cool overcast and rain kept the horse and deer flies away because I hear they can get quite bad in the river.

Bass Snatcher Pokegama Tournament Preview

Tommorrow is my 3rd tournament with the Baxter Bass Snatchers and it is at Pokegama Lake near Grand Rapids. Just like every other tournament on the schedule I have never fished this lake before. I did not get up there to pre-fish so I am going in totally blind. My partner Bill is one of the best sticks in the club and has fished quite a few tournaments on the lake with mixed success. Bill told me that we are going to be fishing the river for big largemouth and that I shouldn't expect to get a lot of bites but that the fish I do catch should be big. If the river isn't producing than we are going to have to scramble.

Since I have never been there before I don't know if there is rice in the river. If I get anywhere near rice I will fish that with a frog. I also think a swim jig and jigNpig are goint to be top offerings. Just in case the river doesn't work out, I'm bringing a couple of rods for smallmouth.

My goals for this tournament are to catch a limit, finish in the top 50%, and catch a fish over 4lbs.

Patti Scare

On Thursday July 3rd Dad and myself went down to the cities to visit with Todd, Kristen, Isabelle, and Mallory, to pick up some Model A tires, and to go to my Fishers of Men Club meeting. We were on our way back just North of Princeton when Dad's cell phone rang. We didn't get it out of his pocket in time to pick up the call, but the missed call feature let us know it was Mom. I called Mom back and she informed me that our black lab/mix Patti Lou had gotten out of the house when she left the door open and that Patti wasn't coming when called.

I do go out with Patti without a leash during the day but I keep a close eye on her. She has wandered into the woods a couple of times on me usually to chase something, but I have been able to call her back fairly quickly when this has happened. Mom was definitely upset and it was a long half an hour before we got home. When we got home Mom was in the driveway still calling for Patti. Dad and I had groceries to put inside and then I was going to go out and call for Patti too. When I got in the house I was greeted by our little dog Lilah, who was happy to see me. I was saying hello to Lilah when Patti came walking out of my bed room to welcome me home. Apparently Patti was laying on the other side of my bed and did not respond when mom called her, so Mom thought Patti had escaped somehow.

I was quite happy to see that Patti had not gone anywhere and went out and yelled to Mom who was up by the road. Mom was releaved but also a little bit torked that she had wasted at least an hour of the night being so upset and worried looking for a dog who had been in the house the whole time. The Patti scare came to a happy conclusion.

Eddy's Launch w/Dad

Tonight Dad and I went out on a Launch on Mille Lacs out of Eddy's Resort. The night was windy and a bit cool. Dad and I got the back of the boat which was packed with about 17 people. We ran up by Indian Point and fished in area's where the wind maybe wasn't quite as bad. Dad spent much of the night talking to Karen, or maybe it was Carol, who was from Cambriage and comes up to the Casino to gamble and fish by herself cause her husband doesn't care for it. I helped her get set up and she did catch a small walleye. A few weeks ago she got a 28inch walleye on an Eddy's launch. The guy next to me in the back of the boat caught a 24.5" Northern and a 23.5" walleye both of which had to go back due to Mille Lacs size regulations.

Dad and I both missed bites a couple of times. Dad caught a cigar walleye and I caught the only keeper for the whole launch (14inches.) The boat caught about 8 fish total and I think we did better than the other launch that was out. All in all it was a good time with Dad.

Mille Lacs w/Pete Tues/Wed

Yesterday was such a nice day that I agreed to go fishing with Pete one more night out on Mille Lacs. The plan was to be out there at 7:30pm to go fishing for smallmouth, but Pete didn't have the boat ready to leave until after 8:15pm. On the way we stopped to get pop and when we got to the access Pete realized he forgot his life vest and so we had to drive back down 169 to the Marathon gas station where amazingly enough they did have life jackets. By the time we finally got on the water it was getting pretty dark, so we just went right into trolling.

Right away Pete got an eater eye. A little while later Pete hooked up again, but as I was reeling in my line it somehow got caught up in Pete's. Pete managed to hand line it in. The fish was right at 18 inches so it had to go back. On the next trolling pass Pete and I both missed bites and then went a very long time without anything. Finally as we were back up on Sherman's point I got a 16" or so smallie. We trolled around to the North side of Sherman's where Pete hooked into a 24" eye. There was some weather coming in from the NW so we decided to troll our way back South. While still on the North side of Sherman's I popped a 15" smallmouth. Once we got to the South side of Sherman's Pete tied into a big fish. The wind was blowing pretty good and the boat turned funny and once again my line got caught in Pete's. I got the two lines separated quickly by cutting my line, but Pete was already trying to bring it in by hand and the fish got off. Pete was pretty frustrated and I felt bad.

The wind kicked up even more and it started to sprinkle, so Pete fired up the gas motor and we headed in sometime after 3am.

Sandy scare: Pete has a 12 year old dog named Sandy and that dog is everything to Pete. When I got home I was greeted by Patti and Lilah, but Sandy was nowhere to be found. I went downstairs and that is where she was. I called her to come upstairs and she had a hard time getting up them. She was limping and unsteady on her feet, something obviously was not right and I was quite worried. Pete checked her out and got busy on the phone trying to contact a vet that would see her right away. It did not help matters that Pete was pretty sleep deprived by this point. After talking to a couple of different vets and contemplating several options he decided to hit the sack at 7am and get up in a couple of hours and take her to the vet then. I was worn out and went to bed too.

I am not sure what time Pete got up and on his way, but I believe he took Sandy to our Vet in Little Falls. Sandy tested positive for some tick born illness that matched her symptoms and that is treatable with antibiotics. It may very well be that Sandy had the same problem that my dog Soren experienced a few years ago that gave me quite a scare. Hopefully Sandy will be fine.

Minnesocold Blogged Tournament Round UP

Hellabass at Green Lake (Spicer)...

Josh Douglas at Koronis and Green Lake(Spicer)...

Sport at Koronis and Green (Spicer)...

John Hayes at Green Lake (Spicer)...

Art Simms Green Lake (Chisago) Fishers of Men...

BassAckwards at Green Lake (Chisago) Fishers of Men...

Jason Holmer updates with 3 tournaments...

Non-Minnesocold:
Billy Harris has a blog about his Co-Angler experience at the BASS Elite Kentucky Lake...

Bass Snatchers Big Birch (Grey Eagle) Tournament

This tournament had a late start at 8am, but I still was up before 5am and out the door before a quarter after. I drove to Little Falls to meet up with Barry and his Son-in-law Joe to carpool to Big Birch. Conditions were sunny and warm enough with a NW breeze blowing about 7mph. It stayed sunny to partly cloudy throughout the day but the wind kicked up to 15-20mph at times.

We started in the West lake around an Island where Barry had found a bunch of bedding smallmouth a few days ago. I started with topwater and right away had a fish show behind the bait but it never committed. This happened twice in the first 5 minutes. The smallies had vacated the beds in this area and so we moved a little farther North on the Island. Barry caught a nice fish on a crank, but that was all we got. Next, we headed to the Upper East lake to Barry's "Honey Hole." It was a weed patch where Barry found a school of good fish pre-fishing. Barry managed to get two smaller fish on a tube.

Next, we worked a thickly weeded bullrush island. I went to use my telescoping 7'3" St. Criox Avid Flippen stick, but I had a hard time getting the rod to pull out. As I eventually got it to move a couple of maggots came up with the blank. Apparently, a fly got in there and laid some eggs making the two parts of the rod blank stick together. I did get the rod extended but didn't catch a thing.

We moved across the lake to a point with some reeds on the inside turn and I got a 13.25" and a pumpkin Monsoor swim jig with pumpkin Zoom Speed Craw trailer. From there we moved back to the West lake Island where we started and where Barry got his first fish. I got a 13.25" largemouth on a white X-Rap and jumped off a fish that was a bit bigger and also had a follow from a good fish (smallmouth???). We switched to the Island Barry's Son-in-law Joe was fishing and fished around it. We kind of wandered into the other boats hot area where Barry and I both caught a fish. The fish for me was yet another 13.25" on the white X-Rap.

Next, we fished the Eastern edge of the Island we started on. This spot featured bullrushes and reeds along a steep drop. Barry had seen lots of fish cruising this run while prefishing. I fished the area with the swim jig and started off by catching a dink and having a few small fish pull on the speed craw. As we were going along Barry got a couple of dinks and a couple of Rock Bass. I saw a largemouth that was at least two pounds pull the speed craw right off the jig, bummer.

Next, I think we went back to the East lake and didn't get a thing but one for me that was 11.75." We went back to the West Lake and fished around Joe's Island maybe catching a rock bass or two. We then headed to a weedline spot where Barry jerked up 2 keepers and then I got a 12.25" on a white Strike King Zero (Senko) fished on a mushroom head jig. We drifted the spot again with Barry getting another keeper and me landing one that was 14.25" on the Zero. We did another couple of passes but only got Rock Bass. From there we went to fish another similar weedline but another boat was on it. The days big bass, 4lbs 1oz, was caught by that boat on that spot.

Once again we headed to Joe's Island and tried to fish deep. I caught a rock bass. From there we went to the East side of our starting Island where the bullrushes and reeds were. We just about had fished the whole stretch when I got my limit fish, a 14.50" largie on the swim jig by reeds and rocks.

It was getting to be late in the day and we headed back to the East lake to try the "Honey Hole" one last time. We bounced around a couple of new spots then hit the reed patch by the Rock Tavern where we were going to have the weigh in. The reeds were a perfect match for a Horny Toad, so I started throwing it. I had a little fish hit it and managed to resist the urge to set the hook. I was working the toad through the reeds when I had a solid blow up from another 13.25" that culled out my 12 incher. I got one more good blow up on the Toad but failed to hook up and that was the end of our day. I was pleased to have gotten a limit, even if it was small.

Results:
I ended up with 7lbs 8ozs with a big fish of 1lb 9ozs which stuck me in 23rd out of 24 anglers. The only guy I beat was my Farm Island partner Herman who only brought in 3 fish. My partner Barry came in 20th, which shows me that our areas were holding below average fish this day.

The winner had a 15lb 6oz bag of smallmouth that he pretty much sight fished near shallow rocks. Our boat didn't land a single smallie all day, but Barry might have jumped one off near the end of the day. A couple of people reported catching dozens and dozens of 12-14 inch largemouth so the fish were schooled up in some places. Unfortunately, the schools that were on Barry's spots moved. Overall I had a fun day and the heat didn't get to be too bad.

After the tournament, we went to the Rock Tavern where I got to know Joe who grew up in Little Falls and sounds like he is a die-hard Mississippi smallmouth angler. He showed me a couple of his smallmouth tricks.