MN Bass Fishing Opener Report

Overall I had a pretty good opener for the 2008 season. I was at my cabin just north of Outing, MN for Saturday and Sunday and then got out to Lake Minnetonka today to do some pre-fishing for a club tournament that I have out there next weekend.

Up north the water temps varied vastly from one area to the next. In the shallow bays the water temp was up to 65 degrees in the afternoon and the main lake was in the 50-55 degree range depending on where you were. This left me with a pre-spawn situation, with a few fish just getting ready to spawn.

The lake I fished up north is made up of three basins. One basin is quite shallow and heats up the fastest. Therefore I spent most of my time there. I was catching plenty of fish in the shallow bays and also crushed them pretty good with a big swimbait on shallow flats on the main lake that had just a little bit of weeds on them.

One really cool thing that happened this weekend was seeing Jim Moynagh fishing the same lake!! I thought this was so cool! A random lake out of the countless lakes in MN and he was on the same one I was. It was even cooler to see that we had found the same fish and at times were fishing right next to each other!

The main lures I was using were watermelon red flake All Terrain stick worms, pink zoom flukes, tennesse shad redeye shads, and a 3:16 bluegill swimbait. I absolutley crushed them on the 3:16 swimbait on windblown flats. The last hour I was there before going home I got 14 in an hour all 15-18 inches, it was nuts!

Heres a picture of the 3:16 Bluegill:

Today I got out to lake Minnetonka for some prefishing. Our club tournament will be interesting considering it will be the day after the Minnetonka Classic... a 100+ boat field. Talk about pressure. I found some fish today and kind of figured out what they are doing, but a lot will change in the next week with the spawn going on and the big tournament on Saturday. We'll see how it goes.

Beaver Dam Lake - Tournament Day

Having never been to this lake before, I was a little nervous on how my day would go. However, I seemed more relaxed than I usually am before most of my tournaments because I hadn't practiced and therefore didn't have anyfish located. I wasn't going into the tournament wondering whether or not the fish would be in the same areas where I caught them in practice. I was able to fish by the seat of my pants.

I started off in a shallow bay casting a strike king red eye shad in tennesse shad color. The water was stained to clear in color and 53-55 degrees in this area. After combing a small 50 yard stretch with no bites I picked up a booyah spinnerbait and caught a 13 inch bass on my second cast. Not big enough, but this gave me a little confidence. I continued back over the 50 yd stretch again and hooked up with a nice 17 inch fish, 1 fish in the livewell. After going over this spot a couple more times without a bite I went through into another bay where I threw a spinnerbait, All Terrain Stick Worm, and the redeye shad. I caught a couple more short fish in that bay along with some smaller northerns, but nothing to write home about.

I moved back out the area where I caught the 17 inch fish and moved out deeper into about 7ft of water casting the redeye shad. I immediately caught another keeper at 15 inches but decided to throw it back. I figured it was early in the day and with the no cull rules in Wisconsin I didn't want to burn a spot in my livewell. This decision wasn't easy. I continued fishing the redeye shad in 6-7ft of water with no luck. However, I did hook into about a 20-25 inch brown trout! I thought I had a monster smallie and was freaking out, but it ended up being a big trout.

After fishing for 1.5 hours with only one fish in the livewell I decided to find some new water. I just wasn't seeing the kind of action and quality of fish that I needed to do well. I made a long run into another portion of the lake. I had to go under a culvurt that my boat barely fit through, but it was worth it. I began cruzing around the other part of the lake and noticed the water was murky on this side and also 57-60 degrees. I continued to run around the area and then found the jackpot. I found about a 100yd bank loaded with laydowns and sunken trees.

I didn't know wether this spot would hold fish, but I thought I'd give it a try. On my 3rd pitch with an All Terrain Tackle green 3/8oz jig I caught a good 17 inch fish, 2 fish in the livewell. I thought to myself, "if thats any indication of whats to come on the rest of this bank, then it could get really good in a hurry". I continued down the bank and proceeded to put another 16 inch fish and a 17.5 inch fish in the boat, 3 and 4 fish in the livewell. This was heaven for me, I love to pitch jigs around shallow cover.

The rules we had set for the tournament is that we could weight our best 4 fish, but we could fish for a 5th fish and use it to replace one of the 4 already in the livewell come weigh-in. I proceeded to fish this bank loaded with wood for about 3-4 hours catching many 14-16inch fish. I threw them all back hoping to get a big one by the end of the day. During the last hour I finally hooked into another 17 inch fish and then headed back to the ramp since I had five fish in the livewell.

I took this pattern and expanded it to other laydowns in the dirty water. Even single isolated trees were holding fish. They were just flat out relating to wood. I was catching some in between the wood by pad stalks on a spinnerbait as well, but the main deal was the jig around wood. These fish were all either prespawn or spawning fish. Some were full of eggs, some half full with red tails. Overall I ended up catching 24 fish. 16 on an A.T. jig, 6 on a spinnerbait, 1 on a redeye shad, 1 on an A.T. Stick Worm.

I ended the day with 11lbs for 4 fish and was beat by two ounces by another guy in the club who had mostly smallies (some really nice smallies). I happy with how the tournament went and if I could do it again I wouldn't change a thing. I think the key for me was continuing to milk the area I had found with my jig. I think this is one thing too many people miss; they don't exploit an area to the fullest extent. They will fish a bank once or twice catch a couple fish and then move on. I bet I fished this bank at least 6 times and caught fish everytime I went down it. I've done this so many times, especially when fishing slower baits like a jig, to try and really exploit and area for all its worth on one day tournaments.

Heres some notes on the gear I was using
Jig:
7' MH St.Croix Avid Series rod (casting)
Pflueger Trion reel
50lb Stren Superbraid line
3/8oz Green All Terrain Tackle Jig
Spinnerbait:
6'6" M St.Croix Avid Series rod (casting)
Pflueger President reel
14lb Trilene XT
1/2 oz chart/orange/green spinnerbait

Beaver Dam Lake Pre-Tournament Thoughts

Beaver Dam Lake located near Cumberland, Wisconsin is the designated location of the first club tournament I will fish this year. I have been extremly busy studying and taking finals this week for school and you can't beleive how excited I am to get back home to Minnesota to do some fishing. One more test and I'm there...can't wait!

I'll be driving home tomorrow and the tournament is on Saturday. So as you may have guessed, I have not prefished at all. I also have never once made a cast into Beaver Dam Lake. Should be interesting....

However, the good part is that we are in a springtime mode right now which will really help in eliminating a lot of deeper water. I'll be able to run many shallow bays throughout the lake with reaction type baits in hopes of getting on some fish by the end of day. If this doesn't pan out then hopefully I'll have time to find some offshore breaks that would have prespawn fish on them waiting to move up. I personally think that there will already be fish up shallow from what I'm hearing in terms of water temps in the area. I hope this is true, because it will make it a lot easier to find the better areas faster.

Check back next week to see how the tournament went!

Iowa Bass Fishing Team Qualifier

We had our first Qualifier this past weekend that will count towards the National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship to be held next fall down in Texas. With the turnout of last years National Tournament, theres only one way I can go in the standings, and that is up.

Our qualifier was being held at some catch and release ponds/lakes that are about 15min from campus. The lakes offer good size bass and if you like the pitch and flip in heavy cover this place is for you. I started out the day pitching an All Terrain Jig around brush in a shallow cove only to find that they weren't in the same spot as one week ago. I proceeded to hit my areas that I usually catch fish in and ended up empty handed. (Sometimes fishing past memories can be a mistake)

After moving into areas that I had never been to before I started catching fish. The key was finding areas that had wood were there was shallow water with deep water close by, not typical of a spring time bite where they are usually up on flats. I was pitching an All Terrain jig around heavy wood cover for the first few hours and ended up with 19", 17", and 16" fish. As the day wore on the water was warming up and the bass were beggining to get skittish. I threw my jig at this one peice of wood about 15 times to see if I couldn't get a reaction bite. I finally put down the jig, picked up an All Terrain Stick Worm, and BAM! first cast one came shooting out of the cover and grabbed it. A nice 16.5" fish. That just goes to show that alot of the time the fish are in the area, its just finding the right bait to entice them that counts.

We ended the day at noon and I only had those 4 fish. However, my 4 fish held up to take the top spot in the tournament for the day. I was nice to get my confidence back up even though I had already qualified for the tournament through default of being the president of the club. I'm looking forward to getting back down the Texas next fall for the National Championship. I definately learned somethings down there this year that will help me out next fall.

Here's a look at the gear I was using for the Qualifier:

• Jig Setup: 7'MH St.Croix Avid Series rod (casting), Pflueger Trion reel, 50lb Stren Superbraid line, 3/8oz All Terrain Tackle Jig (Blk/Blue)
• Stick Worm Setup: 6'6" St.Croix Avid Series rod (spinning), Diawa Regal reel, 6lb Berkley 100% Flouroarbon line, All Terrain Tackle Stick Worm (Blk/Blue)

All Terrain Pros Making Some Noise

A couple of the All Terrain Tackle Pros have been on fire as of late on the Professional level in both the BASS and FLW tour circuits.

Two weeks ago Minnesota's own Jim Moynagh took 2nd place down on Lake Norman by fishing an All Terrain Tackle Stick Worm around docks to catch finicky post-spawn bass. During a tournament that left most wondering how to put together 5-10lbs of fish per day, Moynagh was able to put up an average of about 12lbs a day. Not to mention he's got quite the hair-do going right now as well! Hey, if its not broken, why fix it?

On the BASS side Texas pro Todd Faircloth continues to tear it up on the Elite Series. His finishes for the first 5 tournaments have been 8th, 23rd, 41st, 1st, and 7th. He has yet to miss a cut and hasn't missed a cut for the last 10 BASS events he has fished. Talk about consistency! He took his second Elite Series win on Lake Amistad two weeks ago, and with the help of an All Terrain Tackle Jig he was able to finish 7th at Clarks Hill Resevoir this past weekend. With the great start that Faircloth has had this season he has moved himself into first place in the Angler of the Year race!




Hopefully these guys can continue to produce the rest of season like they have been so far! I'll be rootin for them