Lake Minnetonka - Tournament Day

My second club tournament of the year took place on the famed Lake Minnetonka. Going into the tournament I expected it to be fairly tough considering our tournament was the day after the Minnetonka Classic boasting a 100+ boat field. My goal was to get at least 10lbs to keep me in contention for angler of the year. After looking at past years results, if you can average 10lbs a tournament you have a pretty good shot at winning AOY.

We launched at 6am out of Maxwell Bay and I first headed into North Arm to begin to the day. In practice the week before I had found fish crusing the inside weedlines and this is where I began the day. I was throwing a 4 inch zoom centipede in a pumpkin color on 6lb flourocarbon. I expected that the fish would be a little skittish after the big tournament on Saturday so I downsized both my line and lure.

By 8:05 I had finished out my limit using the centipede. It wasn't anything special though, maybe 8lbs. I was making the longest casts possible along the inside edge of the weedline to make sure I wasn't spooking the fish by having them seeing me. And beleive me, I saw a lot of fish crusing, and a lot of fish that wounldn't bite because they also saw me. I continued to work down the bank and kept upgrading little by little throughout the day.

I wasn't doing anything real special or out of the ordinary. The keys were making sure the fish didn't see you and I also think the slow fall of the centipede in the shallow water also helped. It was a typical spring inside weedline type pattern. I was seeing a few fish that were spawning, but once again I couldn't get them to bite because they saw me too. I did find a few areas that seemed to have some better fish that were crusing a little deeper than the rest of the smaller fish. On one point I saw many 3-4lb fish a little deeper. I backed off and let the area rest for a little bit then came back with a long cast about 15 minutes later. I had one pick up the centipede right away and on the hook set I snapped my line at the knot. That one hurt. But I guess you can expect that to happen at least once with 6lb line and a hard hokk set. I could never get another bite off that point.

After fishing the inside weedlines for almost the entire day, I decided to move to a shallow flat that had sparse lilypads scattered throughout the entire area, this was in Maxwell Bay. At this point I had just about 10lbs and was looking to upgrade so I threw a 5" All Terrain stick worm in hoping that the bigger profile would entice some bigger bites. In the last hour of the day I was able to cull three more times and upgraded my final weight. This was an excited little hour of fishing, nothing like catching them pretty good with the countless floatillas of Lake Minnetonka all around you. That lake can be flat out awesome in the morning, but after everyone gets out of church on Sunday, I'd rather be any other place than at a crowded boat lauch waiting 30 minutes to put my boat on the trailer. Hah, I guess thats just how it is though.
My final weight for the day was 12lbs 13oz which for Minnetonka, isn't too much. But I was happy with it. It was good enough to put me in 2nd place for the day, and I'll take that whenever I can. I had a goal set in mind going into the tournament and fullfilled it. After a 1st place on the St.Croix River last fall and now two 2nd place finishes so far this year in the club, I feel that I'm continuing where I left from last year. It stinks losing by 1 ounce in the first tournament and now by 7 ounces in this last tournament, but thats how it goes sometimes. Who knows whether that fish that I snapped would have put me over the top. All in all it was a beautiful day on the water and it sure beat anything I could have been doing.

Gear used
Centipede: 6'6" St.Croix Avid Rod (Spinning), Diawa Regal Reel, 6lb Berkely 100% flourocarbon, Gamakatsu 3/0 light wire EWG hook, 4" zoom centipede (pumpkin)
A.T. stick worm: 7' St.Croix Avid Rod (Spinning), Shimano Sahara Reel, 6lb Berkely 100% Flourocarbon, Gamakatsu 4/0 red EWG hook, 5" A.T. stick worm (blue/blk swirl)

Centipede Picture:

Side note: I have my first Silverado Pro-Am tournament next weekend on Green Lake in Spicer, MN. We will most likely be chasing smallies as well as possibly a couple largemouth. I'm really looking forward to this tournament. Check back next week for a report on how it went.

Quick Report: I got out to a south metro lake yesterday evening and there were still some fish shallow. Lots of empty beds though, and many sunfish that had begun spawning. Caught most
of my fish on an A.T. stick worm weightless. Water temps were 66-71 depending on where you were on the lake. Not too many big ones, but enough to be a fun evening of fishing.