This past Saturday I had a club tournament on Coon Lake. We launched from the East Lake at 6am under clear skies with an air temp of about 60 degrees. As I took off for the West Lake in the morning I got to see one of the best sunrises I’ve seen this summer coming up behind me. A nice big red sun to start of the day, just perfect.
I had pre-fished the lake on July 20th only to find out that there was an ABA tournament the same day. I was fortunate enough to still find some fish that day and had about 18-19lbs. It was by far the best practice I’d ever had and I felt like I didn’t even put a dent in the areas I had found. I was just praying the whole week that the fish would stay in the same areas and be willing to bite on tournament day.
I started off the day in the west lake around some cattails with a black spro bronzeye frog. After about 15 minutes into the day a fish inhaled the frog. It buried itself in the cattails, but I was fortunate enough to get it out. It ended up being a nice 4 pound fish. I continued to work my way around the cattails and stuck another good 3lb fish on a green pumpkin texas rigged Gander Mountain brand beaver. After awhile with no more fish in this area I moved to another spot with cattails and caught one more 2.5lb fish on a frog.
In my next spot I filled out my limit with two smaller fish on the beaver. This was an area with pads that had produced a 4lber during practice. I stuck around this area hoping for a big bite, but it never came. Next I moved back into the east lake to a pad spot where I stuck a 5 pounder in practice. I switched my beaver color to black/blue here since the water was much dirtier in the east lake than the west. On about my third pitch with the beaver into the pads, I saw a flower from a different pad stem move about 5ft from where I put my lure. I lifted up my bait, felt the weight of the fish and laid into in. After a good battle I had landed a nice 4lb 12oz fish and big bass for the day. On the next pitch I caught a solid 2.5lb fish on the beaver. I had now culled out the smaller ones from the other pad spot. After working the spot once, I went back over it with a 3/8oz blk/blue All Terrain Jig. On my 2nd pitch going back over the spot I stuck another 4lb fish about 10ft from where the 4lb 12oz fish came from. This spot had now given up a 5lb, 4lb 12oz and 4lb fish in the two times I had fished it that week. It was just one of those magic spots that you need to win a tournament.
I now had a 4lb 12oz fish, two 4 pounders, a 3lb and 2.5lb fish. This is what I would end up with for day. I was pushing hard to try and get that 2.5lb fish culled, but that 3lb bite never came. I ended up with 18lbs 6oz for the day and it ended up being my best 5 fish limit to date. I felt good to finally get a 1st place finish this year after three 2nd place finishes so far. If you asked me whether I thought I could duplicate what I caught in practice, I would have said no way. I just didn’t think I could catch that much again. But it happened. That’s now the 3rd tournament I’ve won out on Coon. That lake and I have a good thing goingJ.
Sorry about the lack of pictures….I really need to get a camera!
Here are some notes on the gear I was using:
Frog:
7’ MH Fenwick HMG Casting Rod
Pflueger Trion Casting reel
50lb Power Pro braided line
Spro Bronzeye Frog (black)
Jig:
7’ MH St.Croix Avid Rod
Pflueger Trion Casting Reel
40lb Stren Superbraid line
3/8oz black/blue All Terrain Tackle Jig w/ Gander Mtn. brand craw trailer
Beaver:
7’ MH St.Croix Avid Rod
Pflueger Trion Casting Rod
50lb Power Pro Braided line
1/4oz Tru-Tungsten bullet weight
3/0 Gamakatsu Superline EWG hook
Gander Mtn. Brand Beaver (Blk/Blue and Green Pumpkin)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Recent Reports and Pre-Tournament Thoughts
I have taken a bit of a hiatus from writing a post since my last Pro/Am tournament a couple weeks ago. Since then I've had some memorable fishing outings and other ones that I would rather forget about. Summer patterns are beginning to really set in and this is one of my favorite times of the year to fish because things are usually pretty consistent in terms of fish not moving around a whole lot.
I've also been talking with our Collegiate Bass Fishing Sponsor Pure Fishing about the upcoming season during the school year and it promises to be a good one. They want start promoting newer products through us and even start including us in the research/testing behind some of their products. I can't explain how excited I am about this opportunity to work with such a well known company such as Pure Fishing. It should be a good experience, and being able to get product from them such as Skeet Reese REVOS and Elite Tech rods will make it that much better.
This weekend I have another club tournament on Coon Lake. I've won two tournaments on this lake in the past and have a lot of confidence going into it. I just hope the fish stay where they were a week ago when I was up there practicing. This is probably in the top 5 of my favorite lakes in Minnesota. It just seems to fit my style of fishing really well. Check back next week for a report on that tournament, hopefully I don't fall on my face now that I just wrote about my confidence going into the event! :)
I've also been talking with our Collegiate Bass Fishing Sponsor Pure Fishing about the upcoming season during the school year and it promises to be a good one. They want start promoting newer products through us and even start including us in the research/testing behind some of their products. I can't explain how excited I am about this opportunity to work with such a well known company such as Pure Fishing. It should be a good experience, and being able to get product from them such as Skeet Reese REVOS and Elite Tech rods will make it that much better.
This weekend I have another club tournament on Coon Lake. I've won two tournaments on this lake in the past and have a lot of confidence going into it. I just hope the fish stay where they were a week ago when I was up there practicing. This is probably in the top 5 of my favorite lakes in Minnesota. It just seems to fit my style of fishing really well. Check back next week for a report on that tournament, hopefully I don't fall on my face now that I just wrote about my confidence going into the event! :)
Monday, July 14, 2008
Silverado Pro/Am - Lake Minnewaska
HOLY WIND! It was a constantly taking water over the bow, "hey come stand on the front deck so we can hold", can't hardly cast 30ft, try not to fall out of the boat kind of WIND that we faced on Saturday for the 2nd Silverado Tournament of the year. However, we stayed right in the thick of it until about 12 before my pro thought we should try and make our way to a calmer area of the lake, just so we could make it back safely. They were forecasting 55mph gusts, and we didn't want a to be a part of that. 25-35mph in the morning was good enough for us.
I may sound like I have a couple loose screws in my head, but I actually enjoyed it! It helped that we were catching fish, but my pro said "Its taken me years to just not let it frustrate me and just fish in it" until I really realized I just had to forget about it and concentrate on fishing and not on the wind.
The pattern we were on was fishing "deeper" weeds in 8-12ft of water. Right in the morning I lost a decent 14-15inch fish, but soon after, my pro landed a smaller one on a texas rigged creature bait. We fished the shallower 8ft weeds with only a couple fish to show for it. We then moved out to the 12ft area and I caught a good one that went almost 4lbs on a texas rigged strike king wild thang creature bait.
We continued to fish this area and every so often the fish would get active. At about 10:00-10:30 my pro set into a good 3lb fish, I set my rod down (my bait was still in the water), netted his fish, picked up my rod and set the hook on another fish! My pro threw back out and stuck another good 3lb fish on the next cast. Talk about a 5 minute flurry! At about 11:30 the same thing happened again when I caught 2 on back to back casts.
By now we had a decent limit and it was about 12:00. We started heading back to the calmer side so we didn't risk losing any fish making our way back if the wind got worse. We ended up fishing some reeds on the way. I caught one more 3lb fish in the reeds on an All Terrain Green Pumpkin Jig that really helped, but we still had two 2.5lb fish in the well that needed to go. My pro had on about a 3-3.5lb fish in the reeds that got off, in hindsight this fish would have put us in the money. Man, that one really hurt, but we were probably not the only ones that had something like that happen to them that day, that's just part of tournament fishing.
With one hour to go, we fished a break line out in front of the weigh-in site along with about 25-30 other boats. Yes, this was the calm side of the lake. If you wanted to, you could have watched the tournament from shore. We were able to put some smallmouth in the boat on that spot using tubes, but nothing that would help.
In the end we finished with 16.25lbs in 16th place out of 59 boats. For most of the field it was a tough day and I think the wind attributed to that (HOLY WIND!). The last spot in the money had 16.60lbs, so one more fish over 3lbs and we would have been right there.
I learned a lot in this tournament. More so about not getting frustrated with the wind. Up until then I always got mad when the wind was strong (mainly because I fish out of a smaller boat), but now I hope that I can ignore it from here on out. I went out on Sunday in the wind mainly because I was motivated to do so after this tournaments (I told you there is a couple loose screws in my head). As you may know already, the fish still bite in the strong wind! Its just being able to hold in it which is the hard part.
Did I mention that it was windy that day? :)
I may sound like I have a couple loose screws in my head, but I actually enjoyed it! It helped that we were catching fish, but my pro said "Its taken me years to just not let it frustrate me and just fish in it" until I really realized I just had to forget about it and concentrate on fishing and not on the wind.
The pattern we were on was fishing "deeper" weeds in 8-12ft of water. Right in the morning I lost a decent 14-15inch fish, but soon after, my pro landed a smaller one on a texas rigged creature bait. We fished the shallower 8ft weeds with only a couple fish to show for it. We then moved out to the 12ft area and I caught a good one that went almost 4lbs on a texas rigged strike king wild thang creature bait.
We continued to fish this area and every so often the fish would get active. At about 10:00-10:30 my pro set into a good 3lb fish, I set my rod down (my bait was still in the water), netted his fish, picked up my rod and set the hook on another fish! My pro threw back out and stuck another good 3lb fish on the next cast. Talk about a 5 minute flurry! At about 11:30 the same thing happened again when I caught 2 on back to back casts.
By now we had a decent limit and it was about 12:00. We started heading back to the calmer side so we didn't risk losing any fish making our way back if the wind got worse. We ended up fishing some reeds on the way. I caught one more 3lb fish in the reeds on an All Terrain Green Pumpkin Jig that really helped, but we still had two 2.5lb fish in the well that needed to go. My pro had on about a 3-3.5lb fish in the reeds that got off, in hindsight this fish would have put us in the money. Man, that one really hurt, but we were probably not the only ones that had something like that happen to them that day, that's just part of tournament fishing.
With one hour to go, we fished a break line out in front of the weigh-in site along with about 25-30 other boats. Yes, this was the calm side of the lake. If you wanted to, you could have watched the tournament from shore. We were able to put some smallmouth in the boat on that spot using tubes, but nothing that would help.
In the end we finished with 16.25lbs in 16th place out of 59 boats. For most of the field it was a tough day and I think the wind attributed to that (HOLY WIND!). The last spot in the money had 16.60lbs, so one more fish over 3lbs and we would have been right there.
I learned a lot in this tournament. More so about not getting frustrated with the wind. Up until then I always got mad when the wind was strong (mainly because I fish out of a smaller boat), but now I hope that I can ignore it from here on out. I went out on Sunday in the wind mainly because I was motivated to do so after this tournaments (I told you there is a couple loose screws in my head). As you may know already, the fish still bite in the strong wind! Its just being able to hold in it which is the hard part.
Did I mention that it was windy that day? :)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
All Terrain Tackle News and Collegiate Fishing
All Terrain Tackle has just joined the guys at Wire2fish.com and will begin to advertise on their website in the near future. This is very exciting seeing that All Terrain is a local company based out of Savage/Prior Lake, MN. I also have had the opportunity to be on their field-staff for this summer. Here is a small article on the announcement: http://wired2fish.com/WhatsUp.aspx?ArticleID=252 Be sure to check out some of their jigs at www.allterraintackle.com They truly have some top notch jigs for every jig fishing situation.
Also, two guys from our University of Iowa Bass Fishing Team are competing in the Under Armour Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship this week down in Arkansas. Live weigh-ins are online at 3:30, and day one was completed today. The lake their on is a little stingy as you can see from the results on www.collegebass.com but its still an exciting event for college bass fishing. check it out!
Also, two guys from our University of Iowa Bass Fishing Team are competing in the Under Armour Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship this week down in Arkansas. Live weigh-ins are online at 3:30, and day one was completed today. The lake their on is a little stingy as you can see from the results on www.collegebass.com but its still an exciting event for college bass fishing. check it out!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
4th of July Fishing
Today is officially the first day that I have not wet a line in the past 10 days. The nine days prior to today have been nothing short of fantastic fishing and spending time with great people. I had the opportunity to take a week off from work over the 4th of July to spend some time up north at my cabin. I will keep the Lake name hush for now, but for your reference its about 45 minutes south of Walker, MN and 45 minutes north of Brainerd, MN.
The fish up there were in a postspawn mode, but they were really starting to feed up well. The water temperatures were anywhere from 72-78 degrees depending on the day and how cold it got during the night. I know the lake pretty well, so I was able to nail down various patterns throughout the week. The most reliable ones were as follows:
Postspawn\/\/
Prespawn \/\/ (same fish in next two pictures)
Not only was I able to fish a lot, I was able to get out on the water with my Grandpa, Mom, Dad, and even my 85 year old Grandma was able to get out and watch me fish one evening with me and my Mom which was pretty fun. I'm not sure I will ever get the opportunity to fish with my grandma in the boat again, so that was pretty special. We also took a small trip to "pike lake" - a lake in the middle of nowhere that probably gets fished maybe 5 times a summer. It has no boat landing and has been known to give up some big northerns. Its always and exciting trip because of the potential fish, but more so for the adventure. Here is a picture with a pike my Mom caught on our "pike lake" trip: (cell phone picture..)
The fish up there were in a postspawn mode, but they were really starting to feed up well. The water temperatures were anywhere from 72-78 degrees depending on the day and how cold it got during the night. I know the lake pretty well, so I was able to nail down various patterns throughout the week. The most reliable ones were as follows:
- Texas rigged plastics fished right in the weeds on a steep dropoff. I would pitch to the inside edge and drag the plastic (tubes, creatures, worms) right through the weeds. The best weeds were coontail and northern milfoil that was in about 6-10ft of water. I've really struggled in the postspawn in the metro area this year and will hopefully be able to apply this technique next year when the time comes.
- Spinnerbaits, flukes, senkos fished in the reeds (3-5ft). This pattern was the best in the mornings and evenings with lower light conditions.
- Tubes and crankbaits around rock piles. Rock piles that were in about 2-4ft of water and dropped very fast into about 12-15ft of water. The fish were right on the edges.
- Docks. Anything worked under docks as long as you fished them from about 12pm-6pm. This is where a lot of my bigger fish came from.
- Creature baits, Jigs, and frogs in the pads and rice patties. The pad bite was starting to heat up the last couple days I was up there which was fun.
Postspawn\/\/
Prespawn \/\/ (same fish in next two pictures)
Not only was I able to fish a lot, I was able to get out on the water with my Grandpa, Mom, Dad, and even my 85 year old Grandma was able to get out and watch me fish one evening with me and my Mom which was pretty fun. I'm not sure I will ever get the opportunity to fish with my grandma in the boat again, so that was pretty special. We also took a small trip to "pike lake" - a lake in the middle of nowhere that probably gets fished maybe 5 times a summer. It has no boat landing and has been known to give up some big northerns. Its always and exciting trip because of the potential fish, but more so for the adventure. Here is a picture with a pike my Mom caught on our "pike lake" trip: (cell phone picture..)
This one went about 8lbs, not huge, but a pretty good one in my book. Better yet she got it on an old silver weedless Johnson Spoon!
Metro Area Report:
Yesterday I was able to get out with a couple buddies on a south metro lake and we were able to catch them pretty good in the pads on jigs and creature baits. The fish were starting to get fat too. That was nice to see since it seems like this spring was sooo long with the late ice out this year. It was good to get out with some friends too, I find its always more enjoyable to fish with others in the boat.
I've also got another Silverado Pro/Am coming up this weekend on Lake Minnewaska so check for a report on that sometime next week! Hope everyone had an enjoyable and safe 4th of July!
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