Buck Down!

Very rarely does it happen where a plan comes together and works just right. Well, on November 11th of last week everything clicked and I was able to take down my first Iowa Buck! He came in chasing a doe, made a scrape, and moved into my shooting lane at 25 yards. I hit him well and he only went about 60 yards. The hard work and hours of sweating in the late summer to set up the stand definitely paid off!

He isn't the biggest buck, but I couldn't pass up the droptine. It was also taken on public land which made it that much sweeter. You can shoot decent bucks on public ground, just might have to move away from the pressure and do something others aren't willing to do :)

I'm heading back to Minnesota this weekend to bow and gun hunt up there up until Thanksgiving. I'll keep updates coming if I have any luck up there.

Here is a picture of mine and my buddies that he shot 2 days after I shot mine, it was an awesome week!

A year in review, recent happenings, and future plans....

The colder weather is beginning to set in and in a month or so our lakes in the upper Midwest will be covered with a large sheet of ice... awesome. I will be hanging up the rods for year now that my tournament season is over and bow hunting season is now in full swing. First, an update on how some of my recent fall tournaments went.

On October 11th we had our annual Big Ten tournament on on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. What a massive lake! It was definitely overwhelming to begin with but we ended up finding some fish in the end. The hard part about this tournament is that I brought my own boat to use while most other Big Ten schools had volunteer boaters for practice and tournament day. The volunteer boaters (locals) were able to help out the college anglers in practice while we were left on our own with no help whatsoever. Basically whatever we found in practice, all the locals knew about these spots. In hindsight I would have left my boat at home and gone with a volunteer boater, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Here is a smallie from practice, you can see how big the lake is in the background!

In the end my boat caught 13lbs for 3 fish and as a school we had 19lbs and took 6th place out of 8 boats. Here is a picture of a 4+lb and 5+lb smallmouth that I caught during the tournament day. We were on quality, just couldn't get the quantity.

On October 30th-November 1st my buddy Tyler and I fished in the FLW College Central Division Regional Tournament that we qualified for. It was held on the famous Kentucky Lake. In practice we found the topwater and rattle trap bite to be very good in the backs of the creeks where ever bass we busting and chasing shad. On day one we caught 25-30 fish, but only two that went over 15 inches. We caught all these fish on spooks and red eye shads. We were left in 16th place out of 20 boats and decided on day 2 to run all new water that neither Tyler or I had ever seen in our lives. We ended up getting onto some better fish in the northern part of the lake on rip rap transition areas. We didn't catch as many fish, but we had three keepers for 7lbs 8oz which moved us up to 10th place in the tournament. I was happy with how we were able to scrap everything and make our day fairly productive. If we had only 4 more pounds we would have cracked the top 5 and made it to nationals... so close, yet so far. I can't say enough about FLW outdoors and the National Guard for these awesome college events that they have put together this year. I had an absolute blast fishing these events and will definitely be back next year. Oh yeah, they also gave us Z520 Rangers to use for the event, how sweet is that!? Here are some pictures of the boat, a 4lb practice fish and some of the tournament fish from day 2....

When I look back at the year I had it's definitely had its ups and downs, I've had a blast through it all though. In the end it's just fishing and you can't beat that! I feel like I have gained a great amount of experience in terms of fishing other larger bodies of water throughout the nation because of the college tournaments that I have had the opportunity to fish during the season. The fact that most of the college events are non-entry fee tournaments makes it that much better. I have been able to fish some great bodies of water this year including Lake Dardanelle, AR; Lake Lewisville, TX; Brookville Lake, IN; Arkansas River, AR; Pool 19 Mississippi River, IA; Lake St Clair, MI; Lake of the Ozarks, MO; and Kentucky Lake, KY. I basically got a crash course of what it would be like to be on the tour as a pro. It's a grueling lifestyle, but it's something that I would like to try and pursue after college is done. Once again, I can't say enough about how well run the college events are. It gives us as students the experience we will eventually need down the road if we have aspirations of becoming a pro someday.

I have already began planning for next year and have a few ideas of which tournaments I would like to fish. I know for sure that I am going to be fishing some more of the college events in the spring of the year and possible a couple in the summer. I will also be fishing with my bass club, Lakes Area Bassmasters, throughout the summer. In terms of larger events my goal is to fish some of the ABA events again, and if I can come up with the finances I would like to try my hand at the MN/WI Bassmaster Weekend Series. I like the looks of that schedule and its something that I have my sights set on if things fall into place.

Well, the deer are running like crazy in the woods right now. The rut is in full swing and I've passed on a couple opportunities to take some smaller bucks and does this past week. I'll be hunting hard for the next week or so to see if I can't put a big buck down. So stay tuned.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who takes the time to sit down and read these posts every so often. I enjoy sharing my trials and tribulations that make up a season of tournament fishing and it also helps me to really study and learn things from each event that I fish when I can go back and re-read my old posts. Thanks again and have a good rest of the fall and winter; spring can't come soon enough!

Quick Update - It's been awhile!

It has been awhile since my last post, with school starting up I've been a little bit more consumed in my studies rather than being on the water. However, even though the air temps are beginning to drop, my college tournament schedule is beginning to heat up again. I've got a full schedule of tournaments up until the first weekend in November and hope to write a little bit about each one. Here is an update of what has occured in the last month and what will take place in the month ahead.

During the last week of my summer, 3 of my college roommates flew up from Chicago to spend a couple days up north at my cabin. To say the least we had an absolute blast! They had some fishing experience before they got up there, but not a whole lot in terms of fishing "the way we do". It was really fun putting them on some fish, it was a trip I will soon not forget!

In late August I fished my first FLW college event on the Mississippi River out of Fort Madison, Iowa the weekend before school started. My tournament partner practiced for the event a couple weeks before the event and fared well. However, if you have ever fished rivers you know how fast they can change, and change it did. We didn't make the right adjustments and ended up with a big goose egg for the tournament. The fact that 21 other boats out of 40 zeroed as well made me feel a little better, but not a whole lot better,.

If you read my last post about Big Marine you know that my motor wasn't working after that event. Well, it ended up being that my starter went out on me. Thankfully I have an awesome Dad and he was able to replace it and install a new one himself! So, last weekend I went home to get my boat and do some fishing back in Minnesota. Friday the 25th was pretty good fishing on a south metro lake. My best 5 would have been 16+ mainly caught on jigs and frogs. On Saturday I went to visit my buddy in Winona. We spent the day fishing down there on the Mississippi River on Pool 5a. We fared alright, but it was a little slower than normal; swim jigs proved to be best that day.

This past weekend I fished in my second FLW college tournament down in Missouri on Lake of the Ozarks. This time we fared much better than the first tournament. Me and my teammate, Tyler, ended up using All Terrain finesse jigs, t-rigged baby paca craws, spro dawgs, and shakey heads to catch 5 keeper fish for 9lb 5oz. It proved well enough for a 5th place finish out of 40 boats and $1000 cash for the bass club here at the University of Iowa! Also, if you finish in the top 5 in any of the FLW college tournaments you qualify for the regional tournament. Therefore, we will be competing against 19 other regional qualifiers for a top prize of $50,000 on Kentucky Lake from Oct. 31st - Nov. 2nd. To say the least, I am absolutely jacked to fish this event!! I cannot wait! A big thanks goes out to Chuck Campbell for helping us get started on fishing Lake Oz! To follow these college tournaments, you can check it out at www.collegefishing.com

Coming up this weekend from Oct. 8th - Oct. 11th is our annual Big Ten Championship. This year it is going to be moved to the fall season and will be held on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. Both smallmouth and largemouth could come into play during the event. Whether or not the wind blows on this massive lake is really going to determine which species we will target.

So as you can see, I've been a little busy this past month and it won't slow down too soon. However, I wouldn't want it any other way. Be sure to check in frequently this fall on updates from the Big Ten Event and the FLW Central Regional tournament that will take place here at the end of the month. Also, I just purchased a new bow recently and am really looking forward to getting in the woods down here in Iowa once these tournaments are over and November rolls around. I may be giving some updates from my experiences in the woods so stay tuned!!

Club Tournament - Big Marine

My club tournament on Big Marine Lake a couple weeks ago was definitely one to remember and not necessarily because of the fishing. I would describe it as a crazy, frustrating, scary, yet still rewarding tournament. I didn’t pre-fish for the tournament since I helped my buddy move into his college house down in Winona the weekend before. We may have also taken a cast or two into the Mighty Mississip while we were down there… fishing wasn’t too stellar though.

In past years I have had decent success on Big Marine and figured that I would just fish this one by the seat of my pants. I got to my first spot pitching a jig into reeds and cattails. It took about 15 minutes to get the first fish in the well, but it was a peanut. About five minutes later some major storms were on the horizon; in no time they had cleared the horizon and were right overhead. It started pouring rain and a bolt of lightning struck what looked to be the lake about 500 yards away, only problem was that I couldn’t get my big motor started! Other club guys were able to make it back to the launch, but I was stuck. Lightning continued to strike overhead and by this time I was a bit freaked out to say the least. With no big motor I crawled up onto the front deck on my stomach, put the TM on high and pushed the power button with my hand leading me into a mess of cattails. I figured it was the closest and safest place until the lightning passed. I laid on the bottom of my boat for about 45 minutes until the lightning started to disappear. As I laid there with my head under the console of my boat I couldn’t help but laugh and think to myself, “man, what a way to spend a Saturday morning!”

After the first storm passed I was a little shaken and un focused, but was able to get back to fishing. After a little while more in the cattails with no success I moved to a deep weedline that has been good to me in the past (finally got the big motor started). I caught one keeper right away on a jigworm, another swimmer though. I continued down the weedline catching a small fish here, small fish there. This weedline usually has held better fish in the past and no longer did that day. Before I got to the end of the spot another storm full of lightning was approaching. I got off the lake in a hurry this time and watched it from the bank before a nice guy named Dan let me come in his house to wait it out. Lightning once again came crashing down for a good 30-45 minutes. So there I sat, watching the weather channel, with Dan. Dan was a good guy, we had a lot in common which made for good conversation. After this storm let up I returned to my weedline with no success. The clouds cleared and now it was getting hot and really windy (what a goofy day weather wise).

With my weedline not producing I moved to a point close to the island. It was tough getting the motor started, but eventually it fired. With no success on the point I was going to move to the south end of the lake to get out of the wind. Well, this time my motor didn’t start. Two lightning delays, only two dinks in the box, and now a motor that wouldn’t start… I was a little frustrated. What happened is I ended up running down my cranking battery therefore ruining my chances of starting the big motor. In hindsight, it was probably a godsend that I didn’t get it started because my plan was to run to the south end of the lake, opposite of the launch ramp. If I had done that and then had the motor not start on me I would have really had a problem getting back to the launch. Thankfully I was only about a 2.5 hour trolling motor ride away from the launch and would be able to fish my way back. With the wind behind me and my trolling motor on high I just took out a big crankbait and fished my way back. The best part about it was that I was able to put a limit in the livewell on the crankbait and even cull a couple times! They were still all small, but it made me feel a little better. I hardly ever fish cranks and it gave me some much needed confidence in them.

With our weigh-in sight being at a different location than the launch ramp I needed to call our tournament director to let him know I wouldn’t be at the weigh-in. However, with all the rain we got in the morning, my phone got wet while in my pocket and wouldn’t work! I couldn’t dial out, but I could receive calls. Knowing there was no way I could get to the weigh-in with my predicament I just weighed my fish in a bag with a hand scale. My total came to a whopping 6lbs 2oz!

As I was driving home a club member gave me call to see where I was. Told him what had happened and also told him what I had caught. To my surprise they counted my weight and even more surprising, I came in 3rd place!?!? I was very surprised. It was a tough fishing day with powerful storms in and out of the area all day, but I didn’t expect it to be that tough.

So in the end it all ended up working out just fine and I was able to gain some confidence in another technique. I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes it’s just not your day and when it rains, it pours…

Chisago/S. Lindstrom and Coon Lake Tourneys

This past weekend I had back-to-back tournaments on Saturday and Sunday. One good thing is that both tournaments were fairly close together; one on Chisago/S. Lindstrom and the other on Coon Lake. I was able to spend the night in the forest lake area in between tournaments which gave me a little extra time in bed before waking up on Sunday. I was able to also get out on Coon one last time the evening before the event after I had my club tourney on Chisago.

The club tournament on Chisago didn’t go nearly as well as my practice went one week earlier. On the Saturday before the tournament I had a total of 87 inches and fell much shorter than that on tournament day with a total of 75 inches. I was able to catch a lot of fish, probably close to 25, but any fish over 16” didn’t want any part of being in my boat. I fished deep the first 2 hours of the day and had one 14” fish to show for it. I resorted to moving shallow the rest of the day in about 3-5 ft of water. I caught 70% of my fish on an All Terrain swim jig just burning it over the top of milfoil patches on windy banks and also caught some other fish on an Argon jointed crankbait in a bluegill color and a t-rigged beaver. I took 7th for the day and was a little unhappy to say the least. I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong in terms of getting a bigger bite. Some of the guys who finished higher were fishing docks and buzzbaits around milfoil. It sounded like I was fishing the same type of stuff that the top guys were fishing, but just didn’t find bigger fish like the week before. I’ve come to the conclusion that when it’s not your time, it’s just not you time. My justification was that I was just saving my big bites for the ABA on Sunday.

After my club tournament I went straight to Coon Lake to practice for a couple more hours. I found one deep spot right away that I thought had great potential. I was pretty pumped when I found that spot because practice the week before had been real spotty and inconsistent.

One tournament morning I drew boat 15 out of 25; not great, but not terrible. My plan for the day was to start on the deep spot I found the day before and then go from there. Well… I got to my deep spot first thing in the morning to find two other boats right on it. I stuck around and casted around the sweet spot for about 20 minutes, I couldn’t get to where I needed to be without crowding the other boats. I decided that I needed to make a move. I needed to get away from that spot and go to my shallow water and fish my strengths.

I went into the canal between the two lakes and picked up a small fish in the pads on an AT jig. A small start, but a start nonetheless. From there I went to my matted milfoil bank only to find two other boats also on it. My initial thoughts were “man… not again!” I pulled in behind the guys and tried my best to pick up the sloppy thirds. My better mat was at the opposite end of the bank that I started on, but I didn’t pull in there because the other boats were moving towards it. To my surprise, after the boats got past the docks with matted milfoil, they just ignored the milfoil out past the docks about 200 yards; my better area.

Once they moved through the area I went to my better mat and stuck a solid 3.5lb fish right off the bat. In practice I caught one fish off this spot and had another bite, then moved on, not really knowing what was completely there. I pitched in there again and once my AT jig hit the bottom another good one sucked it up, a 4lb+ fish. The mat that I had found had deeper water in one spot, a drop from 3 to 5 or 6ft, and the bigger fish were loaded in there. The deeper area was only about as big as two boats sitting next to each other gunnel to gunnel. I sat on that spot for 4 hours and culled my way to a goo limit, left it for 1.5 hours to see if I could get a kicker, then came back and picked up two more 3lb+ fish in the last 1.5 hours. The big fish were just concentrated in the area, which made for quite a fun day. I basically just sat my boat in one spot and as long as you didn’t disturb the milfoil you would get a bite every so often. It was like fishing an offshore spot where you consistently get bites throughout the day, except this was a spot in shallow water.

I ended up with 17.90lbs and took 4th place for the day. This tournament on Coon was different and a little more satisfying than past years when I could run to my old faithful shallow pads and cattails. With the water being down quite a bit I had to re-learn the entire lake this year. It felt good to have “fished the moment” and to find new areas that were holding fish which led to another good finish on Coon. Not sure why I seem to do well on that lake, but I really like it! First place had 22lbs and a 6lb+ fish doing the same thing that other top finishers and I were doing. 22lbs!! Talk about fun…

Under Armour College Bass National Championship - AR River - Little Rock

On July 5th I left my cabin up north in northern Minnesota and drove 7 hours to Iowa to pick up Tyler for the Under Armour College Bass National Championship. We left for the Arkansas River at Little Rock on the morning of the 6th and 10.5 hours later we finally arrived. We made a quick stop into an awesome tackle shop called “fish N stuff” owned by Vince Miller. It’s probably the best small tackle shop I’ve ever been to, they had everything! Not to mention the fact that Vince was letting us borrow his boat for the week of the tournament, what a guy! It was awesome not having to worry about towing a boat down to the tournament.

As one can imagine, it is much easier writing about a good finish in a tournament than a bad one, so I’m going to keep this one kinda short and sweet…foreshadowing? You betcha.

The first evening we got down there we put the boat in and took a quick stroll down the river to the areas that Tyler fished when they took 4th two years ago on the same pools. Pools 5, 6, & 7 were the tournament waters. After seeing similar grass still in the areas, we felt confident going into practice. First day we went north of little rock, and the 2nd and 3rd day we went south. We stayed in the Little Rock pools all three days of practice, found some stuff, but it would be a grind.

We faced 95-100 degree days without much wind all 5 days we were down there with water temps anywhere from 85-92 degrees. It was steamy... Complaining? Yes and No. That’s just AR in mid-summer, and it resulted in the most difficult fishing conditions I’ve ever fished in; ever… It was a grind everyday, but everyone had to face the same conditions.

The most difficult thing that I found about that river is that it was hard to run a solid pattern that produces bigger fish. You could go down the bank and pitch wood and grass all day long and catch fish, but they had to be 15 inches to keep, which was a back breaker for us. The river was full of grass and wood, but you had to put your trolling motor on high and cover a bunch of water in practice hoping to fall upon better fish. Its kind of like fishing milfoil clumps and mats back home in Minnesota, you can go a long time without a bite and then happen upon a pack of fish, why they are grouped up their? Who knows. Unless to came across said pack of fish, you were hurting (at least we were).

We tried the same weed clumps where Tyler did well two years ago and came up empty handed for keepers. We ended up catching 16 fish on day one with none over 15 inches and had less bites on day 2 with the same results. Teams that did well found small sweet spots in the backwaters and a couple teams found fish along the many rock and wood jetties on the main river.

If I were to fish the tournament all over again I would do a couple things different. We went into the event thinking it was going to be tough, so we didn’t set the hook on anything, unless we couldn’t help it with moving baits. I would set the hook until we caught a keeper fish. We stayed in the Little Rock pool the whole time; I would lock through next time. Not sure if those things would have made a difference, but who knows.

It was a long week in Arkansas, but if I can fish it again next year, I probably will. Even though the fishing was tough, these events are always fun in terms of the many perks the college anglers receive. We had a cool Q & A session with Scott Rook, Kevin Short, Mike McClelland, and James Niggmeyer. Also got to talk with k-pink a little bit about his win in the mighty mississip, which was very cool. Our banquet was in the “fish factory” where they film “The Bassmasters” TV show for the elite series, also very cool.

As you can possibly imagine, I was eager to get back to Minnesota and catch some fish. I’ve been out quite a bit since I’ve been back, fishing lakes such as orchard, chisago, and coon. I’ve got a clubber on chisago this Saturday and an ABA on Coon on Sunday. Coon has been very good to me in the past, but practice wasn’t to stellar, water is down quite a bit and has left my better areas too shallow, we’ll see how it goes, I’ll be sure to give reports. Until then, may your line be tight!

ABA - North South Center - June 28th

This past weekend I fished my first money tournament as a boater in an ABA event on North South Center. I was able to practice on Friday afternoon after work for a half day and found some fish that left me feeling somewhat confident for the tournaments. I wasn’t getting a lot of bites, but the ones I did get were better fish. Looking at past results from other ABA tournament on North South Center it looked like it usually took 11-13 pounds to either win or finish in the money. I thought if I worked at it I would have the potential of catching that weight.

In practice I was catching post-spawn/early summertime fish anywhere from 3-12ft of water. The area needed to have either rock or weeds to hold fish. Some fish were up shallow under matted weeds that had been uprooted while others were offshore or on steep sloping banks. As some may know, our lakes here in the metro part of the state are under a drought . The boat launch at North Center was ridiculously shallow which made for quite a sight during the launching and loading for our tournament. Someone should have had a video camera… some good footage to be had. Definitely a lack of water in that lake.

We launched at 7:00am on tournament day under bluebird skies with a decent amount of wind already churning up the lake. I drew boat 13 and took off towards the north end of the lake. On about my third pitch to a deeper weedline I stuck my first keeper of the day on a blk/blue t-rigged tube. Next pitch, same thing, another good one. This was a decent surprise, didn’t even have a sniff on this weedline in practice. I moved down the bank to a spot where I caught a good one in practice and put two more in the boat; one good one and one swimmer. I worked my way back to my starting weedline and put another good fish in the boat. I had my limit by 8:00am and had about 11 pounds in the boat; not great for most lakes, but for NSC I felt good about it. All these fish came on the blk/blue t-rig tube. At this point I felt that if I could get a 4lb bite and maybe one more solid fish I would have a chance at the money.

After I caught that quick limit I proceeded to run around the lake for about 3 hours with only smaller keepers to show for it. In practice I had fished a long, deeper point in NC that came way out into the lake, hooked up on my first two casts, and left. At the beginning of the tournament there was about 4 boats on the spot already so I decided not to fish it right away. After running around the lake catching a bunch of runts I decided to finally fish it. There were still 4 boats on it when I pulled up, but it’s long enough that many boats can fish it and have their own space. On about my third cast with my all terrain finesse jig I hooked up with a good fish. I was able to cull out the small one from the morning and now had at least 12lbs. This point was loaded with fish. You could literally watch other guys on the point catch fish after fish. Once you got the school fired up they really bit. However, I wasn’t able to get many over that 2.5lb mark. I was forced to fish the shallow part of the point with the other boats out on the deeper end.

After my trolling motor batteries just about died from trying to stay on the windy point I had to move off it and go try my other starting spot. I didn’t get another bite there and had to end the day with what I had. After pulling up to the weigh-in I found out that the guys that were deeper on the points really caught them good… 19lbs good. Wow, I was a little disheartened after hearing that and soon found out that I probably didn’t have enough to be in the money. I weighed in with 12.94lbs, which on any other year at NSC would have been a money finish. However, the fish bit pretty good that day and many guys brought in 14-15lb bags. I think the fact that we had some really warm weather the week prior to the tournament finally got the fish schooled up on deeper summertime spots. It looked like most of the fish out deep had just got out there (empty bellies). You couple that with a lake that hasn’t got fished much this year because of low water and its going to kick out better than normal weights. The standings have yet to come out, but I think I’ll finish in at least the top 10 out of 26 guys so I can’t complain too much.

After having time to think about this one, I definitely have learned a lot:

#1: never be satisfied with what you have. I didn’t feel like I had the fish to win, but with past results I thought I would be in the money.
#2: start on your best spots and stay there. I should have started on that point and fished it all day long. Those deep fish seem to turn on at random times and you need to be there when they do.
#3: I have a lot to learn. I realized that I had a lot to learn before the event started (if you know everything about bass you’d be a millionaire), but now I realize that I have a LOT more to learn, primarily about fishing deep water.

These guys are good and I’ll have to step up my ‘game’ if I want to try and contend with them. I’m glad I fished the event and will hopefully be back for more!

Be sure to stay tuned. I’m heading down to Little Rock, Arkansas on Monday to fish the Under Armour National Collegiate Bass Championship on the Arkansas River. This is another one of our National Championships for college fishing. My partner took a top five on the same pools were fishing two years ago and so I feel a little confident going into the event. It will probably be a very tough bite, basically like every other lake they put us on for college events, so I’ll try to stay “cautiously” confident. As we all have experienced, this sport sure can humble a fella pretty good.

Lake Independence - June 6th

A couple weeks ago I had my first club tournament of the year on Lake Independence in the northwest metro. My club had already fished two tournaments in Wisconsin prior to this event, but I was unable to fish them since I was still at school. This tournament was the first weekend that I was back from school so I didn’t have any time to pre-fish, nor had I ever been on the lake before. Needless to say, I hadn’t a clue of where to go, but it ended up being alright.

If you can recall the weekend of June 6th was a cold and wet one. I don’t think the temps got about 55 degrees and you could see fog coming off the water in certain areas all day long because the water was warmer than the air for a good part of the day. I had good rain gear and luckily brought a warm hat, but another layer of clothing and some gloves would have done me some good!

I started off fishing a cattail island that was close to the YMCA island. It was surrounded with shallow water and thick milfoil. It didn’t look to productive because of the lack of deeper water close by so I made a move to some docks close by. After cruising down a row of docks without a bite it was time for another change. I moved across the lake to a slop and pad filled bay. The water was noticeably clearer here and looked much more productive. On about my third cast in the area I landed a decent keeper. I proceeded to fish the bay with a frog, swim jig, spinnerbait, and a t-rigged beaver. I ended up filling out my limit with a bunch of runts and also lost a couple good fish on a frog that may have helped. After getting through the bay I continued down the bank to some other pads that had some good wind blowing into them. I caught two more keepers on a spinnerbait on that bank and was able to cull for a couple ounces.

After fishing the windblown bank I moved to a spot behind the YMCA island and started pitching a blk/blue t-rigged tube in the cattails. After a couple minutes I laid into a nicer fish. It ended up being about 2.75lbs and my best fish of the day. I continued to pitch the cattails thinking that I was finally on to some better fish, but it never panned out.
I ended the day with about 8.5lbs which was good enough for 2nd place. I wasn’t too pleased with my bag, but I can’t complain with that for never being on Independence before and especially under the colder conditions.

Fishing Report/Update: I’ve been fishing the south metro lakes quite a bit the last couple weeks since I’ve been back from Iowa and have still been finding fish shallow until about the last week or so. My best lures have been swim jigs and plastic stick baits on the inside weed lines. I’ve caught some fish in deep water on jig worms and texas rigged beavers but it’s been very sporadic. I’m looking forward to this hot weather to continue which should help in getting the fish stacked up on the deeper summer spots. It will also put some stability in other shallow water patterns throughout the lakes such as docks, pads, and slop.

Stay tuned for another entry sometime this week. I fished an ABA tournament this weekend and will be sure to let you know how it goes!

National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship - Lake Lewisville, TX

My buddy Tyler and recently got back from our trip down to Lewisville, TX for the National Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship that was held on Lake Lewisville May 25th - 29th. It ended up being the largest collegiate bass fishing tournament ever held with 129 two person teams competing in the event. Over 75 colleges were represented that came from all around the nation. This was my third year competing in the tournament and Tyler’s second.

If you have read older write ups in my blog you may know that I have done terrible the past two years that I have competed in the tournament. In 2007 we finished dead last and zeroed both days of the tournament. In 2008 we moved up slightly; we weighed in a total of 4 fish and finished 75th. This year would be different. The tournament in past years had been held in the fall and it was moved to the spring this year. I had high hopes going into the event because the water had risen about 4ft about 20 days prior to when practice started. I thought it may position some fish in more predictable areas up shallow.

At first I really wasn’t too thrilled about going to this tournament because it meant that I was going to miss the Minnesota Bass Opener for the first time ever. We usually catch them pretty them pretty good at my cabin in northern Minnesota during that weekend so I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to be there this year; Lake Lewisville would have a lot to live up to compared to northern Minnesota.

Tyler and I drove down to Texas on Sunday. Practice didn’t start until Tuesday so we fished Lake Ray Roberts (just north of Lewisville) on Monday to see if we couldn’t get an early jump on what kind of patterns the fish were on in North Texas. We had an awesome morning on Ray Bob when we got into the white bass (called “sandies” in texas) on topwater. We had multiple doubles; it made for a great start to the trip. In the afternoon we got on a little shallow water pattern in the flooded bushes using frogs, beavers, and weightless stick worms; it ended up being a fun day.

Big Fish of the day on Ray Bob

On that Monday night it was Cabelas Day for the anglers competing in the championship. Each team received a $100.00 gift card to Cabelas. I spent mine on a navionics chip for the southern states which was awesome for being able to navigate Lake Lewisville. Tyler spent his wisely by picking up some new baits to try such as the Spro poppin frog, the Spro BBZ-1 and some tungsten weights. After buying our stuff and seeing pros such as Jeff Kriet, Kelly Jordon, Mike Hawkes, Sean Hornke, and others we were ready for our first day on Lake Lewisville.

To make a long two practice days short, I will explain the main patterns that we found in practice and our game plan for the tournament:

Fishing the huge marinas that Lewisville had to offer: Our best bait around these marinas were t-rigged all terrain white tubes and Yum vibra king tubes. They emulated the shad perfectly and were by far our best producer in practice. These Marinas are a piece of cover that I never grew up fishing and were very different for me. I grew up fishing stationary docks with 0-6 feet of water under them. However, most of these docks had anywhere from 5-35 feet of water under them. These marina docks always kick out good weights in the championship so we figured we’d better learn how to fish them. Most of the fish we caught were suspended under 8-12ft docks.

Fishing the big tires that acted as a wind break for the marinas: This is also another crazy pattern that was totally new to me. I hooked into about a 5 pounder in practice fishing these with a white tube. The fish was suspended about 2 feet under the tires that were floating above 25 ft of water. This pattern never paid off for us in the tournament, but I know of several teams that caught them doing this in the tournament.

Topwater on the dam in the morning: Both walking baits and poppers worked, as well as frogs in areas that had brush close to the dam.

Flipping and Pitching flooded “grass” in the upper portion of the lake: We could not get a bite in the bushes, but you could sometimes find patches of this woody/grassy stuff that was flooded outside the bushes. I had never fished that stuff before and don’t even know the name of it, but it looked like grass... In the grass I was catching them on an all terrain finesse jig and an all terrain white tube.

At the banquet the night before the tournament we unfortunately drew boat number 128 out of 129 boats. Thus, we had to change our game plan a little bit. Once again the banquet was pretty awesome. I can’t give enough thanks to all the sponsors that support this event and the anglers competing in it. We got another set of free frog toggs, ranger hats, Columbia fishing shirts and various other gifts and giveaways. Once of the coolest parts of the banquet was when I walked in the door and saw Jimmy Houston standing there; quite the surprise! It was really cool to talk to him. He did an awesome job being the MC of the banquet and at the end he got two guys from Oklahoma University and Oklahoma State to arm wrestle for a Plano tackle box, it was quite the evening! Tyler and I went back to the hotel for the evening, prepared our tackle, and got ready for Day 1.

Day One Launch

With our less than stellar boat number Tyler and I decided to start fishing in the marina that we were launching out of. We had some success fishing way back behind all of the docks in practice where most of the other teams didn’t go. Initially our plan was to start on the dam, but with such a late draw we knew that the area would already be full of boats. Our goal for the day was to get a limit. More specifically we had a goal of getting at least one keeper in each of our spots throughout the day. Once our boat number was called we basically did a 180 degree turn back into the marina. After about 45 minutes Tyler landed our first keeper of the day on a white/gray laminate tube. It was a solid fish and really helped get the monkey off our back to get the day started. We continued to fish around in the marina for about another hour and a half with no bites. We cut over to another spot in the marina that was ultra shallow and full of brush and weeds. I tossed my frog into the area. The line ended up getting hung over a branch so I kind of just “bobbed” my frog up and down in the water. Right away we saw a big swirl under the frog, but with all the carp that I had seen doing this in practice I kind of just wrote it off. Tyler, on the other hand, thought it was bass so kept the frog there for a little bit longer. BAM! He came up and just smoked it! After dragging the fish through the brush and weeds, I landed what would be our biggest fish of the day. It was a catch that I wish was on camera, it was pretty cool and really got us excited about the day ahead.

After another 20 minutes or so we moved up north a little bit to a spot that had both flooded brush and rocks/foundations outside the brush. We tried up in the bushes with no luck and then proceeded to move out a little bit and fish the rocks/foundations that were out from the bushes. One cool thing about this spot is that we found these foundations last year when they we high and dry because the water was lower. However, this year they were completely under water and held some fish. After about 15 minutes I landed our third keeper of the day on a shakey head with a 7” watermelon zoom finesse worm. We never fished the foundations in practice, we had only concentrated on the bushes, so this was definitely a bonus fish. We tried this spot for a little longer with no luck and then moved even farther up north to our spots where we were pitching the grass.

Within the first 20 minutes of moving up there we found a point with bass busting on shad in the grass. I pitched my white tube in the grass and stuck our 4th keeper of the day. We were now feeling better about our chances of getting a limit. This pattern was very inconsistent, but it seemed that in practice this is how we were getting our better bites. Right at the point when you thought you should move and do something else, you would get bit. In practice I landed a solid 3lb fish from the grass and I also lost a fish that straightened out my hook after it ran at, and then under the boat. I have never had a fish pull that hard before and would have loved to have seen how big it was even though it was during practice. Like I said, just when we thought we should move and do something else I caught our 5th keeper on an all terrain finesse jig; a solid 2-2.5lb fish. We now had a limit and it felt awesome. After struggling terribly for the last two years on Lake Lewisville, it was such a load off our backs to have a limit in the boat. That would be our last keeper of the day. We ended the day with 10.53lbs which put us in 30th place out of 129 boats. We felt good about our day, but would need a couple lucky bites on day 2 to stay in the same position in the standings.

Day One Fish

Day One weigh-in

On day 2 we were boat number 2

We decided to go to the dam where we caught a good amount of fish in practice. However, besides a couple white bass and one short fish, we had nothing to show for our efforts after about 1.5 hours at the dam. With an empty livewell we made the decision to head north to our grass spots. It was much tougher on day 2 to get keeper bites. However, we were getting a lot more shorts that day. I caught one keeper deeper and off of the bank in some sticks on the AT finesse jig and also another solid 3lb fish on the finesse jig in the grass. The 3lb fish came from the EXACT same grass spot as the last keeper from day 1. We definitely struggled more on day two to get keepers and I think the main difference was not getting a couple more junk fish like we got on day one (frog fish and shakey head fish). We tried to run our grass pattern throughout the lake after we fished the grass up north. We were able to run down lake, find a grass spot, and pull over to fish it. It worked with perfection, except for the fact that we were catching all short fish! With about 1.5 hours left in the day we made a move back down lake to the marina that we fished in on day one. We moved into the same area that Tyler caught his keeper in the first day. After fishing that spot with no luck we were making our way back out from behind the docks. I pitched my white tube to the end marina dock and stuck another good keeper with about 20 minutes left in the day. It felt really good to get that keeper; it would help us to stay in about the same spot in the standings. We ended the day with about 6.5lbs and a total of 17lbs and some change for the two days. This put us in 37th out of 129 for the tournament. We were happy with how we finished compared to past years, but naturally we would have liked to have moved up the leader board after day 2. Murry State ended up claiming the title. They were cranking off shore structure and cover to take the win. The smoked them pretty good; Congrats guys!

After having a couple weeks to think about the event, I really can’t complain about our finish. We were the top finishing school from the Big Ten and also a top finisher among all of the other northern schools that were at the event. It’s definitely not easy to go and fish these new lakes in totally opposite ends of the country. There is a learning curve that comes with it and after fishing the lake for 3 years I finally feel like we ARE learning something about fishing Texas reservoirs. My goal going into the event was to finish in the top 40% and we more than achieved that. If we qualify/are eligible to fish the event next year we will definitely be back!

Thanks again to all the sponsors!!! And thanks for reading!!

Big Ten Championship - Brookville Lake, Indiana

Last week my buddies and I from the University of Iowa Bass Team competed in the 14th annual Big Ten Championship on Brookville Lake in Eastern Indiana. This is one of my favorite college events because we can bring upwards of 10 members to the event which always makes for a good time. It's also one of the oldest collegiate tournaments (if not the oldest), so its pretty cool being apart of it.

Since we were having difficulties finding boats for our team we ended up only bringing 8 guys to the event. It didn't hurt us tremendously because the format for the Big Tens allows you to only weigh-in your 3 best boat's fish from your team for a total weight. Even though we cut our team by two guys we still only had two guaranteed boats that we were towing to the tournament. We had to rent a 14ft aluminium boat with a 9.9hp motor for one of our teams during the 1st practice day. The 2nd day of practice was even more interesting when we had to jam 8 guys into 2 boats... better be careful with your backcast!

Practice for us on Brookville Lake was just plain tough to say the least. Over a total of 2 days with a combined 8 guys fishing, we only landed 3 keepers! Brookville Lake was tremendously clear in the mid to lower portions of the lake. And as usual with most reservoir systems, we found some dirtier water up in the northern end of the lake.

On practice day one we found water temps that ranged from 50-63 degrees depending on where you were on the lake. We started in the upper part of the lake on shallow stump flats throwing moving baits and pitching a little bit to no avail. We moved down lake and caught some short fish on a shakey head with a straight tail robo worm off of small main lake cuts. It was brutally tough trying to get keeper bites, we just could not figure out what to do differently. At the end of the day we moved back up to the northern part of the lake and my buddy, Chris, finally caught a nice keeper off a laydown on a shakey head, now I had a little confidence.

After getting back to the ramp we found out that one of our other boats didn't catch any keepers and our rental boat guys had actually caught a nice 18 inch fish, also in the upper portion of the lake. It was a tough day on the water, it was time to go back to the drawing board.

On the second practice day we started off fishing the dam on the lower portion of the lake. I had read many times of the plentiful population of smallies that were in the lake and thought that we ought to give them a chance. Within the first couple casts I hooked up with a keeper smallie on a craw colored wiggle wart crankbait. We continued on down a rocky bank adjacent to the dam and Chris caught another smallmouth on a finesse jig. Things were already looking better for us and I felt that we may have found something. Our other boat didn't land any keepers on the second practice day, but recorded a couple short fish. After two days of practice our game plan was to start out in the lower portion of the lake trying to catch smallmouth and then just adjust from there. Our tournament day started off on the wrong foot when one of the volunteer boaters for out team didn't show up. This left us once again having only three boats and having to split 6 guys between two boats. Me and my partner John were able to fish by ourselves for the day. After we got everyone situated with boats it was time for take off. The wind had died down nicely compared to the two previous days which made for a nice launch. I had boat number 2 and was able to get to the dam first. However, it ended up paying no dividends. We fished around the dam and the rocky bank close by for the first 2.5 hours with nothing to show for it. I told John that we needed to scrap the smallmouth plan and get to the northern end of the lake. The previous day while driving on the north end I spotted a good looking bank with a bunch of laydowns. The water was dirty and much warmer. We never fished the spot on practice, but I told John that we were either going to live of die in the north part of the lake. I felt comfortable fishing that type of water and decided we would just grind it out there for the rest of the day. Besides the smallies, the north end was the only place we could catch keepers and I didn't want to mess with a bunch of short fish in the middle portion of the lake.

We got to that bank I was talking about and we starting flipping and pitching reaction innovations sweet beavers. After about 30 minutes I hooked into our first bite, a keeper! Man, that felt good to get that fish. After fishing that bank for awhile without a bite I was thinking, "Jeeze, another failed college tournament..." but things were beginning to turn around. After about 15 more minutes I landed our second keeper! After going all practice with only catching 1 keeper myself, I was pumped! Since its a team tournament, we can call our other boats to give them updates. We called one of our boats over to the bank we were on and they were able to also score a keeper fish on a sweet beaver. Things were definitely looking better. The water water getting up to 65 degrees and I knew fish had to be moving up to the wood and laydowns. With that thought in mind me and John made another small adjustment and went back to the exact same cove and stumps that we fished first thing on the first practice day. The water had warmed up the fish had moved up! In the last 45 minutes I bet we caught close to 10 fish pitching around isolated stumps with sweet beavers. However, only one of them went over 14 inches. We caught a lot of fish that were 13.25, 13.75, just a little to short.

We fished down to the last couple minutes that we had with no more keepers. I really feel that if I would have given myself about 2 hours in that cove that we could have scratched out a limit. But I'm also glad that we had the sense of mind to realize that fish were moving up because it had been so hot that week. It was an adjustment that paid off.

After getting back to the launch and finding out our team only had a total of 4 fish I thought we didn't stand a chance in placing that high. I figured since we were catching them pretty good at the end of the day that most of the other teams were too. However, I was pleasantly surprised. My 3 fish weighed just over 4 pounds and our other boat that had one fish pushed our team total to a little over 5.5lbs. After all teams had weighed in we found out that we had enough for 2nd place! I was shocked. I knew that the lake was fishing pretty tough, but I didn't think it would be that tough for the other teams too. From what I've read and heard, Brookville is a lake that can be very difficult if you've never fished it before. Its very different than anything I had ever fished, but I felt most comfortable flipping and pitching in dirtier water around laydowns and stumps (so fishing you strengths really does pay off!).

Overall, even though the fishing kinda stunk, this was probably the best college fishing trip I have been on since I started fishing these things. The guys that went on the trip were awesome and made it that much better. I think we had some good team chemistry. Even though it was brutally tough in practice we persevered and got it done on tournament day which always makes the ride home that much better.

Mississippi River - Pool 19 - Burlington, IA

A couple weeks ago we had a boater/non-boater club tournament for our University of Iowa Fishing Team down on pool 19 of the Mississippi River out of Burlington. Each U of I member was paired up with a Lake Cooper Angling Association club member. Since it is extremely difficult to find boats to use for tournaments, the LCAA club helped us out tremendously.

I was really looking forward to this tournament because I had never fished the Miss. River this far down before and I also thought it would be a great opportunity for our U of I members to have a chance to get some experience and tips from some of the older guys that had been fishing tournaments for much longer than we had.

We (10 club members) left the Iowa City area around 4:00 am and started our trek towards Burlington, IA. After about an hour drive we arrived and got paired up with our boaters and got ready for the tournament. We launched at 7am and weighed in at 3pm.

Overcast skies and rain greeted us on tournament morning. The rain didn't let up once throughout the entire day which left for some wet anglers and rusty stored tackle box hooks at the end of the day.

Me and my partner, Tony, made about a 40 minute run down to the Montrose area of the River. We were fishing a backwater cut that was a couple degrees warmer than the main river channel. It was a really cool spot that was always replenishing throughout the day. The fish would swim by this little cut while on the main river, feel the warmer water, and swim into the cut. We went up and down about a 30 yd stretch most of the day and fished a couple other areas close by this stretch too. There was one specific laydown that would ALWAYS replenish. We would catch a fish off of it, come back 5 minutes later and catch another, it never failed and was really an awesome learning experience for spring time fishing (always replenishing in a transition area).

Tony was mainly fishing with a sweet beaver and a chatterbait. I caught all my fish on an All Terrain finesse jig in texas craw color with a green pumpkin trailer. I bet we caught close to 40 fish that day, but only 4 of them were over the length minimum of 14 inches.

We ended up weighing 4 fish for 10lbs 11oz which was good enough for 4th place out of 12 boats. The best part about this tournament was the amount of funds our club raised. We expected to raise about $400 going into the event, however, once the top finishers started donating the cash winnings to our club we ended up walking away with more than $1000.00! Its was an unbelievable event and we were greatly appreciative of the donations. It went a long way in terms of helping out with the Big Ten Championship. By the way, stay tuned, I'll be posting about the Big Ten Tourney here in the next couple days.

P.S. we ended up finishing the highest that Iowa has ever finished before! it was tough, but it worked out...

Lake Dardanelle - Arkansas Tech Invitational

My bass tournament season officially began a little more than a month ago when me and a buddy of mine went down to Lake Dardanelle to represent the University of Iowa Bass Team at the ATU Invitational. We had high hopes while traveling to the event after reading about how many big bags this tournament has kicked out in past years. Limits were the norm and 20lb sacks were consistent in past years. We were down there from March 16-21, a week before the BASS Elite Series guys were down there. After picking up my boat in Minnesota with temps in the low teens we eventually arrived in Russelville, Arkansas with balmy 60-70 degree weather, definitely a good way to spend a spring break... Also, anyone ever heard of the Arkansas Grand Canyon? Yeah, me neither, but we drove right through it on the trip down, what a crazy drive! Its part of the Ozark Mountains and was a cool sight to see.

Practice Days 1, 2, and 3:
Basically me and my partner, Tyler, decided to break down this massive lake/river into three sections: lower, mid, and upper portions. On each practice day we fished one portion of the lake. At close to 55,000 acres we in no way were able to cover all of it, but we tried our best. The first two days of practice were brutally tough for us. We fished for both days with only catching 2 keepers. We caught some short fish, but even they were not that prevalent. On the third day of practice we decided to make a 30 minute run up to the spadra creek area of the lake. The third day presented us with overcast and rainy conditions for the first time since we had been there. Within the first half hour after making our run we were already noticing better results than the first two days of practice. We ended the day catching around 14lbs. We were mainly focusing on flats with stumps and also laydowns that were on bank closest to the creek channels that ran through these backwaters. Our main baits were spinnerbaits, jigs, beavers, and chatterbaits. Here are some pictures from practice.

Tournament Day 1:

On day one we put all our eggs in one basket and made the 30 minute run up to spadra. With sunny conditions and high skies we struggled to get a keeper in any of the spots that we caught the 14lbs in the day before. Eventually at about 12:30 Tyler hooked into a keeper fish on a jig off a laydown. That would be the only fish that we would catch that day.

Tournament Day 2:

On day two the forecasts were very similar to our third practice day which left us optimistic about our chances up in the spadra creek area. We got to our staring spot and within the first half hour I landed a keeper fish on a spinnerbait. I thought that it was going to be on after that fish. However, that would once again be the only fish that we would catch that day.

We ended the tournament only weighing 2 fish and that was good enough for 38th out of 57 boats(http://www.collegiatebasschampionship.com/uploads/2009%20ATU%20RESULTS_final2.pdf). Not great, but not terrible for only tow fish. It was tough on most of the Field, but as usual, a couple teams always figure them out. the winning team brought in solid limits each day and totaled 30+ pounds. They also were fishing up the river quite a ways.

One of the really cool things about this event is that a lot of the Elite Series guys attended the weigh-ins since they were going to be fishing the lake the week after us. Kevin Short was the MC for the weigh-in and it was cool being able to talk with him on stage. We also got the see guys such as Rick Morris, Pat Golden, Clark Rheem, Marty Stone, and even the zen master Rick Clunn. Following the Elite Tournament the next week on the same exact lake was even cooler. We were fishing very 5 minutes from where most of the top 12 guys were fishing; so close, yet so far. We also practiced in the same area that VanDam caught most of his fish on the 4th day of the Elite event, yet we didn't catch as many as he did (its amazing how good those guys are!)

All in all in was a fun event and a great way to spend my spring break. Stay tuned for more updates on my spring tournaments. I've had three already this year and I'll be writing about them throughout the week!

coming out of hibernation...

hey all, its been waaay too long since I last wrote in my fishing blog and this will soon change. I was debating whether or not to continue writing this year and have concluded that I will once again blog about my summer fishing adventures. Keep tabs on my blog as I will be updating it this week with some tournament entries from this spring! There should be some good stuff coming, so stay tuned!!