Lakes Area Bassmasters - Lake Minnetonka, MN

On June 19th the Lakes Area Bassmasters held the first annual Tonka Cup on famed Lake Minnetonka, MN. The Tonka Cup was an idea brought up by Ted Weigand, a member of the club. Ted also supplied the now imfamous silver cup. I thought the idea was great and would also put a little more at stake than a normal club tournament; something more to shoot for.

With the cup up for grabs I made sure to spend some time on the lake for practice. However, it was probably the worst practice I’ve ever had on Minnetonka. I found a few little things, but nothing very solid and nothing with a whole lot of size. My plan was to run a few areas in the morning that I had found and then just wing-it from there.

In the morning we were greeted with a fairly strong wind already coming from the northwest. This wind would prove to be disaster for my shallow spot that I had found around the big island area. I wasted about an hour and a half running down and back to that area only to find out that it was blown out and not productive first thing in the morning. After I got settled down back closer to where we launched I began to put together a small limit on a jig and a t-rigged beaver fishing milfoil in 3-7 ft of water. After I had my limit I went looking for some bigger fish offshore in 10-12 ft of water.

In practice I had one key bite out deep that was around 3lbs. This single bite clued me into a bigger fish pattern. I fished deep in the area that I got the 3lb bite, but nothing ever materialized. I continued to move down the weedline with my t-rigged beaver and finally ran into a small school of fish. My first bite was a small 1.5lb fish, but on my next cast in the same spot a solid 3lb fish took my beaver on the initial fall. If I let this spot rest for about 30 minutes they would replenish on it regularly, but unfortunately they continued to be only 1-2lb fish that kept biting.

In an attempt to run a pattern in this particular bay I sat down and picked out another offshore spot on the ‘bird that I had not fished in practice. This proved to be a solid audible and yielded another 3lb fish and a 4lb 4oz fish as well on the beaver. I was fishing the beaver in the scattered coontail grass that was out past the milfoil. After I had beaten up that spot I found one more point on the GPS that I didn’t fish in practice, ran to it, and pulled a soild 2.75lb fish off of it on an All Terrain football jig with a double tail grub for a trailer.

The day turned out a lot better than I had anticipated, especially after the slow morning I had. Scrapping everything I had found in practice, starting over and just fishing with instincts proved to be the right decision. I ended the day with 14lbs 8oz which was good enough for first place and claim to the first ever Tonka Cup. I was also able to earn some much needed club points towards the state tournament that will be later this summer. I have missed quite a few tournaments this year and last fall due to being at school. I am hoping to make up for lost time in the final two tournaments that count towards this season in the coming weeks. Follow along to see if I can get it done!