Forest, Marion and Tetonka Tournaments

The end of August is near and come September the Minnesota bass tournament scene will be littered with series championships and AOY titles. This means fall is soon to come and along with it the fish will be putting on the feed bags for winter. It feels like just yesterday I was taking off for Branson, Missouri for my first college event of the year.

In the last few weeks I’ve had three different events; an ABA on Forest Lake, South Metro Slop Hawg tournament on Lake Marion and a Lakes Area Bassmasters club event on Tetonka Lake. I’ll touch on each one a little bit and then fill you in on my upcoming schedule.

Forest Lake - ABA
On August 15th I had an ABA event on Forest Lake. I have a love/hate relationship with this lake. I have won an event on this lake in the past but I still do not like to venture out there unless I am forced to. My first practice day on the lake was very inefficient sue to the fact that my Trolling motor was not working at all. I would use the big motor to position myself on a spot and then would try and drift as best as possible… “As best as possible” was not working so well so I cut my day short after only finding one small area that would prove to be fruitless during the actual tournament. The Saturday before the event I had renewed confidence with a new trolling motor switch and fully charged batteries. However, after a long day on the water from 6am – 6pm and only 7 bites total, I was anything but enthused for fishing the tournament the next day.

Sunday morning on the drive up to the lake I was seriously worried about catching a limit, which doesn’t seem to happen too much in MN with our lakes that are for the most part full of fish over 12”. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it to beat myself up thinking about how tough the tournament could possibly be. My plan was to go into the event not putting any pressure on myself to perform well. I didn’t have any expectations and thought that if I just fish the conditions and work hard at it, then I’ll let the chips fall where they may.

I started my day on a steep weedline bank with a dropshot and quickly boated my first two keepers; they were just little ones though. The wind was pounding the bank and getting stronger and stronger by the minute. I had to act quickly in this spot before it got to the point where I would no longer be able to fish it. I pulled out a crankbait and began working it down the edge of the weedline. Within a half hour I had a limit in the boat. Two good ones ate the crankbait and I was stoked to have a limit in the boat this early!

I continued to work my way around to different areas fishing them as fast as I could while still trying to be productive. On a lake that was fishing tough I was looking for those bites that were going to happen as soon as my bait got into the strike zone. I felt like if I hit enough areas and spots that I would eventually run into some better fish. I made a few “hail mary” runs across the lake to hit specific docks and small areas that ended up resulting in a few good fish including two over 3lbs. Your confidence shoots through the roof when you make a 10 minute run from one end of the lake to the other just to fish one specific dock and on your first pitch you stick a 3lb fish that was sitting under the walkway in not much more than a 1/2ft of water.

I made one last move to a dock that was tucked way back in a canal, pitched my All Terrain jig up under the dock and landed one more solid 2lb fish that culled out my last smaller fish. I weighed just under 12.5lbs for the day and took 2nd place. I was more than happy with how my day went and would have never expected to finish that high with the way my practice went. This helped me tremendously in the AOY race and I now sit in 3rd place for the year with one regular season event left and then the two day championship in the held near the middle of September. I will have to have a couple more good finishes to stay near the top to compete for the AOY. The guys fishing these ABA events are top notch anglers with a lot of experience on the lakes we fish so it will be no easy task. I’ll work as hard as I can and see how things end up.

Lake Marion - South Metro Slop Hawgs
This past Wednesday August 18th we had our 4th South Metro Slop Hawg event on Lake Marion in Lakeville, MN. I do like this lake at times, but it has been stingy this year due to the amount of weeds that have been depleted from the main lake area. I teamed up with my good buddy Sam with the intention of having some fun running and gunning in the few hours that we had on the lake that night. We started on a point and Sam put one in the boat quickly on a drop-shot. We then ran to another spot with some coontail with nothing to show for it. After flying down a row of docks with no results we found a little back bay that was full of matted milfoil and coontail. Within the next hour and a half we put fish after fish in the boat from 2.5-3.75lbs on All Terrain black/blue jigs. It was a really fun evening with a really good buddy; it just doesn’t get any better than that. We ended up weighing in almost 17lbs and took first place along with a little cash. It was by far a top 5 fishing trip so far this year and was a nice change from the stress of fishing larger events.

Tetonka Lake - Lakes Area Bassmasters
On August 21st I fished with my club the Lakes Area Bassmasters on Tetonka Lake in Waterville, MN. To say the least, this event was brutally tough on a brutally scummy lake. I had never seen a lake that looked and smelled like such a slime hole. I’m not sure what kind of stuff was getting into that lake, but it was not pleasant especially when your white shirt is covered in green splotches at the end of the day. Without any practice, I was just fishing by the seat of my pants. I started out on docks and basically fished docks the entire day. There was not much of a weedline and I didn’t want to waste time finding deeper rock with the little amount of time that I had. I caught three decent fish off docks before I went to check out the channel between Tetonka another lake. This lake is part of the Cannon River so there was significant current flowing through the channel. After fishing through the channel I was working my way back underneath the bridge to Tetonka. I tossed my All Terrain jig up under the bridge behind one of the pilings, my line started to move off, I set the hook and much to my surprise a big smallie came up a jumped! Trying the control the boat in the current and having to duck underneath the bridge with a fish on was quite the fiasco I had going on. I boat flipped the 3lb+ smallie into the boat as my boat drifted out from under the bridge. After recollecting myself and getting lined up again I put my boat in a back eddy and made long casts up under the bridge with an All Terrain Finesse Jig. I would let the current do the work, my jig would swing by the pilings and on back to back casts I caught two more decent largemouth! It was a cool way to fish and thankfully I found that spot otherwise I would have been in trouble with how tough the rest of the lake was fishing. I ended up being the only one to weigh in a limit that day and took first place with just over 10lbs. I never got a bite after 11:00am and even though I won the event I’m not sure I will be heading back to Tetonka anytime soon. It looks like it could be a fun lake in the spring with all the overhanging willow trees, might be a better time to fish it then.

I’ve got my final regular ABA event this weekend on Clearwater Lake near Annandale, MN and then I’ll be off for a little bit until the two day championship in September. I’ve never fished Clearwater before so it should be fun to try and put the puzzle together on a new lake. Have a good weekend and a good Labor Day weekend. I’ll be sure to update sometime in the next few weeks!