Day one of the ABA two day event was held on Bald Eagle Lake. I have fished this lake in past for a club tournament so I had a few areas in mind going into the event. In practice I was fortunately able to figure out what I was going to do fairly quickly. All I would need was my 3/8oz All Terrain jig and a 3/4oz texas rig for punching some heavier cover. I had found fish up shallow the day before and knew that I would spend my entire day up near the bank fishing my strengths.
I started the day near some cattails, but a strong wind had muddied this area up pretty good and the fish that were there the day before wanted nothing to do with it. I then went up to another area with pads and quickly began to put together a limit. I put a couple solid 2.5lb-3lb fish in the boat along with a few swimmers. I found the conditions to be a little more difficult that the previous day, but if I stuck with it and put my head down, I found that the bites were coming every so often. With the need of some better fish, I ran back to a patch of pads a mere stones throw away from the launch. In practice I stuck a 4 pound fish there right before I put my boat back on the trailer to go home. I thought it would be a spot that many people overlooked and thankfully I was right. I was protected nicely from the wind and I had it all to myself. I started pitching down the edge of it with my jig and ended up putting a few more solid 2.5-3lb fish in the boat after fishing that stretch a few times.
After getting off the water I discovered that many anglers had a tough day on Bald Eagle. It was a tough bite with fish far and few between. My fish weighed just over 12.5lbs and to my surprise was good enough for the day one lead! I was excited to hear this knowing that we would be on Big Marine the next day. I needed a lead going into that lake. Big Marine has had my number the past few years. So it would come to down to one last day. If I win the 2 day event, I would have a great shot at AOY yet I was faced with a lake that I have struggled on in the past. Check back soon to see if I could overcome my weakness and claim the top AOY spot!
Showing posts with label Tournament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tournament. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
ABA - Lake Waconia, MN
This past weekend I fished in my second ABA event of the summer on Lake Waconia, MN. I have done decent on this lake in my club tournaments, so I was looking forward to this one. I knew it was probably going to take around 18-20lbs to win, so I needed to catch them pretty good.
I practiced the day before the event with a little success. I fished out deep from 7am to 12:30 with only one fish to show for my efforts. Either I don’t know how to fish deep on that lake, or the deep bite was off. So fishing towards my strengths, I went shallow pitching matted milfoil, pads, and cattails. Within an hour I had about 15lbs, made up my mind what my plan would be and left soon after that.
On tournament morning we were greeted with a stiff northwest wind that didn’t make for a pleasant take-off. After taking a few waves over the bow of the boat we were off and running. I got to my spot, put the trolling motor down, hit the power button… nothing… great start! Trying not to panic, I just buried myself in the matted milfoil and went to work with a ¾oz tungsten weight and a beaver. In about the first 45 minutes I had 4 in the box, but they were just swimmers. After an hour I decided to take another look at my trolling motor situation and finally got it working!
This gave me a boost of confidence and allowed me to settle down a little more. I moved around to the back side of the matted milfoil and continued to catch them; however, this time they were a better fish. I landed a 4lb+ and 3lb+ fish on back to back casts; those really helped my bag.
Throughout the rest of the day I continued to pick apart every square foot of the matted milfoil (which was only about 30yds X 30yds big). I culled about 10 times throughout the day with my new culling beam; that thing worked wonders. Its amazing how easy it is to pass up fish in thick cover like that, it really paid off to be extremely thorough.
At the end of the day I didn’t think I would have enough to compete for a check. However, it seemed to be a tough day for others out there too. I ended up with 14.98lbs which was good enough for 5th out of 30 boats and a small check. The deep bite seemed to be off for most and the top 5 finishers caught all their fish up shallow.
I was happy with how the day went and was excited about the 5th place finish. However, there was one thing that was very frustrating; I lost sooooo many fish in the milfoil. I’m not sure what exactly contributed to that. It could have been the massive weight that I was using, the wrong kind of hooks, or just the fact that it was extremely thick cover. I bet for every bite I got, I landed 50% of them, it was that bad. I definitely need to figure out a different rigging method for this technique, who knows what kind of bag I would have had if I landed everyone that bit…
I have another club tournament coming up this weekend on Sugar Lake near Annandale, MN. It is our last club tournament that will count towards qualifying for the 2010 state tournament. I’m not sure if there is even a chance I can qualify with the amount of tournaments I missed due to school, but I’ll be sure to let you know how it went in my next post. Have a good weekend!
I practiced the day before the event with a little success. I fished out deep from 7am to 12:30 with only one fish to show for my efforts. Either I don’t know how to fish deep on that lake, or the deep bite was off. So fishing towards my strengths, I went shallow pitching matted milfoil, pads, and cattails. Within an hour I had about 15lbs, made up my mind what my plan would be and left soon after that.
On tournament morning we were greeted with a stiff northwest wind that didn’t make for a pleasant take-off. After taking a few waves over the bow of the boat we were off and running. I got to my spot, put the trolling motor down, hit the power button… nothing… great start! Trying not to panic, I just buried myself in the matted milfoil and went to work with a ¾oz tungsten weight and a beaver. In about the first 45 minutes I had 4 in the box, but they were just swimmers. After an hour I decided to take another look at my trolling motor situation and finally got it working!
This gave me a boost of confidence and allowed me to settle down a little more. I moved around to the back side of the matted milfoil and continued to catch them; however, this time they were a better fish. I landed a 4lb+ and 3lb+ fish on back to back casts; those really helped my bag.
Throughout the rest of the day I continued to pick apart every square foot of the matted milfoil (which was only about 30yds X 30yds big). I culled about 10 times throughout the day with my new culling beam; that thing worked wonders. Its amazing how easy it is to pass up fish in thick cover like that, it really paid off to be extremely thorough.
At the end of the day I didn’t think I would have enough to compete for a check. However, it seemed to be a tough day for others out there too. I ended up with 14.98lbs which was good enough for 5th out of 30 boats and a small check. The deep bite seemed to be off for most and the top 5 finishers caught all their fish up shallow.
I was happy with how the day went and was excited about the 5th place finish. However, there was one thing that was very frustrating; I lost sooooo many fish in the milfoil. I’m not sure what exactly contributed to that. It could have been the massive weight that I was using, the wrong kind of hooks, or just the fact that it was extremely thick cover. I bet for every bite I got, I landed 50% of them, it was that bad. I definitely need to figure out a different rigging method for this technique, who knows what kind of bag I would have had if I landed everyone that bit…
I have another club tournament coming up this weekend on Sugar Lake near Annandale, MN. It is our last club tournament that will count towards qualifying for the 2010 state tournament. I’m not sure if there is even a chance I can qualify with the amount of tournaments I missed due to school, but I’ll be sure to let you know how it went in my next post. Have a good weekend!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Lakes Area Bassmasters - Lake Minnetonka, MN
Due to some scheduling conflicts and changes for the Lakes Area Bassmasters, “Tonka Cup” phase two happened much earlier than anticipated. With notification of the switch I made my way back out to Lake Minnetonka for a day of practice on the Monday after the 4th of July. It was a zoo on the lake by about 10am which came as no surprise. Thankfully a storm system blew into the area by mid-afternoon to reduce the number of pleasure boaters on the lake. It was a long practice day that yielded some good things offshore, but my day was full of smaller caliber fish.
On tournament day I paired up with another club member, Dan. Dan is a solid angler and usually does well in our events. I felt that if we worked together we could both come in with solid limits. Dan and I hopped around to various offshore areas near our launch site for most of the day in pursuit of putting some better quality fish in the boat. I started off with two small fish caught on a drop-shot and then put my third fish in the boat about mid-morning on a t-rigged beaver; this was a much better fish. We continued to hop around to a few different bays. I was able to get my limit that consisted of a few decent fish and one 4 plus pounder. Meanwhile, Dan was unfortunately struggling to put the hook into the fish. He had a few unfortunate events throughout the day that ended up hurting him in the end. A few straightened hooks and a breakoff in some rocks really put a damper on his day. It’s never fun to witness these kinds of things, but I know he will come back strong in the next event. To help matters somewhat, Dan just found out that he will be fishing the Federation North Regional’s this year! Good luck buddy!
In the end I came in with a limit around 12.5 pounds which was surprisingly good enough to win and to retain the cup. I anticipated the bite to be tough based on my practice, but I felt for sure someone would have caught them good, its Tonka, and the big ones definitely live there!
Overall I think most guys brought in limits which was good to see. Our next club event is on Sugar Lake up by Annandale, MN. I have not been to this lake since I fished a junior bassmaster event on it about 6 years ago so we’ll see how it goes.
I’ll be fishing an ABA tournament this weekend on Waconia. It should take some solid weights to be in the money in that event. I’m going to have to really catch them to have a good finish. I should have a write-up about that event sometime next week. Until then, have a good weekend and keep your line wet!
On tournament day I paired up with another club member, Dan. Dan is a solid angler and usually does well in our events. I felt that if we worked together we could both come in with solid limits. Dan and I hopped around to various offshore areas near our launch site for most of the day in pursuit of putting some better quality fish in the boat. I started off with two small fish caught on a drop-shot and then put my third fish in the boat about mid-morning on a t-rigged beaver; this was a much better fish. We continued to hop around to a few different bays. I was able to get my limit that consisted of a few decent fish and one 4 plus pounder. Meanwhile, Dan was unfortunately struggling to put the hook into the fish. He had a few unfortunate events throughout the day that ended up hurting him in the end. A few straightened hooks and a breakoff in some rocks really put a damper on his day. It’s never fun to witness these kinds of things, but I know he will come back strong in the next event. To help matters somewhat, Dan just found out that he will be fishing the Federation North Regional’s this year! Good luck buddy!
In the end I came in with a limit around 12.5 pounds which was surprisingly good enough to win and to retain the cup. I anticipated the bite to be tough based on my practice, but I felt for sure someone would have caught them good, its Tonka, and the big ones definitely live there!
Overall I think most guys brought in limits which was good to see. Our next club event is on Sugar Lake up by Annandale, MN. I have not been to this lake since I fished a junior bassmaster event on it about 6 years ago so we’ll see how it goes.
I’ll be fishing an ABA tournament this weekend on Waconia. It should take some solid weights to be in the money in that event. I’m going to have to really catch them to have a good finish. I should have a write-up about that event sometime next week. Until then, have a good weekend and keep your line wet!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
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!
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!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
ABA - Big Marine Lake, MN
This past weekend I fished an ABA tournament on Big Marine Lake. This lake is notorious for being full of fish, yet getting anything over 2lbs can be challenging. In practice I was able to find fish both shallow and deep and I was shooting for 10-12lbs. The shallow fish were caught on frogs and the deeper fish on a dropshot, jigworm, and crankbait.
I started the event out on a deep point that had a little bald spot in the weeds in about 13 feet of water. The area had a hard bottom and had plenty of fish on it in practice (aqua vu’s work well in clear water…) My high hopes of this spot quickly ran out within the first hour after I had only pulled two fish off of it. However, one was a solid 2.5lb fish which gave me a decent start. I caught the other one up on top of the point where fish were busting suspended sunfish in the morning.
In practice I had marked about five areas that I was able to get better bites on out deep and proceeded to hop around to each one throughout the next few hours. On my second deep spot I was able to put a 2.75lb fish in the boat on the drop shot, another good addition to my bag. My goal was to try and get a limit of 2lb fish in the boat before I went shallow looking for frog fish.
After fishing a few more deep areas I was able to round out my limit with smaller 1-1.5lb fish. With a few hours left in the tournament I decided to go shallow. The shallow fish that I caught in practice were tucked way back in a bay that was barely accessible. However, the fish that I caught back there were all 2.5lb plus fish. The reason I didn’t start back there is because I was not getting many bites in that area. It was about a 1 or 2 fish area; a spot where I was planning on going to get a kicker fish.
I fished through the shallow bay and proceed to miss 2 blowups on my frog. I never saw the fish and don’t know if they would have helped my bag. That’s just how it goes sometimes.
At the weigh-in my bag was 8.58lbs and I believe it only took 10lbs to be in the money. The winner had around 13lbs and I believe the winning fish were caught deep on a jigworm. This tournament was a tough one to swallow. I felt that for sure I could get five 2lb bites out deep and then take a chance at a big fish shallow, but sometimes a plan doesn’t pan out.
So now it’s on to the next one this weekend on Lake Minnetonka with the Lakes Area Bassmasters club. I spent a few hours on the lake last week, but did not find a whole lot. However, I did have a “Carl Spande” moment when a 40” musky ate the small northern that had eaten my crankbait! That was quite the fight and possibly the biggest fish I had ever caught. Come tournament day I might be hopping around the lake fishing some memories so we’ll see how it goes…
I started the event out on a deep point that had a little bald spot in the weeds in about 13 feet of water. The area had a hard bottom and had plenty of fish on it in practice (aqua vu’s work well in clear water…) My high hopes of this spot quickly ran out within the first hour after I had only pulled two fish off of it. However, one was a solid 2.5lb fish which gave me a decent start. I caught the other one up on top of the point where fish were busting suspended sunfish in the morning.
In practice I had marked about five areas that I was able to get better bites on out deep and proceeded to hop around to each one throughout the next few hours. On my second deep spot I was able to put a 2.75lb fish in the boat on the drop shot, another good addition to my bag. My goal was to try and get a limit of 2lb fish in the boat before I went shallow looking for frog fish.
After fishing a few more deep areas I was able to round out my limit with smaller 1-1.5lb fish. With a few hours left in the tournament I decided to go shallow. The shallow fish that I caught in practice were tucked way back in a bay that was barely accessible. However, the fish that I caught back there were all 2.5lb plus fish. The reason I didn’t start back there is because I was not getting many bites in that area. It was about a 1 or 2 fish area; a spot where I was planning on going to get a kicker fish.
I fished through the shallow bay and proceed to miss 2 blowups on my frog. I never saw the fish and don’t know if they would have helped my bag. That’s just how it goes sometimes.
At the weigh-in my bag was 8.58lbs and I believe it only took 10lbs to be in the money. The winner had around 13lbs and I believe the winning fish were caught deep on a jigworm. This tournament was a tough one to swallow. I felt that for sure I could get five 2lb bites out deep and then take a chance at a big fish shallow, but sometimes a plan doesn’t pan out.
So now it’s on to the next one this weekend on Lake Minnetonka with the Lakes Area Bassmasters club. I spent a few hours on the lake last week, but did not find a whole lot. However, I did have a “Carl Spande” moment when a 40” musky ate the small northern that had eaten my crankbait! That was quite the fight and possibly the biggest fish I had ever caught. Come tournament day I might be hopping around the lake fishing some memories so we’ll see how it goes…
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