Nicks Bass Blog

Mississippi pool 2

2012-05-11T15:56:14Z

                                                                                           POOL 2
May 5th,2012

        I headed to the Mississippi river pool 2 with the Ranger boat in-tow, today my guest is Ryan Ploof, he is a young guy that I work with and who just joined the bass club I belong too, the Renegade Bassers. We got the river early and launched the boat and made our trek south and pulled way back into some backwaters where I had caught some largemouth bass pretty good not to long ago. We finally got to where I wanted to start and I made the comment of we might be only ones back here, because we 4x4'ed it quite a ways and no sooner a boat comes around the bend and then another I notice fishing far off. I guess us bass guys are pretty diehard, well it didn't take long and I caught a small 12" largemouth and then another about the same size so I made the remark to Ryan that I'm on hawgs
        The weather is starting to get pretty gloomy out, but the forecast was just for maybe some spotty showers and the weathermen are never wrong.
A boat came around the bend and asked if we had radar because a big system was due to hit in about 1/2 hour, we decided to continue fishing and just like that I felt a bite and set the hook into a decent fish and flipped her into the boat after a good tussle.
Shortly after landing this fish it started to rain and we heard some thunder of in the distance so we both threw on our raingear and started to fish our way back towards the main river, it started raining so hard and long that my auto bilge kept kicking on to pump the water back out of the boat. We fished hard for a couple of hours in this stormy weather with know more fish to show, by now I am soaked and yes my raingear sucks I defiantly need some new stuff. Well the persistence paid off cause I whacked this nice fish on a Berkley Havoc Smash Tube in black and blue.
And that was the last fish of the day, we did run back towards the launch and try another spot but the wind was roaring down the cut we were in and blowing a reverse bend in my M/H heavy rod so I would never know if I had a bite or not so we said screw it and went home.

Pool 2 Mississippi

2012-04-20T15:09:45Z

I got out fishing last Sat. April 14th down on pool 2 on the Mississippi which is catch and release year round. My buddy Mike and I meet 5 other guys(4 boats including mine) from the Renegade Bassers. We all took off with intentions of meeting back at the landing at 3pm and recapping the day. As Mike and I flew to our starting spot and began fishing in a chute off the main river channel we noticed Darin and Ryan slide up a another chute that lead to the same area and we both worked our way through fishing each side of the back channel and after a bit Darin caught the first fish a small largemouth on a jig, almost immediately after Mike whispers to me that he just had a bite and it came off, he wanted badly to land it to get back at Darin for catching one right next to use . Well we worked a ways farther and didn't have anymore action so we just kept going then Mike caught a big Crappie on a beetlespin so we worked around some more to see if he could pick up some more but that was it, not knowing this area of the river we kept going forward which showed a large backwater lake. By the time I figured out that it the whole thing was super shallow it was too late to turn around so about an hour later of idling along and hitting every damn submerged tree back there(busted my trolling motor transducer completely off :/ ) we finally were able to cut over to the main channel.
It is finally warming up so we shed our layers and were now in t-shirt, shorts and flip flops and we are now way back in a slough fishing and I set the hook on a big fish along a riprap wall and a big walleye of 7-8lb's rolls on the surface and comes off, stupid fish bit a Reaction Innovations Kinky Beaver in my favorite color Dirty Sanchez(LOL). We kept hearing an Eagle screech and then noticed we were near a nest.

We then both caught a couple of small largemouth and a couple of pike in frond of a shallow cove so we worked are way in and caught more fish in this much warmer bay with lots of weed growth as we came to the back of it I pulled out a super POP-R and on my first cast this fish engulfed it.

After we came out of the bay I noticed I missed a phone call and had a message, It was from one of the guys and apparently we missed meeting back at the landing as it was now 3:30 and we were a good hour away "OOPS" so we continued to plow forward and keep fishing since we finally started to catch some fish. As we came to an outside bend where the water dropped off we must have whacked 20 fish on texas rigged plastics most in the 1 to 2-1/2lb range and we both lost a fish over 3. Instead of searching farther on I decided to make another pass through the bend but only picked up maybe 2 more, all in all it turned out to be a good day on the river.

Renegade Bassers Coon Lake 2011

2012-03-09T19:25:31Z

                                COON LAKE 2011                                                                                       Renegade Bassers
09/11/11

    It's now early Sunday morning and had a whole one day off to rest after the long state tournament week and now back at it. One plus is were on Coon Lake and its close to home and I know the lake well, so it's not that big of a deal that I got no practice time in. I was fishing alone today so if things start to go bad I have know one else's spot's to fall back on, which normally I like but with some pre-fishing involved     I started in an area that holds some really big fish on it at times, I fished through it pretty thoroughly and only managed one small keeper. I then moved father into the deep bay and started to throw a Swamp Donkey(hollowbelly frog) way up into the sloppy shallows and after a bit I had gotten a "Gynormous" blow up, but the fish missed it completely as I was shaking I quickly picked up a heavy jig and fired it right to the toilet flush and instantly my Secret Lures MVP jig got smoked and I hammered back hard. I thought I had giant on, this fish was heavy and throwing water,weeds and algae all over the place and when I finally got to the boat and say it my heart sank. It was a big 8lb Pike that caused all that, man what a let down but I unhooked the pike and thought about moving and trying something else but I stayed and on the 3rd or 4th cast had another blow-up and horsed a 3lb pound largemouth into the Ranger boat. Glad I stayed because I boxed an ok limit of fish there and then relaxed and started running my other spots that tend to produce at times looking for some really big fish. I had one about 4 to 4-1/2 and the 3lb'er with a couple of 2's and that first little one.
    I fished my butt off the rest of the day but could not really upgrade my catch, I did have a good fish come unbuttoned from a tube up under a pontoon so that one ended up costing me a nice cull. I did manage to cull the dink but did not gain much weight at all so that was a little disappointing and now it is time to go back to the launch and see how everyone did. I ended up weighing 5 fish for 11.40lb's and came in 4th place and my good friend and fellow Leena Lures co-hort Chris Asbeck won the tournament with 16.13lb's "awesome dude" this was actually his third win of the year and he crushed everyone for Angler Of the Year.

2011 MN STATE BASS TOURNAMENT

2012-03-09T18:49:52Z

                                                                                      2012 State TOC
                                                    Whitefish Chain
Sept.3-9th 2011

    Well it's that time again the tournament of champions for the MN State B.A.S.S. Federation Nation, this year the is a total of 160 anglers that have qualified to fish this year through their club tourneys. I am pretty excited for this one as I have fished quite a bit up here on Whitefish this year and feel like I got a good feel for what needs to be done for a good finish. My practice was decent and am ready for the next two days of competition. It's Thursday morning and the Renegade Bassers(my club) got to the landing extra early and launched our boats and hung out under the stars for about an hour before any other competitors started to show up at this boat ramp. we all took off and made the run to Moonlight Bay where the take-off and weigh-in are being held.
    Justin Goss from Brainerd Lakes was fishing out of my Ranger boat today and we hit it off right away, which is always good makes for a enjoyable day even if the catching part doesn't go as planned. We mixed up fishing both of our best areas through out the day and both caught some average sized fish, Justin did manage to catch a real nice smallmouth bass that really helped him since somehow he couldn't catch his 5th keeper. We had a great time fishing together but neither one of us finished the day were we wanted to. I weighed in 5 fish for 8.74lb's and was sitting in 75th place while Justin weighed 4 fish for 7.69lb's and was in 91st. The only hope the Renegade Bassers had going were Guy Knudson was sitting in 6th place with 13.41lb's and John Pozarski was in 9th with 12.76lb's which is awesome.
        Day 2 and we arrived early again and made our way over too Moonlight Bay and tied up the boats. Today I was paired up with Jerry Hawke from the Bass Wranglers club he had more weight than I did after day one which usually means I would be fishing out of his boat but he was his clubs guaranteed non-boater so we were using my boat. We started the day on one of Jerry's spots that he said held some big Largemouth's in practice, they must of moved because we caught nothing. We then fished around and I started to catch some fish on a Reaction Innovations Swamp Donkey and a jig, Jerry made a comment that it was too hard for him to fish effectively behind me as I was kind of vacuuming up any fish willing to bite. I didn't know what else to do because I surely was not front ending him in anyway(I wouldn't do that because I hate when that happens) the only thing I can think of was that I was fishing fast and very efficiently hitting as many good looking spots that presented itself. Well him saying that really flustered me and I lost any mojo I had going, we ended up moving and it got very slow catching wise and I tried to let his comment go and have a decent rest of the day which we did but it was still in the back of my head. We started running to a bunch of my spots trying to pick up some bigger fish but I couldn't upgrade at all and I think Jerry only had 1 or 2 small fish. I mad a decision to camp on a big breakline I found in practice out on the mainlake of middle Whitefish and in no time we both hooked up with a double but of coarse mine was a pike and Jerry caught a nice Largemouth, over the next 3 hours Jerry put three real nice fish in the boat and I might have made one small cull. It is the end of the day and we had a long ride back to the weigh-in so we left a little early to make sure we had enough time. Jerry ended up weighing in 12.01lb's and came in 18th out of 160 for the tournament. I weighed in 7.69lb's and finished in 85th. Oh well thats what happens when people catch the bigger fish off your spots.
    Guy Knudson ended up finishing in 19th place and John Pozarski came in 22nd great job guys and for the rest of the Renegade Bassers better step it up next year

Amateur Bass Series Lake Koronis/Rice

2012-02-17T19:19:10Z

                                                                            Amateur Bass Series                                                                                                                                                      Lake Koronis/Rice
8/28/11

    It is Friday night and Jerry Fist(hahaha) I mean Jenny Fisk I drove up to her dad's cabin on Lake Koronis, Tagging along on this trip is Spud and Nigel her awesome Pitbulls. We got settled in and crashed in hopes of getting an early start to our only day of prefishing, this didn't happen and when we made it to the landing it was full of trailers as there was a multi-species tournament going on, and the DNR was there and stopped and talked to Jen and I for about 10 minutes, what a cool nice guy. He told us about another small ramp on the other side of the lake and we went there and put in, I ran to a spot a fellow club member told me to try as he had won a tourney their before, we fished the heck out of this area to no avail and then I started running some of my areas after that to try and get a feel for what the fish might be doing. My first area we hit was not hopping either so we expanded farther down while Jen was throwing a Leena Lures buzzbait over the weedtops and as the weedline started to swing in close to shore out of nowhere I heard a huge splash and I turned my head to see Jen's rod doubled over and then a big smallmouth launched out of the water and when she finally got it close to the boat the fish jumped again and dang near landed in the back of the boat but I quickly slid the net underit lifted in a nice 3-1/4'lb smallmouth bass, as she lifted it out of the net a group of onlookers all started clapping and cheering for her, if you guys could have seen the smile on her face at that moment(priceless) thats what it's all about. Today's practice has been really tough going other than Jen's smallmouth and some small largemouth I caught, we were running out of time quickly so I decided to try some topwater frog fishing in the slop and right away I caught a fish of about 2'lb's or so and a bit later Jen had a huge boil on her frog, thats good though by not hooking it for the tournament. At the end of the slop I was caught off guard daydreaming or something and I had a fish blowup on my frog and I tried not to set the hook in hopes of the fish spitting it back out for tomorrow but it hooked itself and I reeled in a 3'lb bass and released it. Knowing this might be what we have to do tomorrow I got out of their and went to one more spot that has held some nice smallies in previous trips. After Jen caught a small largemouth on a spinnerbait I finally got a bite on a texas rigged tube and hammered the rod back and fought a nice 3+ lb smallmouth into the boat.
    It is now tournament day and I am going to make this short, we did not have a good day compared to most of the other anglers. We tried everything we had and couldn't get but a couple of small largemouth and we spent allot of time doing it, I finally ended up doing something I don't like too do but when I need some fish quick I will go and fish docks, this is my own downfall since lots of guys will only fish docks and do great often. Anyways I started whacking fish left and right and we filled our limit of 6 fish and was even culling a bunch of times and Jen even caught a couple of the docks but they were small and didn't help. Time to go weigh-in and just as we got back to the launch it started to rain so we had to bundle up in the raingear for the weigh-in. I bagged up all of our fish, so I thought and brought them up to weigh and ended up only grabbing 5 of the 6 fish, most limits are 5 so it didn't even click until after I weighed them. Jen and I weighed a measly 11.44 pounds for 5 fish and 1st place had 24.48'lb's and their was a number of bags over 18lb's our 6th fish would not have mattered I did find out that all of the big bags came out of Rice lake, never even gave that an option oops. I was pissed with my performance and strapped down the boat and hurried up out of there to get back to the cabin. As I pulled onto the highway I immediately got pulled over by guess who? yep the same DNR officer and his partner, I was so upset with my day that I didn't make sure all of the weeds were cleaned of the trailer and I also forgot to pull my plug two big NO-NO's and as the officer was sternly talking to me and pointing out weeds to take off I noticed I also didn't open up my livewell valve to drain them. I sneakily turned the valve and more water started to come out the back of the boat and this guys partner asked me if I just drained my livewell and I said WHAT no thats from pulling my plug and the main officer told him the same thing(hehehe I'm so sneaky). Anyways they thankfully just wrote me up with warnings and let us go. Thank You to the DNR lesson learned and a big THANK YOU to Jen's dad for letting us use the cabin for the weekend I owe you a day of fishing if you want it.

Renegade Bassers Pokegama Lake

2012-02-13T15:05:17Z

                                                                            Renegade Bassers
                                               Pokegama Lake                                8/20/2012

    Our club the Renegade Bassers normally has one out of town tournament that we fish two days on, we already had ours this year but everybody loves Pokegama Lake that we decided too fish this lake again this year so we are having two out of towners this year. I drove up Fri. morning and hit the lake at sunrise and began my practice. It was pretty dang windy out already, my first spot I hit was a deep weedline and I did manage to get a nice follow by a big smallmouth but that was it here so I moved up to a big point and started working that with a tube and with the wind I could barely feel a thing and then directly under the boat I got bit and reeled in a 3'lb smallmouth and decided to try and work this better but couldn't due too the wind. I then picked up my Leena Lures spinnerbait and worked the small bay on the frontside of the point that the wind was crashing into and proceeded to catch numerous 2-3'lb largemouths I moved around alot after that and caught fish here and there but nothing over the 2-1/2'lb size. This wind has beat the crap out of me so I gave up and went to check in at the resort.
        It's Saturday morning and I am fishing with my good friend Mike Juskiewics today, I made a long run to were I caught those smallmouth yesterday in hopes of there being more since they were my bigger fish I saw/caught. We made cast after cast and caught nothing there today, so we moved up to were the largemouth were and I caught a couple but they were pretty small compared to yesterday here, so now I am in run and gun mood until we hit something worth staying for. Mike and I had to work pretty hard to catch the fish we had only one spot really held any numbers of fish but they were only decent at best. Well it's time to head in weigh our fish, Mike brought his limit up and weighed 10.09'lbs for a 10th place finish and I weighed in 5 that went 12.08'lb's for 8th place while Daryl Larson won with 5 for 17.32'lb's of largemouth way too go Daryl.
        It is now Sunday morning and I am fishing with Darin Sorenson who I got too join the bass club this year, I was going to start were Mike and I caught the majority of our fish in hopes of getting a quick limit so than if need be search for some bigger fish. I did get a quick limit of largemouth and Darin caught a couple here but it was time to start moving around as this area was pretty beat up now. I kept on the move hitting spots and if we didn't catch more than one or two we were off to the next one, and then I hit another school of fish and worked them over pretty good between a 1/2oz Secret Lures MVP HD flipping jig and a texas rigged tube and made a few decent culls to my limit. I stayed here long enough for Darin to catch his limit and after it slowed down we went hawg hunting we did not catch a single hawg the rest of the day and now we are back for the weigh in and Darin weighed a limit of fish for 8.72'lb's for 12th place and my limit went exactly the same as yesterday 12.08'lb's what are the odds of that "LOL" but I did move up a spot to finish in 7th today and that damn Daryl Larson won again this time with 15.98'lb's of largemouth so congrats again to him. In conclusion to the weekend I wish I could have placed better in each tournament but I did have allot of fun both days.

Whitefish Chain Fishers Of Men

2012-02-08T16:13:04Z

                                                                                       Whitefish Chain
                                                        Fishers Of Men
08/06/2012

            Well I got my boat back from the shop (brand new lower unit) just in time to hook up and head back up to the Whithefish Chain for the Fishers of Men tournament. Daryl and I have put in quite a bit of time up here in the last month so I'm hoping we get some good results. We had a decent practice on Fri. and cant wait to get going, we had a middle of the pack take-off number and how the did it was we had to get inline and idle through a channel and then take-off into the big lake of lower Whitefish, are plan was to start in the lake we idled through so we got to see how many others ahead of us had the same idea and luckily only a few boats had the same idea so I turned and we headed right back through the channel and the flew to our starting spot.
            The morning started out sunny with a storm rolling in over the tree tops it was really kinda weird hearing lots of loud thunder nearby but it was bright and calm out for the time being. We were fishing a sharp drop that swung in fairly close to some shallow reeds and Daryl sets the hook and fights a 2'lb largemouth into the net, a short time later I felt the telltale thump of a bite on the other end of my line and slam my rod back and a nice 3-1/4'lb Smallmouth came screaming up from 20+ feet of water and jumped and then stayed down until Daryl got the net under it and lifted it into the boat. We farted around out in 20 - 30 feet of water in hopes of picking some more smallies up but that didn't workout so we moved back in closer and we both caught a decent largemouth in quick succession, as we were working back and forth trying to expand on the area we picked up a few smaller fish and then I fired a cast way out and let my texasrigged tube settle to the bottom and as I made my first small hop with it something crushed the shit out of it and I set the hook and new instantly whatever it was it was nice and about that time a pig of a Smallmouth leapt 3 feet out of the water and was going nuts diving and coming up and the whole time I am trying to keep tension on her, as Daryl raced to get the net he stumbled and fell but recovered in time to slide the net under the fish. We thought she was all of 6'lbs and stuffed her in the livewell with big smiles on our faces. We probably stayed and worked here way to long after that fish cause we only caught one more largemouth that was barely going to help us and as Daryl put it into the well he check on the pig smallie and noticed she was about dead, I don't know what the hell happened she wasn't hooked deep or anything. Daryl and I ran around and fished some of our other spots and the storm finally hit as we got to one of Daryls better ones so we raingeared up and fished on, D finally hooked up with a largemouth slow rolling a spinnerbait out deep in the weeds but it only helped out a little. It is now time to make our way back to the weigh in and see how things shake out. After about 10 minutes of Daryl trying to get a bag I walked up and asked for one and checked the board to see what big fish was at and saw it was only in the mid 4'lb range. We bagged up the fish and walked up to the bump tanks to weigh our fish which weighed 13.99'lbs but 13.74 after our dead fish penalty, and the smallie weighed in at 5.35'lbs for big bass of the tournament. Overall we had a good tournament with an 8th place finish out of 40 we cashed a check for that and also a check for big bass and a plaque.

Renegade Bassers Whitefish Weekend Day 2

2012-02-07T14:32:37Z

                                                                                    Renegade Bassers
                                        Whitefish Chain Weekend Day 2
July 24,2011
        I'm fishing with my buddy Guy Knudson today, and we took off and went to his starting spot which was a big weedflat next to some deepwater, it looked really promising. guy was telling me he caught a number of 2 to 3lb fish here on Friday during practice, a short time in Guy set the hook and caught a small keeper bass and this was the only bite we could muster here so we left and hit another area of his that was a short distance away. All we caught here were pike and man were they aggressive, I must been bit off like 4-5 times plus the numerous one we caught. We left here before I ran out of tungsten weights and made a run to another lake and started fishing a deep point and I managed to pick up a 14" largemouth out deep on a tube. We saw what looked to be a big smallie chasing something up shallow so we both threw up there but could not get it to go, but it gave Guy an idea to pull out another rod with a fluke rigged up and after a short while of working it pretty quickly out of know where a school of nice largemouth followed his bait all the way back to the boat but would not take it, he did get them to follow one more time but neither of us caught one(man I wonder what an Alabama Rig would have done there). We moved and hit a couple more spots then settled in on one of my spots, and we both filled out our limits but they were all small keepers at that, the weird thing about this area was I think I was catching 3-4 to every 1 of Guy's and we narrowed our presentation down to the same tube same hook same line the only thing different was I had a black tungsten weight to his silver tungsten weight. We caught a lot of fish here but we had to try and find some bigger ones if either one of us were to challenge today. We hit numerous other spots but could not get a big bite, oh well time to weigh in after a great day on the water with a good friend. I ended up with 8.42lb's for 7th place and Guy had 7.37lb's for 10th place not impressive by any means but what was is that Chris Asbeck took 1st place again and with more weight than yesterday he had 12.91lb's today.

Renegade Bassers "Whitefish Chain Weekend

2012-02-06T15:15:10Z

                                                                                  Whitefish Chain
                                                Renegade Bassers
July 22nd,2011

            Heading up to the Whitefish Chain for our club two day weekend tourney's, my buddy Darin is riding up with me as he is a non-boater in the club. We get to the landing early Friday morning and launch the boat in hopes of finding some good productive spots for the upcoming two days, it's about 4 hours into the morning and I have caught fish at all the spots I stopped at, most were caught on a Yum Money Craw Texas rigged or a Texas rigged ring tube from Leena Lures. The majority of fish were in the 1 - 2-1/4lb range, so I decided it was time too make a big move and try and locate some better quality fish. I fired up the Mercury and began our journey and after about 10 minutes into the run out in the middle of the lower Whitefish out of nowhere there is a sicking sound of metal on metal and it was like brakes were slammed on, as I turned and looked back all I saw was a huge roostertail of water and the motor was stuck in gear but we were not moving anymore. End result was there was a huge crack where the gears in my lower unit tried to jump out of the casing and all the fluid was leaking out. Only thing I could do was put the trolling motor down and start the long haul back to the landing, about 1/2 way back I called my buddy Chris Asbeck and he was nice enough to come back out and tow us the rest of the way back.
        Since I am now a non-boater for the rest of the weekend I will be fishing with Steve Walker out of his Skeeter boat today and my buddy Guy Knudson tomorrow. So day one morning we wake up to severe weather warnings and have to postpone our tournament till the weather passes, it was about an 1-1/2 delay but we are finally off and running to our first spot which we were going to start with topwaters, zara spooks to be exact and we caught the snot out of largemouth that storm didn't phase these fish. We worked back and forth from the shallow flat out to the sharp break in 20ft of water, I picked up my better fish out deep at one point Steve and I were working our spooks back to the boat fairly close together and a big fish blew up right between our lures all we could do was laugh. After fishing this area for along time we moved to a spot of mine and I caught a couple of fish on the Texas rigged tube that helped alittle and a bit farther down the stretch I sent the tube out to even deeper water about 24ft and ended up catching my biggest bass of the day it was a 3-3/4lb'er. We ended up hitting afew more spots but couldn't upgrade anymore before we hade to head in for the weigh-in. Final results for the day were Chris Asbeck won with 11.69 pounds and I took 2nd with 11.65 lb's that son of a bitch did it too me again beating just barely Steve Came in 10th place with 7.10lb's.

Amateur Bass Series, Maple Lake

2012-01-30T15:57:30Z

                                                                    Amateur Bass Series
July 9th,2011                                                                Maple Lake

    This blog is on the second tournament of the Amateur Bass Series and the second tournament with my new favorite partner Jenny Fisk, Maple Lake is located between Buffalo and Annandale,MN. I fish Maple alot and feel confident about or chances to do well. Jen and I got out the Monday before the tourney to do little scouting around and at the same time it was the 4th of July so we wanted to also relax on the water and enjoy our day off. So my thinking is to cover as mush water as possible early before the the pleasure boaters get out so we started throwing reaction baits which cover a lot of water quickly, Jen was throwing a Leena Lures spinnerbait while threw a Rapala clackin rap. We caught some fish but nothing of much size so we moved out to fish the weedlines with a slower approach and found some better fish but they were not grouped up at all it was a one here one there kind of deal. The lake was now filled with people enjoying the nice holiday weather so we put are rods down and just kinda idled around and enjoyed the weather for a bit and then headed back to the launch to load the boat and go hangout and chill.
    Well it is now tournament morning and Jenny and I both really pumped up and ready to get started. I decided we would start on a deep mainlake point, as we were flying across the lake towards the point there were 2-3 other boats ahead of us and I was worried at least one of them would stop there since it is an obvious spot. We got lucky they all passed the point and I turned the boat and came off plane and idled up to the point and killed the Mercury and jumped up and dropped the trolling motor in all in one swift motion. I picked up my jig rod and fired out a 1/2oz. Secret Lures MVP HD jig and Jenny picked up a spinning rod and started fishing her new favorite technique which is dropshotting and this was a good looking area for that. On about my 5th cast I felt the telltale thump of an aggressive bass inhaling my jig so I quickly slammed back my rod and started fighting the fish back to the boat, Jen netted the nice 3'lb largemouth and high fived me. As I was putting the fish into the well I noticed it had started to rain so we both put on our gear and proceeded to fish the point but could not pick up any other fish here. The wind is now blowing pretty good and we had moved out onto the mainlake to try a weedline that the wind was blowing into and what happens next is complete chaos, as we get set up on the weedline I fired out my jig and just as it hit the water I my line pulls tight and I set the hook and call for the net but Jen was in the middle of making her first cast so by the time she grabbed the net I already had the fish by the boat and made the decision to just flip it in seeing it was only about 1-1/2'lb's, I put or 2nd fish in the box and quickly repositioned the boat and made another cast to the same spot and got bit before the jig hit the bottom and reared back on another fish and flipped him in the boat and put it in the well, it looked too be identical to the last one. As I picked up my jig and straightened the trailer on it I jokingly told Jen to set her rod down and get the net ready as made my third cast out, she just laughed and continued fishing as I set the hook into another fish and lifted it into the boat and another 1-1/2'lb fish and tossed my jig out and caught two more twins on consecutive casts to round out or 6 fish limit. by the time the chaos ended I think I caught 10 fish in a row all along fighting the waves and culling fish to get our best 6.
    As this school of fish we found stopped biting we started to move around and try to upgrade our catch but couldn't end up doing so, Jenny did end up catching a couple of bass but they weren't quite big enough to help out. It is now time to go in and weigh our fish, I am not feeling good about our chances as normally you need like a three pound average or better to do well. We ended up weighing 6 fish for 10.50 and came in 9th place out of 17 teams, 1st place only weighed 14.76lb's so all in all it was a tough day for all, but I had a great time fishing with Jen even though she was bummed out cause she didn't contribute to to cause today, but I told her that this is how team fishing usually goes and next tournament she may be the one with the hot stick.

Amateur Bass Series (Twin/Sylvia)

2012-01-27T16:03:45Z

    I found this new bass series on classic bass network and I liked the lakes they were fishing and the entry fees were low so I asked my new fishing friend Jenny Fisk (who by the way loves to fish) if she wanted to fish this tournament and see what competitive fishing is all about and before I finished explaining everything she said yes. We made a trip out to Twin/Sylvia prior to the tournament to do a little scouting around, and we caught a number of fish but nothing of much size and after about 4hr's we left and stopped at another lake I had a Tourney on soon and fished that.
    The day before the tournament Jen was a nervous wreck and I had too keep trying to calm her down .     Well it's tournament day and there are the max 20 boats entered, we take off and haul ass to our starting spot just about the farthest spot from take-off and as we approach it I notice we have it too ourselves. We started throwing reaction baits to try and catch a quick limit of fish and that is 6 fish for this circuit. I start out throwing a red Rapala Clackin Rap and Jen was using a spinnerbait, the action was not as hot as I anticipated but I did manage to catch a couple of small keeper fish doing this. We moved to spot two and there was now one here either,this spot was a weedline that ran into a big bay, I started us in the bay and was going to work our way out into the wind for better boat control. As we fished along Jenny was throwing up on top of the weeds and working here lure back while I focused on fishing the edge. It was breezy and cloudy than the rain came, so we put our raingear on proceeded to fish with a fish here and there but most didn't even measure the minimum 12" and at about the end of this stretch I threw out my texas rigged tube and got hit while it was dropping so I quickly set the hook and caught our 5th keeper and it was our biggest one and it was maybe 2-1/4lbs. we worked here for awhile with no more bites then started working our way back to where we started, after a bit I looked over my shoulder and say another boat working the same way we were but out a little bit deeper so I kept my eye on them and noticed they started catching fish like crazy and every once in awhile the would get the net out to land the fish. This was driving me insane I cannot be around someone else whacking fish and just watch, so we up and left to go find something else. Jenny and I ended up working an underwater point with deep water nearby and I caught two fish that didn't measure and Jen was very frustrated by now because she has not caught a keeper yet and there is only about 2 hours left to fish. I had suggested Jenny fish a dropshot rig on this stretch of weedline and after awhile she set the hook on a fish and fought it flawlessly back to the boat and after I netted the fish we both let out a bunch of expletives and then high fived because in the bottom of the net was a 4lb class fish which rounded out or limit and was by far our best fish. We continued working the weedline with about a half an hour left to fish then had to start back to the weigh-in, I caught a small fish that barely culled one and then Jen hooked into another fish on the dropshot and this fish helped out also and now we have to head back just as Jen was catching on fire.
    Back at the weigh-in everybody was standing around watching teams weigh and also watching another team try and load there aluminum boat onto their roller trailer and it was very comical they tried and tried and you could tell the young guy in the boat was getting pissed because he started ramming it up onto trailer and finally said fuck it and pulled it out all crooked "LOL". Jen and I ended up in 8th place with 6 fish weighing in at 11.76lb's and Jen's big fish was 3.84lb's and was the 3rd biggest of the day, all in all I had a blast today with Jenny and I think she did too once she finally put one in the livewell.

GREEN LAKE FISHERS OF MEN

2012-01-26T16:31:08Z

                                                                                            FISHERS OF MEN
                                                                                GREEN LAKE,MN
                                                                            JUNE 18TH,2011

    Daryl and I will be fishing our second team tournament together hear on Green Lake in the town of Spicer. For this one Daryl brought up his own boat because he was leaving for Spicer to go up to the Whitefish Chain for a family vacation. I got to Green pretty early on Friday morning and launched the Ranger at the main access in town, I drove to the far end of the lake and figured I would work my way back hitting likely spots throughout the day. About an hour in to the morning and I had only caught 2 really small largemouth bass, I bet I had 10 rod and reel combo's strewn all over the deck by now trying to figure something out. Now it was a few hours into the day and noticed the wind has picked up a bit and some clouds moved in, by know I am starting to scramble because I can see a storm brewing in the distance. I am pushing it because I have nothing going and the wind has really started blowing now, I finally decide to pack it in and strap everything down for the rough ride back to the landing, and of coarse my smart thinking was I could beat it back to the truck before it rained. NOPE about half way back it started down pouring and hard, so now I'm digging out my raingear trying to put it on and drive the boat all at the same time(kids don't try this on the water)
         I'm now of the lake and heading to the motel to check in and wait the storm out, as I woke up from a nap and looked outside I noticed the storm had passed so I uncovered the boat and headed back to the landing and put the boat back in and went to a new area, this was a large flat with scattered rock. I started casting a Xcaliber xr50 in rayburn red realgill and after fancasting around for a bit suddenly I get smoked by a freight train and after just a few cranks of the reel handle my line starts to rise and then a 4lb smallie launches about three feet out of the water and then digs for the bottom and stays there bulldogging me for a bit, then as I work her near the boat she makes a few more big jumps before I net here and take a quick picture before releasing. I ended up repeating this four times in about a 45 minute span, not lights out and had to cover a large part of this big flat but damn those were some awesome smallies. I hit a couple of other areas and didn't do much at either one so I called Daryl and he was just getting off the lake and heading back too the motel, so I did the same. We went to our dinner/pre tourney meeting and discussed our practice so we can come up with our game plan, Daryl had a spot that he had caught some nice largemouth on in a short period of time early in the morning so we decided to start there first thing.
    It's game time now and we are just setting up on the starting spot and D hooks up with a decent fish right away, one in the well to break the ice and after a bit he sets the hook on another solid keeper so two nice largies quickly. I have not even had a bite with what I was doing so I switched it up and started throwing a texas rigged tube and as I chucked it out there Daryl loads up on another fish slow rolling a white spinnerbait off the weedline and this one goes into the net and is a little bit nicer then the other two, I handed him the net and picked up my rod and felt some weight so I hammered back the hookset and fought a three pound snot-rocket(pike) to the boat and quickly released it and and then made another cast and immediately got bit on the drop and set the hook on a nice fish and this one was actually a 3- 3-1/4 lb largemouth that went into the well and the Daryl landed a small 14in largie for our limit fish. This spot slowed way down as we were working it over pretty good so we made a move to go try my flat and see if we could get a few of those big smallies I had found. We fished around for quite some time with no action and then another boat came flying up pretty close by and started fishing, no big deal they were a little farther out and down a ways but I noticed they started catching fish, I knew who they were and I believe they won this same tourney last year. After a bit Daryl decided to throw a jig around and slow it down while continued to chuck the XR50 and then it happened Daryl set the hook on a good fish and it jumped, a big brown bass came unwillingly to the net and culled that small largie out. So now we committed to working the deep flat for along time and only managed to catch two more smallmouth one helped out but not much and the other ended up being culled out, though I did have a giant follow my lure right to the boat and turn and swim off grrrr!! we are out of time and head in to the weigh-in. We made an improvement from the last event but that wasn't hard to do we weighed 5 fish for 13.34lb's and came in 24th out of 45 teams. 1st place weighed in 16.90lb's and our friends Steve Osborn and John Pozarski tied for 7th with 14.95lb's of smallies.

Renegade Bassers Maple Lake

2012-01-24T21:37:57Z

                                                                                Renegade Bassers
                                                Maple Lake,MN
June 5th,2011
    Ok this will be the Renegade Bassers first tourney of the 2011 and it is on Maple Lake which is located between Buffalo and Annandale on Hwy 55. So I fished in a team tourney yesterday and stunk it up so I'm hoping for much better results, I fish this lake often from spring through late fall and feel like I should have good. I have Mark Nistler fishing in my Ranger today as a non-boater. As we took off I headed to the far end of the lake as I had a phenomenal day last week with my son, we must have caught 60 bass on spinnerbaits and rattle traps in 5hr's and a number were in the 2-3lb range with a few 4lb'ers thrown in. As I dropped the trolling motor in and started casting I hooked up with a small fish right away it went 13" and then caught another little one then Mark set the hook on a fish that blew up on his topwater frog as I lifted his fish up into the net I see that he has a much nicer fish then what I caught his was all of 2lb's and before you know it I have the worlds smallest limit of fish but these ok still have all day to upgrade, I then notice that I am not hearing the livewell running so as I go back and check I find out it is not filling up and hardly any water in there. I told Mark to go up front while I mess around with this crap. An hour and a half later I finally had the livewell working again(what a pain in the ass) anyways we are back in business and fishing but the catching sure slowed down so we made a move and continued to struggle but we would pick up a fish here and there doing different things. Mark has 4 fish but he has two decent ones and I still have 5 dinks in the well, time is really running out and the fishing is down right bad for us, we are bouncing from shallow,mid-depth and out deep and I can't figure them out. with about an hour left Mark throws a small little finesse worm wacky rigged up on the bank in some stained water and next thing I know he sets the hook on a real nice fish and fights it to the boat were I net a beautiful 3-1/2lb'er to round out his limit and that was it for anymore fish catches and it's time to head in for the weigh-in. I just got my ass kicked by pretty much everyone in the club, Pat Porter won with 14.19lb's good job Pat and Mark started off his year with a good tourney also, he weighed 5 for 9.62lb's for 6th place and then I brought my dinks up and they weighed in at 6.44lb's for 13th place
    ps. I almost forgot to congratulate my friend Darin Sorenson, this was his first ever club event and fished with my buddy John Pozarski. Darin ended up beating me he came in 12th with 5 fish that wieghed 6.73lb's

Clearwater Lake FOM

2012-01-24T17:10:30Z

Clearwater Lake
Fishers of Men

JUNE 4^TH,2011

Well it’s the first tournament of the year for me and it’s a team tournament on Clearwater Lake near Annandale, MN. My teammate for this is Daryl Larson whom is a friend from my bass club the Renegade Bassers, we both got out and pre-fished at different times but by know means either of us had any stellar results, I did have one pretty good day out practicing with a new fishing friend Jenny Fisk we caught them pretty good up shallow on Secret Lures MVP swimjigs the weekend before. So it’s the morning now and Daryl and I decided we would start on Daryl’s best spot since we had a takeoff number towards the end of the pack and his spot was fairly close to where we took off from. It’s finally our turn to takeoff so we get going to the area Daryl pointed too on the GPS and as I start to slow down as we near it Daryl say’s this doesn’t look right and he tells me to head farther down the lake, I finally kill the Mercury in the area and drop the trolling motor in and fire a cast out with a Leena Lures UnRaveller spinnerbait on to cover some water and try and pick up some quick fish. We both were mixing it up pretty good but could not get bit at all so we finally decided to start moving and hitting areas that we both had and man we were struggling bad. I finally said lets make a run and see if my swimjig spot was any good, we get there and start fishing through the broken reed clumps over the flat and haulwater just as I am ready to bail on it I get hammered and flip a keeper into the boat and then fired right back out and caught another and another then shortly another and that’s it for there, 4 keeper fish in less then 10min’s I told Daryl I had another spot very similar to this one not far from here. As we hit the next area we fish it hard but catch nothing and now we make another move and finally pick up or 5^th keeper and a few small upgrades on Rapala Clackin Raps but we are out of time and need to head back for the weigh in. We got back to the crowded beach in front of the resort and had to wait which seemed like forever when we just wanted to weigh our fish for the points on the circuit and get out of there. Out of 50 boats we came in 46^th place with our 5 best weighing 9.72lb’s of largemouth bass, very crappy finish to start the year off but as always Daryl and I had a great time fishing together,we just need too put in more work practicing harder and better and I think we can become a pretty good team.

E/W Rush Lake, MN

2011-02-10T18:05:00Z

    It was Sat, August 14th and it was the first day of a back to back in-town tourney weekend. I was fishing by myself and was hoping the fish made a change from my practice the week before because I had been struggling to get bites of any kind. I decided I was just going to go fishing and let whatever happens happen. To make this short, a lot happened, but everything for the bad.
    I fished the first hour and a half with out even a bite. Wherever I went, it looked dead and by that I mean no baitfish, panfish, or even bugs. Also, my trolling motor was running weak (WTH?) so, I pulled it up and made a move to a spot back by the ramp. I lowered the trolling motor back in and it was running at full power so I proceeded to fish around, but I still could not catch any fish. I decided to move to an area about half way down the lake and put the trolling motor back into the water and hit the pedal and had no power to the trolling motor again, so I pulled it up and tried it and had full power! I dropped it in again and fished for a bit, then nothing. So of course, I was pissed. I ran back to the ramp to load the boat and go have it looked at.
    I left the lake and decided to just go home and calm down. I decided I would just fish the next day as a non-boater. I found out I would fish with my buddy Guy on Waconia so at least we'd have a really good time. So for the end result on Rush Lake I found out that most struggled all day. First place went to Chris Asbeck with 12.45. Second went to Jason Titus with 11.35. Third went to Daryl Larson with 11.07 and after that it dropped off. There were a lot of 2 and 3 fish bags and of course my zero. Good thing I got my show points. Haha. At the end of the year we have a throw-out tournament which means your worst tournament isn't counted. So you never know I may have to miss one and then I can use my show points in this one. By the way Good job Asbeck.

Lake Koronis,MN 7/25/2010

2011-01-09T16:59:00Z

The weekend before this tournament Mike Juskiewicz and I headed out to Paynesville,MN to pre-fish lake Koronis, the two of us were paired together for this one. A we put the boat in the water we decided to start out on some of the obvious looking spots, since neither one of us has fished here before. I was told that there is a good population of smallmouth bass as well great largemouth fishing. as we fished main points,bays and Islands we proceeded to catch some real good largie's and I also pulled in a 3lb+ Smallie and Mike had a big one follow his lure back to the boat. As we ended the day we discussed what we had found and came to the conclusion that we both had good 5 fish limits mine would have weighed 16 to 17lbs, only every good fish we caught were spread out and I don't think we caught two good ones in the same spot they were with the smaller ones.

    Thursday morning on my way up to the motel that the renegade Bassers were staying at for the weekend I stopped at Lake Koronis to check on the few good spots that Mike and I had found just to see if they were still there, and try and make a discission on where we were going to start on Sunday morning. Well the fish were still biting so I went to see if I can find a new spot or two, and man did I find one! it was a subtle submerged rounded weed point. As I tossed my jig around the outside edge a fish smoked my lure hard, as I fought and landed the 4lb largemouth I hurried up and released her and fired right back and before my jig hit bottom in 9ft of water I got smoked again and this one was all of 3lbs so I hit the waypoint button on my Lowrance and got the hell out of there and went to check in to the motel.
    well it's Sunday morning now and I'm pretty jacked up for the day, we all are now at the landing and ready for the day to start. As Mike and I are flying across the lake and near our starting spot I slow the Mercury to an idle and kill the motor and jump up to the front of the boat drop the Minn-Kota into the water all in one motion. I grabbed my jig rod with a Outkast RT jig tied on and began casting and after about ten minutes with not even a bite I start having bad thoughts going through my mind and this is what I have been working on this year, in the past I have let this kind of thinking take over and it just makes for a long miserable day because then you start getting pissed when things don't go the way you hoped, and I don't know about you but I found out I make bad decisions when pissed off. So I pushed the bad thoughts out of my mind and got my focus back and then it happened, i made a cast and before my jig hit bottom it was crushed and I hammered it home and Mike was netting a good 3lb Largie and I quickly put it in the livewell and fired another cast to the same spot and it happened again with a identical sized fish and over the next few minutes I put two more of about 2lbs into the well. Mike and I moved further down the weedbreak as the action had slowed here as there was weeds floating on the surface from the fighting of fish so I would let the spot cool down for a bit. Mike threw his texas rigged tube craw way up onto the weed flat and set the hook on a 2lb largemouth so we worked this spot over for a good ten minutes with no more fish landed. I turned the boat back around and fished our way back to the spot and as we got near I felt the tick of a fish and wrenched in a 2+lb Smallie to round out my limit in the first 45 minutes of the morning.
    Made a move to another spot that Mike and I caught quite a few fish from in practice and He caught three more decent keepers, We then hit a different spot,nothing and back to the magic spot  and Mike hooks up with a pig and I net a 4lb'er for him to finish his limit and he says that is the fastest he has ever caught a limit in all the club tournaments he has fished, man we were pumped and we decided to keep on the move and go Hawg hunting and try to upgrade our limits. We both caught numerous fish all over the lake but nothing to help too much maybe a few oz. here and there, next thing Mike and realize is it's time to head in and weigh our fish. 1st place goes to Steve Oswald with 15.82lbs of nice Smallie's way to go Ozzy.                       1st    Steve Oswald    15.82
                                     2nd John Pozarski    13.78
                                     3rd   Daryl Larson      13.17
                                     4th   Nick Madison    12.71
                                   out of 14 anglers
    In conclusion to the day I am pretty satisfied with what went down, first I over came the bad thoughts and got results in my fish biting and second of all had a blast with my buddy Mike Juskiewicz, he always has me laughing and last of all I am sitting in a good position for AOL with a 4th,5th and 4th for the year.

Green Lake (2010)

2011-01-07T13:34:00Z

July 24th Green Lake(Spicer,MN)
    The Renegade Bassers 2nd Tournament of the year is on Green Lake in Spicer, MN. Green Lake was once known for its Gravel Lizards, oops i mean Walleye haha, but now it is a phenomenal Bass fishery also.  This weekend is our annual out of town two day'er. We fish one lake on Saturday, and usually another on Sunday. So we fish Green Lake on Sat. then on Lake Koronis by Paynesville,MN on Sun. I normally go up to the motel on Friday, and put a half day on both lakes just to check everything out. I had never fished Green before so I got the motel room for Thursday also. I got up early and proceeded to fish hard with an open mind but I really never figured anything out. I caught some small Largemouth out in the middle of the lake on the reef edges, which I thought was kinda strange since it looked way more like Smallmouth water.  I came in around 1:00 PM and loaded the boat up and then stopped to grab a bite to eat and headed back to the motel for a nap and then went back in the late afternoon for some more practice.  Re-energized and back on the water I decided to do less fishing and more looking on my Lowrance. I stopped at a place I found that looked really good and fished it with a Texas rigged ring tube and caught a nice 3 1/2 lb Largemouth and then got a bite and shook that one off. I hit the waypoint button and moved to go look for some more spots. I never really found anything else that day. The next day which was Friday while out fishing around I noticed I was losing power with my trolling motor slowly and then eventually i had no power. So, I called it a day and went back to the motel around noon. Some of the other guys were there and as I charged my batteries I got all my rods and tackle ready for tomorrow, and put the boat cover on. My good friend and travel roomy Chris Asbeck called and said he was on his way, so he stopped and picked me up and I fished with him until dark hoping he would show me something to unlock the mystery since he has fished here before and is a self proclaimed Smallie addict. Turns out we hit a bunch of the same type of stuff I had fished. We caught a crap load of fish but they were tiny. We thought the pattern was to hit the orange jugs marking scattered milfoil beds, that is where we caught our better fish, not much better but better. Oh yeah the Smallie master caught one and I caught a small one.  As we went back to the motel to eat and drink I figured I would just go with Chris tomorrow since we were both fishing by ourselves but last minute I chose not to since he was doing the same things and his ass was talking all afternoon and I couldn't compete with that, I was laughing so hard I could barely cast.
    Tournament morning we got up and headed to the ramp and put our boats in the water. There was a good breeze blowing and it was cold. This may have been a result of my hangover, "LOL" but I didn't feel good at all. I started on a spot right in the middle of the lake where there was a good break from 10 feet down to 22 feet. Shortly after I started I got a bite on my ring tube and set the hook only to bring in a 2 lb snot rocket (pike). I quickly fixed my tube and threw back out and realized that with the adrenaline flowing I felt like puking. After about 10 minutes or so I wasn't nauseous anymore, but still felt crappy. I got another bite and landed my first bass and it was a keeper of about 1 1/2 lbs. Again the adrenaline got flowing and I felt like ralphing again. BLAH!!! This went on for the first four hours of the day until I finally started feeling better, but that was probably because I had my limit of 5 fish but it was a small limit of maybe 7 to 7 1/2 lbs. As I continued to bounce from spot to spot looking for bigger fish my trolling motor quit working on me again with 1 1/2 hours left to fish. All I could do was find an area that the wind wasn't blowing too hard so I could drift and still fish. Well, there weren't any fish around willing to bite and with 1/2 an hour before weigh in I started to clean up the boat and actually put my rods away in the rod locker, which is something I hardly ever do. Usually it is just a big mess by the end of the day. So, I got back to the landing and Chris pulled up right after so we loaded our boats and waited. I asked him how he did and he played coy like his day sucked too.
    Well, in conclusion to the day, my first mistake was not fishing with Chris and enduring all the farts and fun. All though, the way I felt that morning I probably would have ended up yaking but I may have had a better day of fishing seeing as he won with 17.36 lbs of pig smallmouth bass. He also had big bass with a 4.77 lb. Great job Chris! John Pozarski had 14.72 lbs for second place. These two guys ran away with it because then it dropped to just under 9 lb's. I came in 5th (out of 14) with 7.98 lbs. Again I'll take it for how things went that day. Off to Wal-Mart to buy 2 more trolling batteries.

Renegade bassers(2010)

2011-01-05T02:52:00Z

    First off I have to apologize for not staying up to date with the blog, I know how much all you readers look forward to reading it   LOL. Seriously though I joined a new MN B.A.S.S. club this is the first year of the RENEGADE BASSERS 2010 and are first Tournament was held on Medicine Lake in Plymouth,MN on Saturday June,12th I was paired with Brian Burandt but unfortunately he could not make it to this one. My practice can be summed up as bad,the weekend before the tournament I made it out there and must have thrown everything in my boat at the fish and came away with nothing but a few fish that would of kept and the water temp plus water color. It's now the day before the tournament and I really need to figure something out so I head to Medicine in hopes of putting a game plan together. Well it is hot and sunny out just like last weekend and the fishing was not much better but I did find two separate shallow weedlines. At the first of the two weedlines I had a nice fish follow a Booyah Boogie bait back to the boat and then a couple of casts later I caught a 14" bass along same weedline which was in about 3 feet of water,the thing I liked about this is it was out a ways from shore so I figured it may see less pressure from all the bankbeaters. The second spot was very similar to the other one and had baitfish flipping along it so I picked up my spinnerbait rod with a 3/8oz Leena Lures spinnerbait(white) and I caught two keepers in short order so I called it the day and went home and prepared my gear for tomorrow.
    Woke up to very overcast and cold temps,man complete opposite of both my practice days. I had drawn last boat for take-off and proceeded to my first area and it began raining almost immediately,well I picked up spinnerbait rod and started to fire casts out along the shallow weedline and on the 5th or 6th one my spinnerbait just got smoked as I hammered the hook home I realized that this was a good fish, sure hope it's a bass and not pike! a couple more cranks on the Abu Garcia Revo STX and I see a bass roll and then come up and wallow by the side of the boat and as I slide the net under the bass I realize I 5 minutes in and I already have 4lb's whew now thats the way to start a day. Ok from that first good fish to the end of the day through a constant cold rain I caught fish after fish but none even close to that 4lb'er. I bet I caught 30 pike and some good ones too and probably 20 bass all on a spinnerbait, granted I had to change out 3 or 4 of them from getting twisted to hell but when catching that many fish it's going to happen.
    It's now time to head in and see how I did, I'm thinking I have about 11lb's maybe 11-1/2 but thinking if I caught them this good the others must have to because the guys in this club are good sticks. I was right Guy Knudson weighed in 15.04 pounds for the win John Pozarski weighed in 13.50 for third place and big bass with 5.01 pig, oh I was pretty dead on with me weight prediction as I weighed 11.06 for 4th place. To be honest I am very OK with this because in the past I have been known to bomb in the first tournaments of the year so maybe were turning that around

2009 State Tournament

2009-09-18T15:39:00Z

    Well this is the big week of the Minnesota Bass Federation Nation state tournament, this year it is being held at beautiful Lake Pokegama in Grand Rapids,MN. Pokegama has got to be one of my personal favorites because this lake offers everything an angler could want in deep clear water,shallow stained water main lake or river fishing,weeds,rocks I think you get the point and with all this diverse structure the fish grow big and not only the largemouth but big smallmouth to.
    I got to the lake really early on Sat. morning and set out to catch fish today and shake off fish on the other practice days while dialing in a game plan. I proceeded to my first spot which was an underwater point with weeds up on top, I pulled out a Zara Spook jr. and made a cast up on top of the bar and while working the spook back a fish blasts it right at the side of the boat in 19ft of water, it's a decent two pounder on the first cast. I proceeded to work the area concintrating on 15 to 20ft of water, I caught fish after fish I was trying to pull the spook away from the blow-ups but couldn't I think I hooked everyone and released about 13 lbs for my 5 best. I made a move and caught fish at every spot and on every lure, it seemed like I could do know wrong and at the end of a very good day I had approximently 16-17lb's. Sunday I took or alternate to the lake he was going to fish for the Alternates tournament to try and make the State tourny. We fished or butts off and only had one good fish to show for our hard work. the rest of my week was spent primarlily checking promising looking spots with my underwater camera. It is now Wed. evening and time for the pairings meeting and raffle. I bought ten raffle tickets in hopes of winning something nice and I did they called one of my tickets and "WOW" I won a falcon tackle box loaded with 16 Rapala crankbaits so that add's up to approximently $180.00. as they rattled of prize after prize they announced the next one was a 7' heavy action G-Loomis IMX rod and everybody there was mumbeling in excitement. I think I pissed a lot of people off because they called another ticket of mine, I made out like a bandit the rod retails for $285.00. Now that the raffle is over it is time for the pairings, I got paired with Rich Lindgren for day 1 and since my boat was running like crap we decided to use Rich's boat. Rich picked me up from my motel and then headed to the boat landing, man was it foggy out, mornings like this sure make you appreciate gps mapping, this allowed us to actually find the take off head quarters. Well it took over a three hour fog delay which left us a very short day to fish. I have known Rich for a couple of years now and was looking forward to actually fishing with him, he has done very well in past State Championships and also other local trails. Man he is a freak, he had a game plan in is head and pretty much stuck to it we ran to certain stretchs and fished fast, we were headed to the river to fish an area of his then he realized we didn't have time because of the fog delay so we hit a mainlake break nearby where we were and ended up on some really nice smallmouth bass. Rich caught three big ones and I caught a donkey of a smallie it made my largemouth look tiny in the livewell,we decided to let this spot rest and ran to a spot I had some decent largemouth going in practice, we fished the weedline around but I could not dial the exact spot in without my waypoints and could not find it we caught a couple of small fish but left and ran back to the ledge and rich caught another fish but it did not help his bag. It was time to go weigh in and I was bummed out that I only had two fish after the practice I had, I weighed in 6.06 and they swept my big smallie away before I had a chance to weigh it so that pissed me off too. Rich had a great bag of fish his five best went over 15 lb's and he was sitting in 3rd place after day one. Day two I was paired with Rick Hemeseth from upper Iowa Bassmasters and we took his boat, first time I was in a Charger bassboat and I liked the look and it rode pretty nice also the only thing I didn't like was the compartment layout but that could be just me being comfortable with my Ranger layout. Rick and I fished my Spook spot to start and I caught a largemouth right away, it took the whole spook down it's throat and it was bleeding bad so I was pretty sure it would die and I would be stuck with it. Well a short time later Rick hooked a fish on a soft jerkbait and I netted a big smallmouth for him and he sporadically picked up three more off of this spot as we bounced back and forth from spots he weighed in 4 fish for over 11 pounds (nice job) and weighed 3 fish one dead for alittle under 5 pounds. I am glad Rick caught the fish off my spot but he could have let me have some Ha,ha just kidding. Both guys I fished with were great, I had a very disappointing tournament.

Lake Pokegama

2009-08-14T16:44:00Z

Well I am not sure what to expect today here on Lake Pokegama in Grand Rapids,with no prefishing at all. I am filled with anticapation because this lake can be great and usually is, well today I am fishing with Steve Walker and hopefully he is a good luck charm like last year when I won on Lake Alexander . I decided to start on a mainlake area that I have done well on topwater early before,I picked up my rod with a super spook jr. tied on and fired out a long cast and started walking the bait back in and BAM a smallmouth fly's up and gets it and I have put Steve to work early with the net as he lands a 2 pounder for me but that was all that fish must have been retarded because smallies school almost all the time. As we moved down farther along the weedline I caught two keeper largemouth's but they were not very big by any means and the sun was gettiing pretty bright out and shut the topwater bite down so we moved to another spot that I knew had some really good cabbage out on a small point and Steve caught his first fish a largemouth and it was about 2-1/4 lb's and then he caught another nice largemouth and I filled out my limit but this spot was not producing enough action so we moved again and started fishing a weedline I have caught a couple of big largies off of and as I was working my way down the weedline my good friend Chris Asbeck pulled up aways down the weedline and started whacking fish left and right, he is lucky he found that exact spot in practice because I was working my way there unknowing it was loaded up with fish. I left when we got some what close and went to an area and it didn't look right the weeds were gone so we didn't stay long and then went to a spot I always fish and we both caught some fish, Steve caught only quality largemouths i don't think he caught a small one all day and I had two dinks to cull yet,as we were moving closer to the island off the weed point we were fishing alot more rock was apparent and I picked up a Secret Lures MVP jig in a pb&j color and fired it out and almost imediatly got rocked hard andslammed the hook home into a big smallmouth that Steve and I both thought would have went 4 pounds easy, I then threw out a football jig to come through the rocks better and I got tapped right away and caught a small smallie that did not help. I could not get bit for about ten minutes so for a joke I told Steve I was going to throw my spook under the bluebird skies and on my third cast a big smallmouth jumped completly over it,about 3-1/2 pounds boy did I need that fish. Well we went and tried some frog fishing for the last hour or so to try and pick up some kicker fish but we didn't even get a blow up. So know it's weigh in time and Steve weighed in 8.89 and came in 7th place and I weighed in 9.39 and came in 5th it was really tough out there with the rain and storms and wind the days prior but some one always seems to find them and that was Steve(Ozzy)Oswald who landed 14.26 lb's of fish four were smallmouth and one runt of a largemouth. Great job Ozzy oh yeah my buddy Chris took second with 12.67 lb's of largemouth