Waconia Tournament

Tournament morning and I was pumped to go. I was lucky enough to have my good chum Idso in the boat with me as I didn’t draw a non-boater. I was one of the later boats in the draw and as I headed to my first reed spot I could see to other boats heading to the general area. As I approached the spot I could see a fellow club member dropping his t-motor right where I was going to start. So I went to the other end and started working it towards him. Anyway after fishing the entire sweet spot of the reeds I didn’t even get a nudge and neither did the other boat fishing the area. I knew the right fish were in the area so I thought that maybe the fish pulled out of the reeds as to the recent fishing pressure and cool nights. So I made my way towards the inside weed edge fan casting a sexy sunfish redeye shad. As I hit the first weeds I hooked up with a small bass. I also caught one on the very next cast but it was another shaver. Then on a long cast down the weed edge I hooked up with a good one. It was nearly three pounds and my first fish in the box. After casting the red eye many more times it came up fruitless and in that amount of time the water had slicked off and the wind had completely died. After giving it sometime in the area I thought that about this time the dock bite was maybe heating up. We moved to the docks and I caught 2 small keepers on the first two docks after running the next 8 docks fruitless and the wind had picked up I moved back out to the offshore. I thought I would try some deeper edges just to see – after wasting an hour out there I head back to the only area I caught a good one. I tried the reeds again and went way inside the reeds. I flipped a jig into about 18” of water and got a good thump I reared back and boat flipped yet another 3lber. After trying to make more out of the shallow bite than what was there we headed back off shore to the inside weed edge after pitching Texas rigs in the foil I connected with a good one – not quite three pounds. It was at this point when I had realized that maybe I should have never left this section of weeds. I fish it nearly the rest of the day boating a constant amount of fish all over 2lbs but most being shy of 3. At one point the wind picked up and it started to rain it was at this point that the wind switched and I fished the sweet spot in the reeds from a different angle than had up to this point and it paid off. I caught a real good one and to be honest I had no idea how big it was. It was an odd shaped fish and the first half of the fish was inordinately large but then it tapered quickly and was actually quite short. In fact at weigh in the fish was reweighed several times because the weighmaster though for sure it weighed more than the 4.5 it was showing. After I caught the big one there was only half hour left in the tourney and although I caught fish none of them helped. I was one of the later boats to weigh in and ended up with a little over 15 pounds and it was good enough for second place in the tourney. And congrats to Jeff on 1st place – my suspicions were correct – he found a spot similar to mine and just sat on it all day and mined it for all it was worth – which is probably what I should’ve done. I ended up weighing 3 fish on a ½ Texas rigged craw tube and 1 on a jig and 1 on the red eye. I don’t have any regrets and it was great that my home work paid off and it was fun when an on the water adaptation worked. I don’t consider myself much of a fall angler so this was a shot in the arm for my fall fishing confidence.
I will post soon next year’s schedule as we have already picked locations.

Club tourney full report

Feeling slightly dehydrated and shaky I was ready to go. Having one spot and not the fastest boat in the club I figured I was in trouble. But like KVD says no sense in worrying about the things you cannot control. My Rock star guest in the boat today was Tim Allen. Tim is a good backseater and provides a decent amount of comedy for the day. As we left I had several other boats in front of me but all of them blew past it. As we set down I knew we had it all to ourselves. Tim actually started the day with a fish caught on a ring fry in some current. A decent 2lber and then he caught another one a little smaller. As I pulled into the bay all of the beds were looking empty. Until I got to one near a tree branch. As we got close the first time we were to close to her and she spooked off. I gave her some time to relock on her bed. As we came back through she was on her bed and wouldn’t take anything I threw at her. After several minutes of working her she eventually peeled off her bed and headed for the depths. Knowing exactly where she was now we let her rest from some time. As we came back in on the approach I finally broke down and decided to throw the magic senko at her. Staying a good 30 yards off of her I made a cast past where I knew she was and pulled it into her bedroom. As the coils of my line on the top of the water straightened out I knew this meant good things. I reared back and gave her the steal. After getting her in the net I was quite relieved. Going down the bank a little while more and I casted to what looked like a fishy spot. Only this time I was hanging over a dock. There again my line was running and as I reeled down my rod loaded up. It wasn’t until I gave Tim the rod kept my toes in the boat and leaned out on my belly did the fish finally make it into the net. At this point I know I am on pace but I am out of spawners in this bay. We revisited the bay many times through the day and there was only one other 3lb smallie that was in there and she would have no part of me. At about 11 o’clock Tim opened up the live well and said bad things. We had fish on their side. What I didn’t know is that my livewell had stopped working. My livewell never regained and I eventually would kill those two big smallies. I managed two other measuring largemouth and was actually disappointed I couldn’t scratch a limit, until I came into the docks and realized it was a pretty tough day for most of the guys. Well as it would go down my busted livewell would cost me the win. After the dead fish penalties I was in a tie for first and since the first tie breaker is most fish the win went to Todd. Congrats to him as he figured out something with the smallies as well. Overall there is a few things I could have done better but am pretty pleased with my first tourney in Beyonce the boat.


Special thanks to Mike M. For snapping a photo of the two dead beauties.