Bass tournaments

It's been a busy couple months fishing bass tournaments across the Sunset Country Region.  That's part of the reason I've been kinda slow on keeping up with my website.  We have a lot of fun fishing all of these great events, the only problem is our short summer goes by way to fast!  Our bass season is catch and release only through May and June, so there are no tournaments until July, then we have something going on nearly every weekend.  These are all community run events, with great fields and good payouts.  

The first tournament of the year was the Lake Despair Castin' For Cash event (www.lakedespairlodge.com), put on by Bill and Nell Godin at their resort.  August and I have won this tournament a couple of times and always have a good time fishing there.  We had a tougher than normal tournament this year, a combination of not finding a hot area with big fish and losing some good smallmouths.  We ended up with a 7th place finish in this 60 boat tournament.  The winners of this one were our buddies Jamie Bruce and Bryan Gustafson (pictured above).

Next up was the Shoal Lake Big Bass Classic, an annual event on one of our best bass fisheries in Sunset Country.  Chris Savage and I teamed up as usual but had probably our worst showing ever at this tournament.  We spent most of our time targeting largemoughs and just didn't get the right fish to bite.  We caught a mediocre 14 pounds per day to finish around 20th.  That's fishing. Ted and Louise Stewner won the tournament with 33 pounds of smallmouths.  Our good buddies Jay Samsal and Scott Dingwall took 2nd, thanks to a big day two, which included some big largemouths (pictured above).

The third weekend in July, August and I teamed up again for the Bronzeback Classic (www.bronzebackclassic.ca).  This was our second year fishing the tournament and for the second year in a row we ended up with a 5th place finish.  We had a great first day fishing around town, catching huge numbers of fish.  The second day we felt like we needed to try and catch a big bag to win the tournament and ran all over the lake trying to hunt down some big fish.  Unfortunately, things didn't work out and we ended up hitting the stuff we fished the first day for the last hour and a half of the day to catch our fish on day two.  We're looking forward to giving it another shot next year!  

The last weekend in July I fished the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship with my good buddy John Peterson from Minnesota.  We had a great tournament and ended up in 1st place!  Look for a seperate entry about this event.  

The Kenora Bass International (www.kbifishing.com) took place the second weekend in August.  Chris Savage and I hooked up for this one again, a tournament that we have had a lot of success at over the years, including a couple of wins.  

We came out blazing the first day, catching the biggest bag of the tournament, at 19.78 pounds.  It was a mixed bag of three largemouths and two smallmouths and was one of our best days ever in this event.  

Here was a big cull we had the first day, changing a two pounder for a five pounder!  We like to see those!  

We held onto the lead through day two, but ran out of gas on day three, bringing in only 11 pounds to end up 9th.  It was a disappointing finish for sure based on our first two days.  That's fishing though.  I think it was a combination of us running out of fish, a lot of angler pressure in the area we were fishing and the fish simply just not biting.  

Late in August I teamed up with Scott Dingwall for the International Falls Bass Championship (www.ifallsbass.com), which puts anglers on the U.S. side of Rainy Lake for a day and on the Rainy River for a day.  We have had a lot of success at this tournament over the years and have won the tournament three times.  We had a good tournament, ending up with a 2nd place finish.  The photo above was a giant smallmouth I caught during my day of practice on lake.  It was the first fish I caught out there!  

There are a few more tournaments coming up later in September, so look for the reports on those down the line. 

Comments

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