Shoal Lake Last Chance tournament

The annual Shoal Lake Last Chance bass tournament this past weekend.  46 teams showed up and got to experience an AWESOME weekend of weather...the fishing was pretty good too!  The weights were down quite a bit from what they usually are for this event but that was likely caused by the nice weather.  Most of the anglers I talked to felt like there would have been a bunch more big fish caught if it had been a little bit cooler out.  

I fished with my buddy Dennis Favreau this weekend - we have fished this tournament together for about 10 years now and we had a blast.  We caught a bunch of largemouths and smallmouths this weekend en route to a 4th place finish.  Caught our largmouths on Northland Jungle Jigs and Rapala DT3 FAT crankbaits.  We caught our smallmouths on Northland Impulse Smelt Minnows rigged on a Mimic Minnow jighead.  

This was our biggest fish of the weekend - a 4.17 pound largemouth.  

1	Ted & Louise Stewner	17.42		19.60		37.02
2	Brian McNanny & Matt Ryberg	18.10	4.35	18.26		36.36
3	Dave Bennet & Dean Howard	18.49		17.19		35.68
4	Jeff Gustafson & Dennis Favreau	17.86	4.03	17.64	4.17	35.50
5	Peter Adams & Daryl Galusha	16.17		18.92	5.08	35.09
6	Darrell Keszler & Wayne Wagner	18.22		16.20		34.42
7	Randy Paishk & Vern Fair	17.67	4.11	16.44	3.19	34.11
8	Trevor Guderyn and Dean Tacknyk	17.94	4.16	16.08		34.02
9	Chad Adrians & Caleb Colwell	18.52	4.07	15.23		33.75
10	Dean & Tanner McDonald	16.64		16.80		33.44

Thanks to the crew at Shoal Lake 39 for hosting another great event for all the anglers - it is our favorite body of water for fish in Sunset Country!  

Crow Lake Classic report

The Crow Lake Classic bass tournament returned to Nestor Falls September 17-18 after a one-year hiatus and 24 teams took part in the new version of this event.  Everything went great and the tournament was fun for all the anglers.  

My good buddy Marty Hanson and I fished together and had a tough weekend.  We caught a bunch of fish but had a tough time getting the right sized fish.  We caught them drop-shotting some 3" Trigger-X Minnows as well as some Northland Impulse Leeches.  We also caught a few fish on #8 Rapala X-Raps.  We ended up one spot out of the money in 11th.  It was a great event and we will be back to do it again next year!  

This is a photo of the winning team of Steve Hanson and Jamie Krukoski - they had the largest catch on day two.  There was actually a tie for first place but these guys won because they had the largest one-day catch, which was the tie-breaker.  

Steve Hanson and Jamie Krukoski	10.58	13.76	24.34
Thomas White Jr. and Gavin Cowley	11.9	12.44	24.34
Dan Kelly and Daniel Joseph	14.86	9.14	24
Thatcher Haggberg and Jim Ducharme	10.72	11.74	22.46
Morgan Cadine and Bryan Gustafson	11.28	8.46	19.74
Paul Jewiss and Mike Graham	13.96	5.68	19.64
Mitch White and Rhonda Nash	11.12	8.3	19.42
Dale Labelle and Randy Hanson	10.2	8.76	18.96
Greg Stahn and Larry Stahn	8.04	10.8	18.84
Candi Kelly and Gerald Arch	8.9	9.56	18.46

Bassin' For Bucks - 2nd place again!!!

My good friend Mike Reid and I have fished the annual Bassin' For Bucks tournament on Lake of the Woods together every year since it started in 1996.  That first year we were 14 years old and used a 14 foot Lund boat with a 25 horsepower motor and a cooler for a livewell.  The tournament takes place every year in Sioux Narrows, Ontario on the second weekend in September.  We have had good tournaments and tough tournaments over the years but we have been unable to seal the deal and win this tournament despite finishing 2nd three times!  www.bassinforbucks.com 

The weather was incredible all week for not only the practice period but for the tournament itself as well, which is usually not the case this time of year in Sunset Country.  We stayed at Crawford's Camp for the entire week and have a huge thanks to throw out to Matt Rydberg and Violet Longe for all the great hospitality, we really had a great time!  www.crawfordscamp.com  

I was throwing this new Rapala Crankin' Rap for largemouths during prefish and actually hooked a small largemouth that this pike attacked.  Eventually the largemouth got away and the pike got hooked so I had to get a picture, it was pretty interesting.  

Mike with a nice largemouth he caught during practice on a Northland Impulse Dip-Stick Worm

This was a picture I had to take on the way out in the morning on day two- talk about beautiful weather or what!  This was probably the best day of bass fishing I had all summer - our five fish weight was over 21 pounds.  

Here is a quick shot of our 21.15 pound catch on day two at Bassin' For Bucks - 3 smallmouths and 2 largemouths.  We caught a lot of big fish that day, it was a blast.  

Caught fish on a variety of baits over the course of the weekend - #8 Rapala X-Raps, Northland Impulse Dip-Sticks, Trigger-X Flutter Sticks and Minnows and Northland Pro-Series Spinnerbaits.  With the Senko-style baits, we were using YELLOW PowerPro braid and it made a huge difference in seeing bites because the line is very easy to see and it would jump when we got a bite while the bait was falling.  

Thanks to Barb Salvador and Debbie Ducharme for making the event happen for another year, as well as all the excellent volunteers!  This is one of the best bass tournaments in Canada, all the anglers have a great time!  

International Falls Bass Championship - 1ST PLACE!!!!

Scott Dingwall and I spent this past weekend in International Falls for the 7th annual IFBC and managed to catch some big smallmouth bass on route to winning the event for the third time and for the second year in a row.  We fished the Rainy River the first day and caught a decent limit that went 12.25 pounds.  We had a tough practice on the River so we were pumped up that we were able to salvage a decent limit.  We had high confidence that we could make up ground on the Lake.  We had our best tournament day ever in this event on the Lake and caught a limit that went 19.19 pounds for a two-day total of 31.44 pounds.  We set both the one-day record as well as the two-day total record for the tournament.  We won $10,000 for our efforts as well as a bonus $1,000 from Optima Batteries for running Optima's in my boat.  They are a little bit more expensive, but they are the BEST boat batteries on the market!!!  And to have the opportunity to win extra money in some tournaments just for using them is huge!  I can't kill them in day, we ran the trolling motor extremely hard on the river and it held us wherever we wanted to hold up.  

We caught our fish on the River on 1/2oz. Northland Reed-Runner Pro-Series Spinnerbaits.  We covered as much water as we could, fishing relatively fast. 

On the lake we caught fish on #8 X-Raps in the morning.  These baits have been key for me in several tournaments this year...this is the smaller size, we call it the "baby" X-Rap.  Once things warmed up, we moved shallow and caught fish on some of the new Northland Impulse soft plastic baits.  

Here is a shot of our big limit off the lake - it was sure a fun day!  We had high expectations, but obviously didn't expect to catch'em as well as we did.  My Lund 2010 Predator boat and Mercury Pro XS 225 motor came through huge like it has all year in getting us there and back every day!  It is a beauty to fish out of!  

Big thanks to all the volunteers that put on a GREAT event in International Falls every year!  It's one of the highlights of the year for us every summer.  www.ifallsbass.com 

Lund Angler-Young-Angler Championship

Lund Boat Company held it's annual Angler-Young-Angler Championship tournament on Lake of the Woods last Saturday, in what has become an annual event for Kenora.  16 teams took part in the tournament, with the winning team recieving a trip to Disney World.  The second place team earned a fly-in fishing trip in the no-entry fee event.  

Teams qualified by winning a regional event.  Regional events take place across North America, with representation at the Championship from as far away as Yellowknife NWT, Michigan and South Dakota. Each team is matched up with a guide - who were all Lund pro-staff members that have years of experience on Lake of the Woods.  Though the guides can't fish, they can drive the boat, and choose fishing locations and strategies.  

I was matched up with my good buddy Chad Johnson and his two kids Jacob and Jordan Boyd from Rogers, Minnesota.  It was their first time walleye fishing on Lake of the Woods and we had a great week and a solid tournament showing.  

The tournament itself was a catch-photo-release event so fish were measured and released unharmed.  There are a lot of big walleyes in Lake of the Woods right now and we want to keep it that way so not putting them through the stress of going in the livewell is important.  

Chad got things going early with a 26 inch walleye to start the day

Jordan soon followed that up with a 27 incher that was the largest of the day.  She definately had the hot stick in the boat!  

Jacob with his 26.5 incher.  All the fish were caught on a NORTHLAND FIRE-BALL JIG tipped with a leech

We finished 4th in the event with a 6 fish total weight over 42 pounds!!!  Last year the winning weight was 36 pound so we were pretty confident on our way in.  However, the big walleyes were snappin' on Lake of the Woods and three other teams knocked us off.  Here we are holding down the hotseats until the final three boats came in

The winning team of John and Aidan Butts, along with Aidan's buddy Luke Turcotte hold up the first place prize as their guide Jason Vogelsang looks on.  Congratulations guys!!!