Tournament season in Full Swing

Its been a good couple of months of fishing on the tournament trail, fun fishing and guiding around home on Lake of the Woods!  In early August I fished in my second Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita in Arkansas and came away with a 21st place finish.  Not exactly what I was hoping for but it was a fun week!  

It is an honour to get to fish in this tournamnent and I was really happy that my parents and my girlfriend Shelby were able to come along and share the great week with me! 

After the Cup it was nice to get back home for a while to enjoy all of the awesome fishing we have here in Sunset Country! 

This was a fun evening of walleye fishing in mid-August.  The walleye fishing is ALWAYS good on Lake of the Woods!

Later in August my pal Scott Dingwall and I won the annual International Falls Bass Championship on Rainy Lake...it was a great weekend with some big catches of smallmouth bass!

The walleye fishing was still good later in August!  Here is my friend Brad Stout along with his son Blake who came to enjoy a couple days of walleye fishing on Woods.

In early September, Shelby and I took her parents out fishing and Shelbs showed everybody how to catch big walleyes!  

This past weekend my buddy Mike Reid and I won the annual Bassin' For Bucks tournament on Lake of the Woods and while we weighed mostly smallmouths in this three day event, we did manage to wrangle a few big largemouths on day two, including the big fish of the tournament at 5.84 pounds!   

We were fortunate and grinded out another win at Bassin' For Bucks so it was a pretty good week!  Mike and I grew up together but we don't get to see each other a lot anymore so this tournament is a fun week for us to get to fish together and hang out! 

July Fishing in Sunset Country

A big misconception that many folks have about fishing in our part of the World is they think that the fishing in July is not very good.  WRONG!  It's awesome!  Another is that bass go deep and can't be caught on topwaters...wrong again!!!  The hotter it gets, the shallower and more active they get!  

Shelby and I had a great weekend up in Minaki, exploring the Winnipeg River for bass.  We stayed at Birch Island Resort and had the BEST TIME!  I highly recommend this place for dinner and a great place to stay.

Birch Island Resort 

We've got a new bass club in Kenora - Sunset Country Bass Anglers - and my Dad and my sisters boyfriend Mike Consentino won the first tournament they put on, a Tuesday night tournament on July 24...They won $600 and a new chainsaw!  Congrats guys!

The walleye fishing on Lake of the Woods has been top-notch over the past few weeks...both for numbers and big fish!  Lot's of fun!  

Since we've been catching so many walleyes, we've been having some good shore lunches as well!  I've never left a shore lunch without eating way to much!  It's so delicious!  These fresh fish lunches are the highlight of the trip for many people that visit us in Sunset Country each season!  

The classic jig and minnow catches plenty of walleyes but if you get into fish, run out of bait or go on a remote trip, soft plastics like this Northland Impulse 3" Smelt Minnow rigged on a 1/4 oz jig catches plenty of walleyes! 

Congratulations to my buddies Bryan Gustafson and Brian McNanney on winning the 24th annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship on Rainy Lake!  This is one of the best open, team bass tournaments in North America, always one of the highlights of the summer for me!  Best trophy in bass fishing!!!  

Fishing, fishing and more fishing

The past couple of months have been busy since we've had open water around home with a little bit of travel mixed in.  It's been a great season thus far, we're having fun and catching plenty of nice fish! 

My buddy Karl Engstrom and I won the annual Shoal Lake Big Bass Classic the first weekend of July...always fun when things come together!  

The last week of June I was down at Lake St. Clair for the final FLW Tour stop of the season.  After a great year I finished with a tough finish at St. Clair - 80th place but ended up 11th overall in the standings.  The fishing at St. Clair was excellent and while I caught a bunch of fish, I was not fishing in the right area because I just wasn't catching the big ones that guys were in other parts of the lake.  It was fun having my brother Ben join me for the three day practice, we had a great time! 

Back in June, Shelby and I spent a couple of days at a Simms photoshoot and she showed everybody how to catch a walleye...a few walleyes actually!  

In between tournaments I have been doing quite a bit of guiding and the fishing has been good, with plenty of good crappie, walleye and bass action!  

Here is the biggest walleye of the season so far, caught by Jenna - 30.5"!!!  GIANT, straight out of Lake of the Woods! 

The crappie fishing has been phenominal this season so far, great numbers and some big ones as well!  

Fishing with the gals from Ontario's Sunset Country

In late May I took out the gals from the Sunset Country office out fishing on Lake of the Woods and we had a great day, loaded with action!  Check out the video below...come and visit us if you want to have some fun in the boat!!!

Busy Spring on the Road

Since mid-April we have had three FLW Tour events so I have been on the road quite a bit with that.  I'm at home for a few weeks right now, which is nice, taking advantage of the AWESOME fishing that we have here in Sunset Country.  I'll post all about that in the next day or two.  

The first event took place at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky and it did not go as planned.  A horrible first day lead me to a 125th place finish, one of my worst ever but things went good for the next couple of events so I have no complaints.  

To top things off in Kentucky, after the tournament I ended up getting a bunch of gear - rods, reels, tackle and line - stolen out of the back of my truck through the window on the right side of my cap.  Fortunately, thanks to the help of Game Warden Jason Estes and the police in Burnside, Kentucky, most of my things were recovered so I'm very lucky!

After Cumberland we headed to Lewis Smith Lake in Northern Alabama and things went well there.  I had two pretty good days and was in 15th place heading into the weekend.  A tougher day three landed me in 29th place but it was good week.  I really, really enjoy fishing these lakes that have big spotted bass.  They are fun to fish for.  

I caught most my fish at Smith Lake on a wacky rigged Northland Impulse Dipstick (Green Pumpkin) with a nail weight in one end of it.  I also caught a few on a Jackall Rhythm Wave swimbait and a ned rig.  

After Smith we visited Kentucky Lake in mid-May, my third time fishing there.  I've always had fun there in the past so I was looking forward to it.  It is one of the most famous bass lakes in the U.S. with a lot of tournament history so it's always fun to fish there.  It has undergone a major invasion of Asian carp in the past few years so we'll see what happens with that.  The fishing was tougher this the than it's been in the past but I ended up grinding out my limit every day en route to a solid 7th place finish! 

My Dad has come to Kentucky Lake with me each time that I've been there because of the shot at catching several fish like this each day.  It was tougher fishing this time but the quality was still really good.  We didn't catch a lot of fish during the three practice days but most of them were good ones.  

I was really lucky at Kentucky Lake that I had one spot that kicked out most of my fish on days two and three when I had big catches.  Sometimes, that's the way it goes, I'm not going to complain!  I caught most of my fish at KY on a 3/4 oz football jig and a homemade bucktail jig.  

Heading into the last event of the season at Lake St. Clair in a couple of weeks, I am in ninth place in points, looking pretty good for qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup in August.  The top 40 anglers qualify for the Cup.  I'm very excited about St. Clair, it is one of the best smallmouth lakes in the World so we can expect to see a bunch of big fish.  It's going to be fun!