Fishing, fishing, fishing...

Wow...sorry it's been so long since my last update.  Summer has been super busy for me, I've been fishing a lot obviously.  This is the first weekend I haven't fished a tournament since mid-June!  Over the past couple months, I have had a few good tournaments and plenty of fun days on the water.  Here are some photos from the past while...tournament stuff coming in a day or two.  

Here was a nice largemouth while prefising for the Shoal Lake Bass Classic back in July.  5 pounds.  

My good buddy Jarrod Sundmark with a nice smallmouth he caught while prefishing with me for the Bronzeback Classic in July.  

End of another beautiful day in Sunset Country!

Sean McAughey with a nice musky he caught while we were prefishing for the KBI.

Chris Savage with a nice pike while prefishing for the KBI - Lake of the Woods has everything!  

Jim Richardson and his son Colton with a nice walleye that Colton caught on a late July fishing trip.

On the same day, Colton also caught a nice pike! 

Chickamauga FLW Tour

The last FLW Tour event of the season took place at the end of June at Tennessee's Lake Chickamauga.  I had a pretty good tournament and ended up with a 26th place finish, which earned my over $10,000!  I was a little bit disappointed that I missed making the top 20 cut to fish on day three but I had to scrape and scrounge for what I got on day two, so it could have been worse!  

This was a big largemouth that I caught in practice...on a cool chatterbait/big fluke rig that is a hot local bait.  The fluke is a 7" Castiac bait.  Really nice, probably would work pretty good for early season musky at home in Sunset Country!  This fish was over 6 pounds and when I caught it, I had a whole school blow up on shad all around the boat.  

During the event I caught fish on a variety of stuff, including some deep ledges as well as some boat docks.  I caught the deep fish on a Jackall Muscle Deep 15 crankbait, a 3/4 oz football jig and I caught the dock fish on a drop-shot rig and a 1/2 oz Northland Jungle Jig.  

Here I am at the rules meeting with my good friend Blake Nick.  We became good buddies over the course of the season and had some fun fishing together.  

Launching the boat on day one of the tournament in the dark...we were taking off at first light during the tournament, though we did have a long fog delay on day two.  

Overall my experience fishing the FLW Tour this year has been great.  I had a lot of fun, made some new friends and learned a bunch.  I'm looking forward to giving it another shot again next year and hopefully I can improve my results.  

Huge thanks to my sponsors, especially KrugerFarms.com, International Comfort Products, Sunset Country Tourism and Lund Boat Company for making this dream a reality!  Many thanks to all of my other sponsors as well - Northland Fishing Tackle, Shimano, Power Pro, G. Loomis Fishing Rods, Jackall Lures, Frabill, Plano, Optima Batteries, Minn Kota, Humminbird, Skirts Plus and Spy Optics.  

Having fun at home

Summer is finally here in Sunset Country!  I'm home for a week right now before I head back down south for the final FLW Tour event of the season next week at Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee.  I love summer around Kenora and Lake of the Woods, so it's been a fun week at home.  I've been making the most of it and have been out fishing quite a bit.    

Here was a nice one that was released.  We were fishing shallow water, 4 - 10 feet, where there was a mix of weeds, sand and rock.  Caught them all on an 1/8 ounce Northland Vegas Jig tipped with a Jackall Clone Fry minnow in Threadfin Shad colour.  

Here is a close-up of the hot bait.  This is the most realistic, soft plastic minnow I have ever used.  They are relatively soft so one thing you want to do is get some instant glue to put on the jig collar so the plastic doesn't slide down on the jig.  

Also got out on Shoal Lake for a day with my buddy Scott Dingwall.  We caught over 100 bass, both smallmouths and largemouths, so that was fun!  Our fishing opportunities across the Sunset Country Region are so great!  

Our largemouths up here in the northern part of their range are so fat!  With the high water this year, the largemouth fishing should be pretty good all summer.  

Grand Lake FLW Tour

The fifth stop on the 2013 FLW Tour took place this past weekend on Oklahoma's Grand Lake.  Anglers were greeted with high, muddy water so it was a situation that was new to me.  My results weren't great in the tournament, finished 99th out of 150 anglers, but I did manage to catch some fish and weigh in limits each day.  They just weren't the right ones.  

I had a decent practice, catching fish flipping a 1/2 oz Northland Jungle Jig around in the flooded bushes and laydowns on the bank.  The bigger fish were random for me though and in the tournament I didn't get that many opportunities at big ones.  

We get three days to practice for these FLW Tour events so for most of the anglers, including myself, it's all about fishing from dark to dark.  At this event I was launching the boat at 5:30 am and pulling it out at 9:00 pm.  

Here was an encounter I had with a snake during practice...I snagged it accidentally with a topwater lure.  Needless to say I cut the line and sacrificed my lure.  

Here is a look at what the flooded Grand Lake looked like in many places along the bank. Most of the anglers that did well in the tournament were catching fish flipping in these bushes.  

Here was another nice one from practice.  As you can see by the tail on this fish, it's not far off spawning.  

Like I said, though my results were not great in this event, I did at least catch some fish.  It's not like I finished in the 90's and only caught two fish per day.  I was able to catch decent numbers.  I also lost a couple of big ones the first day and had I landed those I would have flirted with cashing a cheque, so I was not to far off being on the right program.  I probably just wasn't in the best area on the lake.  

There is one event remaining on the schedule at Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee coming up in a couple weeks, so I'm headed home this week for a bit, then headed back down south for the last event.  

Long road trip!

I left Kenora on May 6 and have been on the road ever since so it's becoming a bit of a long haul!  I'm having fun though!  My Dad joined me for the first part of this trip, as we went to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin to compete in a one-day NABC tournament on Lake Michigan.  It was the the weekend before the annual Sturgeon Bay Open tournament that I have participated in for several years and my Dad had never been out there before so it was a great opportunity to get a few days of fishing in at this great smallmouth fishery.  

There are more five pound plus smallmouths at this place than anywhere I know of, always a lot of fun, weather permitting!  

We had a pretty good practice for the tournament and were prepared with what we thought was a good game plan for a one-day shootout.  The day of the event the wind was blowing really hard out of the north, which is always the worst for this place.  We made the run to Little Sturgeon Bay and made it without to much problem, though we were wet and cold!  After a change of clothes, it was time to get busy!  When we started fishing we noticed the water temperatures had dropped off significantly from where it had been the day before, from 52 degrees down to 42 degrees!  Not good!  We ended up putting one five pound fish in the boat and then decided at 11:30 we would try to run back up to Sturgeon Bay to hit a few spots there.   When we reached the mouth of Sturgeon Bay, the waves were some of the biggest I have ever seen in my life, 6-8 footers, so we made the decisison to turn around and pull into the marina in Little Sturgeon and load the boat on the trailer.  We had to make an 18 hour drive south to Eufaula, Alabama following the event and this was a call that we made because I didn't want to risk damaging anything on my boat because I needed to have it ready to go two days later to start practicing for the Eufaula FLW Tour event and I did not have any time to get anything fixed.  We weren't the only ones who packed it in early, five other boats joined us in getting a ride on land to pick up our trucks.

My Dad travelled with me down to Eufaula and participated in his first event as a co-angler.  We had a fun practice for this tournament and caught a decent number of fish, epecially on the last day when my Dad put on a clinic for me!  I felt like I had a really solid program going into this event, throwing a Jackall Flick Shake worm around some docks and throwing an Iobee Frog in the shallow grass during the afternoons.  

The first day of the event went great, I caught 13-06 and was in 38th place, not to far off the top 20 pace, so I was happy.  I had a strong finish to the day and was really optimistic that I would have a great second day.  My co-angler from day one, Jason Johnson had an even better day and boated over 15 pounds which landed him in first place in his division.  He ended up second overall...a great dude that I enjoyed sharing the boat with.  

Fishing is a humbling sport is what I learned on day two!  I fished my butt off all day and was only able to put one small keeper in the boat to end up with a 90-something place finish.  I'm not really sure what happened, looking back, I'm not even sure what I would have done differently, it was just one of those days.  I did miss a couple of big blow-ups on a frog and caught a bunch of short fish, but it just wasn't my day.  I wish I could do it over again, that's for sure!  I'm thinking the fish I was catching were just on their way out and had the tournament been a couple of days earlier I probably would have been able to put something good together.  Oh well, move on to the next one. 

After Eufaula, I moved up to Dayton, Tennessee, on the shores of Lake Chickamauga to get a little pre-scouting in for the final FLW event at the end of June.  I had a good time fishing on Chickamauga and caught a few nice fish.  Spent a lot of time scouting around with my Side-Imaging, looking for offshore structure and cover.  I found a bunch of stuff that looked great so hopefully it will hold some fish when we come back in June!  

I did catch some nice fish throwing rattle baits like this Jackall TN70 in the evenings and early mornings...so that was fun.  Looking forward to going back there in a few weeks!

This week, my fiance August came down to visit me and we spent a few days in Nashville which was a blast!  We're in Branson, Missouri now, working our way over to Grand Lake, Oklahoma, site of the next FLW Tour event next week.  I will post a report on the Grand Lake tournament when I get home.  You can follow online next week at www.flwoutdoors.com