Multi-species tournament
AllFished the 4th and final contest in the series I posted on about a
month ago. This one was on Lk Tetonka, a 4-5000 natural lk
in S Central MN, lots of structure, a river in and river out. Some
residental areas, but plenty of untouched shoreline too. Got the first fish of the day shortly after 7am - a itty-bitty LM of
about 5-6" came and smacked my Gold Shad /Gold Shiner SW. It
had the entire hook ingested, but we got it out. Two casts later,
in a small opening off the boat channel we were in, a 4-5# NP
(saw the body in the boil of water) took a swipe at it and missed -
argh. Saw some laydown trees - switched to skipping a Fin-S Fish (not sure
how to describe the color) under it the first. Sean Barton had told me
about using these when we fished at the NWC a couple weeks
ago. Thanks Sean! Felt a hit - set the hook - beat the fish out of the wood in to open
water - was gaining some line, and it was gone. Reeling in, the bait
was all twisted up on the hook - and the barb had barely penetrated
the "back" of the bait. 20-30 feet down the bank another tree - skipped in to the wood -
another hit - set the hook extra hard, felt the fish, and it left me
hanging in the tree. Argh!!! 3 decent fish, and not a one in the
boat. My partner, Lloyd, is a walleye guy - and this is "his" lake, so
we tryed a reef - trolling - nothing. Tryed the river inlet - some
boats in the vincinity - but we marked fish, - w/ a jig and
minnow we picked up some nice crappie and walleye. Then it was lunch break (all boats come in). After lunch,
we went back to the river - jigging. Tryed jigging rapalas
at the suggestion of another fisherman. Lots of hits, but
few takers. Lloyd a good LM come up and take a swipe
at his jigging rap - but the fish missed, and soaked him
(Lloyd) for his troubles). Tryed the laydowns again - nobody home. So then we
started working docks - skipping plastics. Lloyd got
a 15-16" LM out of one, and had a 2nd LM wrap hime
around at piling, using a wacky rigged worm. Weights for the day were good - one team had over 21# of
fish, mainly LM the got fishing over the various reefs. Large fish
was a 11.5# NP taken trolling. We ended the day w/ 7.8# of assorted fish. We were
way back in pack for the event, but did well enough, that
we ended up getting 1st place for the 4 event series and $150
for our troubles. We beat out the 2nd place team for
the series by about 3oz. Jim |
