Our out of town tourney this year was on Lake Vermilion in northern Minnesota. It was also an opportunity for us to practice for the MN BASS Federation State Tournament coming up in September. I was excited to fish it, since I've never been there before. I've heard nothing but good things about it as far as scenic beauty and it's quality smallmouth population. The amount of water is staggering. It's the 4th largest lake in Minnesota and is 27 miles long. It would need to be broken down into sections and I would need to stay relatively close to the launch site.
Darin Sorenson would be driving up with me which was great since we both saved on gas and had some company during the 3 1/2 hour drive. I meet him at his place at about 6pm on Thursday night and we hit the road. Our plan was to get to the resort by 10 so we could get a full practice day in on Friday. On the way we met Ryan Ploof for a quick bite and then continued on. We were driving along and I was on the phone with my wife when Darin started saying 'car, car, car' louder and louder. We were on a four lane divided highway with two lanes on each side. I was in the left lane passing a slightly slower car, and another car was coming right at us! It took me a second to realize what was happening. I was on the phone, it was dark, and the last thing I expected was a car coming at me on the wrong side of the road. In the few seconds that I had, I decided that the lesser of two evils was to hit the car next to us instead of crashing head on. At the last second I jerked the wheel to the right and braced for impact. Lucky for us the car that was there had slowed down and we missed the oncoming car by a few feet. Holy crap my heart was pounding I thought we were in big trouble. It was so close. What the hell was he doing?
Once we calmed down, Darin called Ploof to warn him as he was about 20 minutes behind us. We were thinking there was no way he would still be there by that point but just in case. Sure enough Ploof called us about 20 minutes later and had luckily gotten off to get gas and saw him drive by, still driving down the wrong side of the highway. He called 911 and they said they had already received many calls about him. Hopefully he didn't hurt anyone. What a way to start the weekend! Onwards to the resort and we arrived safely a little past 10pm, unpacked, and went to bed.
Practice Day Friday
We got up around 5 am to hopefully be on the water by 6. It was a little rough for some folks who had partied long into the night. I was fishing with Mike on Saturday and he would be joining me today for some laughs and hopefully some Smallies! Mike was having some trouble backing the trailer in because I think he was seeing two trailers. We started out right near the launch at a little island. It didn't take long to catch a nice smallie on a spinnerbait. We then headed over to a bay that looked like largemouth territory with weeds and pads. We were fishing along and I thought I saw a log in the water. I casted my lure towards it and as we moved closer realized it was a giant musky. One of many we would see over the next couple days. There are lots of giant muskies in the lake. We continued on and I got a decent largemouth on a frog. Things were pretty slow so we made a nice long move to an island with some nice boulders and deep water nearby. Rocks would be another theme for the weekend as they are everywhere and we would lose lots of tungsten over next three days. We both hooked into some nice Smallies, marked it, and headed off in search of more areas like this one. We ended up catching a ton of fish and quite a few nice ones during the day. It did slow down quite a bit around noon but we still managed one here and one there. Didn't get any giants but a few over 3lbs and some close to 4. The best baits were Texas rigged tube, didn't seem to matter what color, rapala dt 10 in bluegill, and a few on a spinner bait. Mikey was catching most of his on a fat ika tube. You could fine pretty much any shoreline with rocks (which was everywhere) and catch them. The best ones seemed to be near deep water with a sharp drop off near shore. I tried like heck to get a topwater bite going but only managed a little dink on a pop-r. I threw the spook quite a bit but nothing was interested. Water temp was about 78 degrees during the middle of the day.
There were crayfish everywhere! Every time you would catch one, they would be spitting them up near the boat, and in the boat. They would even clamp onto our lures! Mikey caught one and we thought it was the craziest thing until he caught many more and so did everyone else we found out later that night. And if you'd look down in the water, you could see them scooting around everywhere. I wonder if it's always like this or if they just had some sort of massive crayfish hatch. I tried to match them since they were brown with little orange spots on their pincers but it didn't seem to matter they were eating the black and blue tubes just as good. We were also wondering why they would even bother to eat our baits when they had so much live food available? Maybe the crayfish were clamping onto our baits and then the Smallies were eating them along with our baits?
All in all it was a fun day and we found some decent spots for tomorrow. We headed back to the resort around 4pm exhausted and ready for some food and rest.
Tournament Day 1 Saturday
We arrived to the launch on a beautiful morning. This was going to be fun, since I've missed two tournaments already this year due to greenhorn events on the same days, I was out of the running for angler of the year. I could just relax and fish with no pressure and use this as practice for the TOC. Even though I'd still take a win.
We were boat number one at takeoff. Yea, everyone gets to pass me as soon as we get up to speed. We headed to our starting spot which was a little island about 10 minutes away. Just as we were about to pull up, Brian comes flying by and pulls up to the same island. Of all the 365 islands. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't Brian's fault, he beat my to the spot fair and square. I was upset that I have such a slow boat and that of all the water available, we both had the same starting spot. Now normally I would have just moved on to my next best spot but we caught two nice fish on it yesterday. And they went away from our prime area, so we just went in the opposite direction around the other side of the island. Anyway, after all that neither of us caught a keeper off that spot.
We moved on to our next area and realized things were much slower than they were yesterday. I finally got a nice keeper off a point with a tube. Mike was doing pretty well. Every time he caught one, it was a good one. And every time I caught one, it was a 12 incher. We bounced around to most of the stuff we hit the day before. It was mostly islands and rocky shorelines (surprise, surprise) and I did most of my damage with Texas rigged green pumpkin and black and blue Lena Lures ring tubes. After we ran most of our smallie areas, we went back to check a bay with lots of weeds that looked like largemouth territory. We worked our way around without much action, then I threw a senko to a tree sticking up out of the water, and the line went tight immediately. I set the hook and a few seconds later a beautiful Smallie jumped about 2 feet out of water. I finally got it in the boat and it was a 17 incher. It really brightened my spirits after a grind of a morning. I was slowly putting together a decent bag. By this time I had my limit and Mike needed one more. We ran down a reed line and both missed a few fish and Mikey had his limit fish half way to the boat and it came unbuttoned. Off to the next area to try and pick up the limit fish.
We made a long run to another spot from yesterday. Not much going on here..
We wanted to make it back in plenty of time for weigh in, and I wasn't sure how long it would take to get back so we headed that direction. I spied a small bay that looked interesting so we decided to make a quick stop. And lucky we did. Mike got his limit fish and I culled my last 14 incher. There were fish all over in this bay. It was too bad we had to get back and leave biting fish.We made one more quick stop near the weigh in and headed in.
I ended up in 4th place with 13.88lbs and 2nd biggest bass at 3.83lbs. I was pretty surprised with the result. That last flurry really helped after what was sort of a grind of a day. It was still a good day compared to city lakes, but it did not compare to the day before. Not sure if it was due to the pressure or weather but it was still fun. And Mike got his limit as well so I was satisfied.
We headed back to the resort for some grub and turned in pretty early after 2 long days on the water.
Tournament Day 2 Sunday
Today I was fishing with AJ Madison which I was looking forward to since we never fished together before. My plan was to cover new water since I didn't really care how I finished, and I was looking ahead to the TOC.
We took off and stopped at the first interesting area to try some topwater. Nothing doing so we made a quick run to a nearby point.
I gave up on the topwater and quickly caught a nice 15 on a tube. We continued on around the point and I hooked a huge musky on my dt10. I really wanted my crankbait back so I carefully played it to the boat. After it dove under the boat a few times and almost broke my rod, AJ reached down and unhooked my crankbait for me. I got some pretty good video of it to watch later. I really have no idea but if I had to guess it was between 35-40 inches, and man was it thick. After taking a minute to calm down, it was back to smallie hunting.
We worked some more shoreline with no luck. We headed off to look for some largemouth. We stopped at a nice looking bluff wall with no luck then we headed into a weedy bay. No luck on the largies either.
We worked a nice looking island and I got another couple small keepers on the dt10 and the tube. It was tough today trying to fish the rocks because we kept getting hung up. AJ was a master at getting his lures out because he had so much practice the day before. I finally lost my dt10 which not even the musky was able to break off. Luckily I had another one.
I had a nice bite on my senko but was just a stupid pike. I could tell AJ wasn't really into fishing reeds and looking for largies but I knew they had potential and could also hold Smallies. I made another stop at some reeds with boulders near a point. Good thing we stopped. I threw my senko near the boulder and all the sudden my line was swimming towards the other side of the rock. I set the hook and landed a nice 16 inch smallie. We continued down the shoreline and hit the smallie jackpot. After I made a nice cull with my big one, I let AJ control the boat and sat down to a peanut butter and jelly. I casually threw out my senko and relaxed. A minute later my line started swimming off and I put down my sammich and set the hook on another good one. Maybe I was onto something. We continued down the shoreline and AJ got another keeper on the only dock that was there. We swung around so he could hit the dock again and he landed another keeper! My work was done. He said that it was my responsibility to get him 3 fish and I succeeded. If he didn't get anymore than that it was the lakes fault. We made another pass and I caught a pike off the same spot where I had caught my big smallie earlier and was exited that it was another toad until I saw it. I think I upgraded once more and then we had to head back. All day we had been working our way away from the ramp and I had no idea how long it would take to get back. And for the second day in a row a late flurry helped us and we had to leave biting fish.
We arrived with plenty of time to spare and worked the bay near the ramp for the last 20 minutes with no bites. I ended up with almost the exact same weight as the day before 13.48lbs and my big was 3.24lbs which was good enough for 3rd place. I was extremely happy with the result, especially since we were basically pre fishing new water all day. I think I like this no pressure fun fishing deal. Hopefully I can keep it going during the TOC. Congrats to Patrick Porter on the two day sweep, he had 15 pounds both days.Overview
It was a ton of fun catching lots of Smallies and hanging with all the guys. I had a blast fishing with Mike and getting to know AJ better even though he doesn't say much. He is a top notch net man as well. I'm satisfied with how I did and covered a lot of water in preparation for the toc.
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