Last Friday I had the opportunity to be a boat captain for the Minnesota Jr tournament. This tournament is for the youth of Minnesota to get together and compete for a chance to fish with the adults at the next level at divisionals. This years tournament took place on Waconia lake in the south west metro. I drew a young person from both the younger and older age groups. Both kids were capable anglers and ran the boat all day while I caught up on a little reading (Bass Times, Field and Stream, etc.). Boat captains are not allowed to help the kids. We basically can step in for fish care and run our boats to keep them out of harm. Otherwise the kids are supposed to make all the fishing decisions. This can be extremely tough on an avid angler like myself. I wanted to pick up a rod several times.

All in all it was a pretty good day. I think all the kids caught at least one fish and the wining bags were in the mid to high teens. I added a few pics of the boys from my boat below. After the smoke cleared, the Gopher Jr team was announced as the winning team for the event (the Juniors from our club). Congrats guys!

        

Last week the FAB tour hit Cedar lake in Wright county. Since I won the tournament out there last year I had high hopes of a similar finish. John Haynes had spent some time pre fishing for the event so we went out one night to look at the water he and another guy had found. First thing I noticed was that the area that produced most of the winning fish for my team last year was closed to fishing. The DNR had buoys out blocking off the whole area as a spawning area until July 1st . We figured that would be alright since John had found some other areas.
We tried to expand on those areas with out much luck. At one point I was throwing a shallow running crankbait around some scattered weeds and got absolutely crushed as I pulled the lure off a weed. Just like the books say right. I thought I had a monster. Then I got the fish closer and saw it was a big Northern with my crankbait down his throat. I was very surprised when I managed to get the fish to the boat netted and retrieve my lure. The 12lb bioline held up to the teeth like a dream. I was impressed and am loving this line more and more as I use it in different situations.

Tournament day was tough. John struggled to catch a fish and I didnt fair much better only landing 3 keepers. We didnt finish last as a couple other teams brought in even less but the winning team did manage 5 for 11+ pounds. I suspect they caught the fish in the slop as that is where we watched them start the night and never saw them leave. 2 of our keepers came off reeds and one was positioned way back on a dock. All of them fell to a Senko style bait. The hand tied Jigs didnt find a single bite that night. Neither did the crankbait.

This week the FAB tour hits Green lake in Chisago county. Since we just fished a club tourney out there, I am hoping I can put together a better showing this week. Stay tuned.

Sport

        

I had three tournaments over the past week. Last wed John Haynes and I headed out to Minnetonka to fish the Denny's Wednesday nighter. I have never fished this circuit so I was excited to see how they ran things and how many boats would be out there. I knew the competition would be pretty tough because a  few very good anglers were rumored to always win the events. I hadn't had the best practice for the event due to a recent cold snap so John and I just went fishing. I managed to catch 5 fish for 7 pounds fishing shallow but John struggled and couldn't help add to the weight. 18+ pounds won it so we didn't fair that well. It was a beautiful day on the water though and Denny runs a nice laid back tournament.

This past weekend was the Gopher bass tournaments over in Chisago City. Saturday we hit Big and Little Green. This is a fairly big body of water but the water is fairly low and the DNR recently sprayed the entire lake for weed control. That messed up a milfoil pattern I had found in practice and forced lots of anglers out to a single rock point at mid lake. At one point there were 7 tournament boats plus walleye anglers and a couple other bass boats out on this one point. The big lake fished pretty small. I managed a couple fish early flipping the dying milfoil with one of my hand tied jigs but couldn't boat another keeper after that. Finishing with 3 pounds put me in 20th place. My non boater never caught a fish. The winning bag came off the point early and totaled 16+ pounds. I was pretty down after this tournament. I even threatened to sell my boat and go buy a motorcycle. I wouldn't do that, but I was pretty upset about doing so poorly.

Sunday morning came early after fishing all day Saturday, running the weigh in and then driving home to retie and get the Skeeter ready for Sunday. I was fishing with Art on Chisago and Lindstrom that day. Art and I get along great and we even spend time in the fall chasing pheasants together. I was relaxed because of this and it may very well have helped me slow down and let the baits do the work. We started on a road bed that has scattered rock on it in about 9 feet of water. Chisago lake is also down a few feet so we weren't sure if the road bed would be holding fish. We manged a keeper each off the roadbed and recorded the lengths on our record sheets. This tournament was a paper tournament due to a catch and release only regulation on these lakes. Although this makes for a less dramatic weigh in, it does make for some lunker fish in the lake. It also means you need to snap a quick picture of good fish before you can throw that next cast.



We worked our way up the bank after giving up on the roadbed and managed the fish you see above on a ring worm off the inside weed line. Art got another fish as well before we fired the big motor and moved to the next spot. We tried a deep water area and couldn't get much going so we moved up shallow to look at some docks. That was it. We never fired the big motor again. We spent the rest of the day catching fish off docks and holes in the pond weed. The fish were chasing bluegills that were schooled up on beds. Some fish were still relating to beds as well. We could spot fish on beds, circle back and fish the area and usually catch one or two, In Minnesota we don't get a chance to bed fish much so that was pretty fun for me. After I had a decent bag put together I took a few casts with a swim bait in order to try to upgrade. Anytime I could see a large bluegill bed in the distance with fairly low weed growth, I would throw it. I did manage a small fish on the bait. My first ever on a swim bait. No lunkers though.




My hand tied jig with a Strike King Rage tail craw trailer did most of the work that day, catching probably 8 of the 12 legal fish I caught. Pretty much all 14" or better. I also caught a few on a Lake Fork Ring Fry. I finished the day in 6th place with 15.5 pounds. A much better day than the day before and a great confidence builder for my jig fishing. Considering Green is literally across the street from Chisago, it is amazing how different they fished. I guess that is why fisherman should fish different lakes when ever they get a chance.

I have a week off from tournaments so I will probably prefish once or twice and enjoy some time with the family. I will let you know how it all goes.

Sport

        

The wind finally died down today and the weather was almost perfect, so I decided to get out and check a few spots on Minnetonka. I packed a bag with snacks and toys and Sarah and I headed out to the lake.

Water temps were in the high 60's and Gills are on the beds. I didnt get to fish a lot but I did manage one decent fish off a dock and a couple smaller fish off some clumps of millfoil. All three were caught on a YUM Dinger stick bait. Sarah even took a break fishing for toys in the live well to reel one of the fish in. Although she had no interest in touching the fish, she did enjoy watching them swim away. A two year old fan of catch and release I guess. 

We got the boat up on plane whenever Sarah got bored or when she asked to go fast, but after a few hours we had to head home for nap time. I have had some great days on the water in the past but this one was special. Sarah has been on the boat with me in the past but today she settled in like never before and thoroughly enjoyed herself. And we caught some fish! can you beat that?

I don't have any pics of the fish we caught but I do have a few of Sarah playing in the livewell.



If you want to see more pics, check out Sarah's blog in the next day or two.

Sport

        

Tuesday was the first FAB Tour event for the 2009 season. John Haynes and I made it out to sugar lake in Wright county to try to catch a few fish. My boat spent some time in the shop late last week and that meant no prefishing for this event. I fished sugar lake 4 years ago and remember small fish being the norm and figured 8-10 pounds would probably be pretty good. John fished it last year with Dave Larson but I dont know that they really figured them out.
The wind was howling 10 -20 out of the north but we decided to rough it out and fish the docks that line the southern shore. We were boat number one and were fishing the first dock before the other boats had even blasted off. John pulled a short fish on the first or second cast and I followed a cast later. All the other boats headed to the calm side of the lake so we thought for sure we were on to a good pattern that no one else was fishing. An hour into it we were whacking 11" fish on every dock but only managed two legal fish and neither one was too big. It is the toughest part of tournament fishing to leave fish (even though they were all small) to go find fish but we decided we were going to have to do something. Because we hadn't prefished we were flying blind so we bounced around a few spots trying deeper out and a nice rock point with scatter reeds on it. The water looked great but only produced more small fish. With 20 minutes left we moved back to the south end of the lake where we had left a couple docks and small reed patch close to the ramp. John pulled a 1.75 pound fish on a Jig off the reeds. It is funny how large a fish like that looks after catching 20 or 30 11 inch fish. We thought we had caught our kicker. I managed a 13 incher on a texas rigged worm a couple casts later with 4 minutes to go and rounded out our 5 fish limit. 
Six and a half pounds of monsters put us in the middle of the pack. 11+ pounds won the night and set a new lake record for FAB. The winning sack was caught up shallow but I couldn't get any other information out of the winning team.
If you are looking for a place to catch a record size bass I wouldn't spend any time on Sugar lake but if you want to catch a limit of feeder fish for the family this may be a great place to try.

        

Bass Season officially opened a little over a week ago here in Minnesota. I was able to get out for just a few hours with John Haynes on Lake Minnetonka. The boat ramp was packed by 6:00am. Lots of guys cruising shallow water looking for fish on beds. Things started a little slow for us. We moved in and out checking the deeper water for post spawn fish and up shallow for fish on beds. the deeper water only produced one small fish. Fish seemed to be up shallow but not very hungry. I managed one nice fish on a white swim jig casting to shallow wood.



We made a move to a flat that we thought would have some spawners on it. The fish were there but the wind was blowing on it pretty hard and clouds had the light bad for sight fishing. We couldnt see the fish until we were right on top of them and spooked them. After another short fish or two we moved to a 6 foot flat and managed to finally find a small pod of fish. I caught a few 14 inchers out of the school before calling it a day. Not a great day but it was nice to just go fishing.

 

        

About a week ago I hit the water for the first tournament of the season. Although Bass Season was not yet open throughout most of the state, pool 2 of the Mississippi river is open to catch and release fishing year round. That makes for a great way to start the season early. I wasn't able to prepare as much as I would have liked for this tournament and because of that I had set my sights on just catching a few smallmouth. They typically can be found closer to the main channel and are almost always in a bad mood. Since I only caught one small fish in practice I felt a limit would land me in the middle of the pack and not get me too far behind for the rest of the season.
My partner Rick and I headed for a cut off the main channel first thing in the morning but the two boats in front of us swung in there too. Not good since it was one of the few places we had gotten a bite during practice. We moved on to some bluff rock and didn't get a bite. We moved again to a culvert that was dumping lots of water into the river. This is where I had caught a keeper in practice. They weren't there and we moved again. I was basically just going fishing now and we moved into water I had flown past in practice but said we should look at it on race day. Turned out to be a good idea. Although there were lots of boats in there, we managed the majority of our 6 fish there. I missed my first bite that ran straight at me with my hand tied jig in his mouth but did manage a nice plump 17" smallie on a shakey head. Rick caught his 3 large mouths on a Yum black neon tube.

3 fish for 5.73 landed me in 17th out of 28. Not as good as I had hoped but past May tournaments have often been much tougher. All but 3 guys caught some fish. 5 smallmouth for 18.23 won the day and showed how good the fishery can be. That bag was caught just a couple hundred yards from the area Rick and I had caught our fish. There was boats on it most of the day so we never moved over there. In hindsight, I guess we should have. It is amazing how 35 miles of water fished so small. If we fish pool 2 in the future, I will have to work  much harder on finding some out of the way spots.

Sport
www.SportSmithFishing.com

        

It has been a little too long since I posted anything so I need to get my loyal readers caught up. I will get back to the bait study guys I promise.
I have been busy working with a few new sponsors over the past couple weeks. I am very happy to have teamed with these companies so check out the links to the left and feel free to let me know if you are interested in any of the products they offer. I can help answer any questions you may have about them as well as get them ordered for you at competitive pricing.

Mothers day is right around the corner and Minnesota has announced that mothers fish free this weekend. If you are going out for the Walleye/Northern Pike opener this weekend, think about taking mom along. Better yet if you weren't going to be able to get out because you had too many things to do around the house, maybe this is the perfect way to get out of the honey do's and into your honey hole. (you can use that one if you like it)

I have been out pre fishing for the first tournament of the year. Pool 2 of the Mississippi has pretty much had my number. I have only managed one small keeper and a few white bass. I have figured out where I can safely run the boat though after a few hours of dragging bottom with my hull. I will have to get out one more time and find some fish before the tournament. The fish haven't spawned yet so in two weeks they could be on the move.

I was out at Weaver lake park this evening and noticed the DNR has begun it's annual battle with aquatic vegetation. They sprayed Aquathol last week and have the orange "Do not drink the water" signs up around the beach. I thought it was amazing that as I finished reading the long list of things you shouldn't do with the water, I looked up to see a guy water skiing. I think I would just wait the two or three weeks before enjoying a long dip in the lake but to each their own. When I came home and did a little research on Aquathol I was surprised to find articles stating Aquathol was toxic to fish. It was also stated that it shouldn't be used in waters with food fish. I guess I wont be eating fish out of Weaver any more. It also kills coontail which is sad for us bass guys since coontail almost always holds bass. Here is one of the links I looked at. Keep an eye out for the orange signs on your favorite lake.

Get out there and don't catch 'em all.

        

Happy Earth Day!

As many of you may know, I am a bit of a closet tree hugger. I drive a hybrid when I am not towing the Skeeter from place to place. My daughter wears cloth diapers, I bring my own bags to the grocery store and my wife is always getting told not to throw things away that could be reused or recycled.






With Earth Day rapidly approaching, I wanted to take a moment and let you all know about a few of my favorite conservation initiatives as well as special earth day events that may be happening in your area for you to take part in. For a history of Earth Day and lots more information check out the Earth Day Network. You can search for events by location and by date. The Minneapolis area alone has well over a dozen events planned including multiple watershed cleanups including the Mississippi river and several area lakes.

I would urge all outdoors people to look into earth day events in your area. It isn't just a hippies & Birkenstock movement. It is a great way to show others how important our natural resources are and to give back a little to your environment. Pick an issue and find a way to make a difference. Is this the year you get active?

I also wanted to share a couple conservation concerns of mine. 

Ballast water and the great lakes is a topic that is getting more and more attention in the press. It probably deserves a lot more. Exotic species like the Round Goby and Zebra Mussels are being introduced at an alarming rate. Ballast water discharge has been identified by the EPA as a major cause of these introductions. Requiring bilge water to be sanitized by all ocean going vessels that enter the lakes is not too much to ask if it helps to protect the largest reserves of fresh water in the world. What is very frustrating about this issue, is that many regulations are in place to help with the problem yet enforcement is minimal if at all. For more info on this topic and others affecting the great lakes check out  the Great Lakes Commission site.

The Pebble Mine project in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska. If you have ever been fishing in Alaska you know how special it is, If you haven't, you most likely want to and as well you should. It is an amazing place. The Pebble Mine project would put a vast portion of this great wilderness at risk, Including one of the largest (if not the largest) Salmon runs in the world. The magnitude of this project is mind boggling with retention dams for toxic tailing piles that will be miles long and hundreds of feet high. All in an area that is more prone to earth quakes than southern California. The area is also home to two National parks. Katmai which is famous for it's Grizzly Bears and Lake Clark Park and Preserve. Allowing a mining corporation to gain a short term profit at the expense of an extremely valuable renewable natural resource is shameful and irresponsible. For more information about this issue, check out the Renewable Resources Coalition. This site has lots of info about the project as well as information about how you can help. You can join the coalition but you don't have to. There are plenty of other ways to help out including writing newspaper editors and email addresses for  Governor Palin and much more. Check it out and think about writing your congressman regarding this issue.

Lastly a little more fun is a promotion Tropicana is doing this year with Coolearth to save some rainforest. Buy specially marked Tropican products and then go online and enter a 12 digit code. Tropicana will then purchase 100 square feet  of Peruvian rainforest . The site will even show you a google earth map of what you helped to purchase and details a little more information about the project goals. If that wasn't enough, they will be giving away prizes so sign up and participate at www.tropicanarainforest.com

Thats probably enough soap boxing for today. Get out and enjoy the spring weather.

Sport

        

Sorry for the delay in this second edition of the northern bait fish study. Things have gotten a little hectic around the Smith house hold. That being, said here ya go, number two.

If you have ever bought live bait in the Midwest, chances are you have had the opportunity to purchase some "Fat Heads".  They are a favorite bait for anglers chasing Perch and Walleyes in many parts of the country especially in the winter. A little known fact is that a strain of the fat head known as the "Rosy-red Minnow is commonly sold as a feeder fish in US pet stores. I guess domestic fish like to eat fatheads as much as wild fish. Many Fatheads found in bait shops are captured from wild populations.



 
This minnow's range extends throughout much of North America, from central Canada south along the eastern side of the Rockies to Texas, and east to Virginia and the Northeastern United States This minnow has also been introduced to many other areas via bait bucket releases.

The fathead is quite tolerant of turbid, low-oxygenated water, and can be found in muddy ponds and streams that might otherwise be inhospitable to other species of fish. It can also be found in small rivers and streams.

It can grow to a length of about 4" with a one year old fish ranging from .5" to 3 " depending on growing conditions. The fathead minnow in its wild form is generally dull olive-gray in appearance, with a dusky stripe extending along the back and side, and a lighter belly. There is a dusky blotch midway on the dorsal fin. Breeding males acquire a large, gray fleshy growth on the nape (between the head and dorsal fin), as well as approximately 16 white breeding tubercles on the snout. They can become almost black in color. The females will remain somewhat drab in color.



Often found in large schools around submerged structure, they spawn from early May through August when water temperatures reach 60-65 degrees. The adhesive eggs are deposited on the under surface of floating objects such as wood and aquatic plants, and the male guards them. The eggs hatch in 5 to 6 days. Both males and females die within a month or two of spawning although they may spawn multiple times prior to that.

Click here for a PDF document that has a good description and more pictures of this common bait fish.

So what does this mean for the average angler? Well if you use live bait you should give these little guys a try. Pond managers will all tell you that these guys are quickly eliminated from any pond that has Largemouth in it. The spawning habits puts these guys in the cover commonly inhabited by bass in many of our northern lakes. From a color perspective, the dark stripe running down the minnows side is a common characteristic we will see in several other species in this series. If you are using artificial baits anything in the 3-4" range with a dark lateral line fished around floating cover could likely trigger a response from predatory fish. Check with your local fisheries managers and see if your favorite lake has fatheads in it.

Next week we will look at the shiner family.