Last weekend was tournaments 4 and 5 of the Gopher Tournament Season. Saturday we headed to Rush lake near Rush City Minnesota. The lake is made up of two sides connected by a long narrow channel. The water was pretty dirty which limited weed growth to 5 or 6 feet of water. I had a late boat draw so I knew it would be tough to make it to a couple of the best deep weed/rock spots. I had caught a fish or two in practice off a lone dock with scattered logs and other cover that had obviously been thrown out by the property owner. I figured I could start there and get a fish or two to start off the day then I would move to a deeper weedline and try to find a school. The dock was a bust and there was boats all over the weed line I wanted to fish so we worked a few areas near the spots I wanted to fish and managed one small keeper.
I decided that the deepwater bite wasnt going to work for me so we ran into West Rush to check a short row of docks that my dad and I had found in practice. Most of the lake was choked off with weeds and slime in anything less than 3 feet of water. Low water conditions made for an even more limited number of docks that actually had fishable water on them. This row was a clean sand bottom and 2-3 feet of water. To make them even more attractive the wind was blowing in on them. We pulled up to the first one and each caught a fish. From that point on we knew we were on something. Each dock gave up at least one fish and a second pass down the docks produced again. Rick managed the big fish for the tourney after missing him the first time. It always pays to throw back in after you miss one.




We ran around for a couple hours looking for more docks to duplicate the pattern but couldnt find any on west rush so we made one last pass through the best 5 or 6 docks allowing me to cull a few fish before heading to east for the last hour of the tourney. As we ran down the east lake I spotted a small set of docks that looked to be similar in make up to our hot spot. Rick still needed a few fish to fill his limit so I held the boat in the wind so he could fish. After he had casted some of the best looking spots I flipped a Lake Fork Tube craw under a lift and was hit immediately by a nice 3+ pound fish. I had to horse him over a lift rail as Rick fumbled for the net. We managed to get him in but only after the wind had blown us in onto the docked boats leaving a little battle wound in the Skeeter. The fish was bleeding pretty badly so I quickly culled a 14" fish, added some stress reducer to the live well and headed to the weigh in area. As it turned out my big fish was 1/100 lighter than Ricks. The two biggest fish for the tournament coming out of my boat. If the fish hadn't being bleeding so much, Would I have gotten big fish?




My 11.11 lb bag was good enough for second place. Not enough to win the match fishing match up that day. A good finish all the same and definitely gives me boost in the yearly standings.
Stay tuned for a recap on Knife.

Sport
www.SportSmithFishing.com