It has been too long since I posted. Life has gotten in the way. A new baby on the way, new hardwood floors in the house, grand parents visiting.....The list goes on. It all ended now though as the first several Gopher tournaments of the year are done.

We hit the mississippi river and attempted to catch a few in May. Although the season here in minnesota was still closed, the river is open year round so with the early spring we had, everyone hoped fishing would be good. Of course the 60-70 degree days we had all of april turned to 40 degree days in May.
I had a bad couple quick practices and not very good tournaments to go with them. I am not a fan of the river and that was probably in the back of my mind as well which never helps. I managed 4 fish one day and one fish the next. Believe it or not that was good enough for a middle of the pack finnish both days. I will need to make a real effort to get out and practice next year if we go back to that water.

With the season officially open Memorial day weekend, I spent a few days at my lake place near Alexandria. The fishing on my lake was pretty good and I managed a few 3-4 pound fish from shore. A couple casts in the morning and a few more at night was the extent of the effort but fruitful all the same. Swim jigs caught the majority of my fish for me but dead sticking soft plastics also accounted for a few nice fish. One evening my fishing buddy and I stood ankle deep taking turns catching bass and northerns from the shore. There is something special about catching fish from your own dock or stretch of shore.

We spent one afternoon out on Lake Ida. The large mouths were shallow and hungry. We caught fish on Mad Bass  tubes, jigs, shaky heads and more. We kept a few small ones for dinner and were very surprised to see they had not yet spawned. That may have explained the bite we found. My wife and daughter both managed a few fish. It was great to get out and have a look at the lake since I would be fishing a tournament there in July and be back there a few more times this year.  

June had me fishing Sylvia/Twin and Sugar lakes outside the west metro. It was nice to sleep in my own bed between events. I had pretty good practice with Sarah on both lakes and figured I had a good chance to finish high in both events. I managed a 3rd place finish on Sugar by throwing my drop shot with a Mad Bass Natures Tongue  on it.



This little bait has become my go to drop shot plastic. Sylvia/Twin was a classic case of a bite being off. I had found fish shallow in practice but they were just gone come race day. Everyone agreed they were off and the vast majority of fish caught were deep. I didn't adjust quickly enough and didn't have enough deep water to fish so I landed in 10th place on the day with a small limit. The 2 days showing were good enough to move me up into 6th place on the season however.

I will post up a July recap shortly.
Sport