WIGuide

Two weeks ago I was up in Minocqua prefishing for the WI Bass Nation state tournament. I ground it out all week catching dinky bass. They actually took the size limit off for the tournament to match the lake, and thank god they did. My weight for the 10 bass I weighed in over 2 days was 10.20 lbs. That left me in 53rd out of 82. Sad thing was a solid 3 pounder would have moved me up into the teens, it was just brutal. Anyway, after dealing with that for 7 days straight, it was nice to come home and fish for some normal sized fish again. I was busy the first part of the week catching up on work that I missed, but I finally had a chance to get out at least a little bit Thursday through Sunday. I made up for lost time catching some nice fish. Thursday I caught a super chunky 17 1/2", Friday 6 of my 11 bass were over 17" with 2 over 18 and a few other 16's mixed in. Best 5 would have been pushing 17 lbs. Saturday I had 1 over 18" and one just a hair under 18". Sunday I only got to fish a few hours on a lake that's not a very good bass lake, but I managed to catch 5 with a really nice 16 1/2" but it wasn't quite photo worthy. Man am I glad to be back!

Yep I'm sure that was probably me then!

I'm glad you like them! I do wish I could go more often, if it wasn't for that nuisance of having a job and all that, I could probably make a daily thing of this!

It's quite possible you have, I tend to be all over the place up here. What lakes do you frequent?

This past Saturday, after some plans got canceled, Dad and I found time to have our 3rd round of our bass battles. We had a decent amount of time to fish, but with days getting shorter, we decided to stay somewhat close to home so we wouldn't waste as much of the day traveling. The venue dad chose (since he won the last one) was the Dairyland Flowage. It's an 1870 acre impoundment that is unique that it is situated in between two dams. Roughly half of the flowage is no more than a river. It has a few various wider points and few places small streams run in. The southern end is a much larger open bowl of a lake. There are some interesting structural features as well as plenty of cover now that the DNR has made a large effort to help bring back the lake. In 2007 it was drained down to the level of the original river as repairs to the south dam needed to be made. Unfortunately, I had never went up there to look at the lake when it was low, otherwise I would have a much better knowledge of the structure out there. I did find a few pictures online that I included. With the incredible amounts of structure that has been added to the lake, I have no doubt that it's going to be a great fishery one day. At the present time, it's a good fishery, but many of the fish haven't grown to maturity yet. This smallmouth only fishery is better for numbers than it is for size, there are however decent fish to be caught. With all the rain recently, I had figured they'd be running water through the flowage. After launching on the north end I ran up towards the dam and started tossing a tube to all the eddies thinking that the fish that are up there should be stacked up to stay out of the swift current. Unfortunately, for me there weren't many fish that I found up there. I managed to boat a few dinks, one that was just a hair under being a keeper and a northern. In hindsight I wasted too much time up there. I believe my one almost keeper came off this rock structure in the middle of the river, but it gives you an idea of what I was targeting. I rand down to the main lake and cycled through a few spots, fished about 1/4 mile of riprap without even a bit. Things were looking bleak, especially knowing dad was going to be catching plenty of fish with his wacky worm. He always seems to do well enough there and cycles through enough fish to find at least a few keepers. Meanwhile, once coming down to the main lake I hadn't as much as a tap or anything. I had cycled between lipless crankbaits, crankbaits, tubes, a jig, things were not looking good for me at all. With about 2 hours left I ran over to a few cribs I had marked a few years ago before I had side imaging, or at least I thought they were cribs. I had scanned a little bit trying to find a few more. I was close to a point I thought I remember being rock, so I was trolling that way just tossing my jig out and hopping it a few times as I was cruising up on it. I managed to catch one close to the point, threw the marker buoy over while I unhooked it and dropped it in the well. I got back up to my mark and made another cast and got bit but wiffed on the hookset and then nothing. I moved to the "crib" that was closest and looking at side scan, it looked more like 4-5 logs stacked up. The rest of my fish came off and around this piece of cover that was close to a weedline as well as I alternated back and forth between the jig and DT-10. When I left, I had 3 in the livewell as well as catching a bonus walleye and a few other shorts. I stayed as long as I could hoping to put one more in the box to seal the deal. I made it back to the ramp with only 2 minutes to spare. When dad pulled up I could hear his livewell pumps going so I knew he had something. Final catch totals had dad in the lead with 13 bass, a northern, and a walleye to my 7 bass, a northern and a walleye. Round 3 Results Dad - 4 fish for 7 lbs 0 oz. Me - 3 fish for 8 lbs 7 oz. I lucked out that the ones I caught were all solid, with the two big ones being a smidge over 18" and just a smidge under 18" my 3rd was about 15 1/2". Had dad been able to find one more keeper, it would have been super close Series Score Me -2 Dad - 1 The pictures are horrible, but at least the important part turned out ok haha In case you missed the first two battles, you can catch up here

Congrats on your first bass! Also, welcome to the lifelong addiction to catching more and more of them!

This was my first Ranger, it was in great condition and although it was smaller(15' 10") it was a great boat. I bought it for about $1200 put the motor pictures on it and sold the old one. It served me great for for about 4 years. Then I had the opportunity to upgrade to my current boat. It was 11 years newer and it's a 17 footer. I stole most of the goodies I had put on my older boat and just swapped it with what came on this one. I ended up making $400 off of upgrading. I paid about $3,600 for this so those deals are out there. Obviously you don't find them every day and when you're looking it seems like it takes an eternity to find them. At least you have your current setup to fish out of until you can find a steal of a deal like i did.

That looks like it should work! Definitely an improvement over the standard straps that's for sure. My last boat didn't come with them so I ordered and installed them. When I upgraded boats it had them on the trailer already. If they hadn't It would have been one of the first things I would have changed. I won't own a boat without them.

EFI will be the easiest starting by far. Think of it this way....does your car ever not start on the first crank? The newer carbureted 4 strokes aren't bad starting either but the efi's pop off the easiest. Being that these engines are all going to be new, I don't think you can buy a bad one.

It's a good numbers bait. Will it pull in a bigger fish every now and then, it sure will. If you're trying to focus only on larger fish, then I'd probably go with 3/8 or 1/2 oz spinnerbaits instead.

Great ideas for fixing the skirts you already have. If you want ones you can change quickly, you can either buy the Terminator quick skirts, or Northland Tackle makes the same thing in their version. If i buy a spinnerbait off the shelf that has a regular skirt, I'll generally use it until the skirt falls apart, and then replace it with the quick change skirts. It cuts down on the number of spinnerbaits I need to carry since I can swap skirts quickly.

Good advice so far! For me it'd depend on what I'm catching them on. If it was a moving presentation, I might try switching colors and using the same thing. If that didn't work, I'd move to something slower like a jig or depending on depth of water and all, something like a carolina rig or wacky rigged sinking worm. It's possible the school moved on, got conditioned to the lure you were throwing, or they just slowed down on their feeding. It's hard to say, but from what I remember from your past posts, you fish from the bank in the same spots, so if I had to guess, I'd bet they got conditioned to what you were throwing. Try switching it up next time that happens before you move on next time.

I'd 2nd the advice by @flyingmonkie and add that the there are a few mid lake points that don't look like they'd be bad to try either. Given that you have a decent locator, I'd be looking for any sort of structure to the lake bed. It doesn't look like there is much on the map and it seems like the lakes that don't have much fish will be drawn to smaller more insignificant structure. Something like a 1 or 2 foot depression on a flat somewhere might hold 3 or 4 fish, or a small ditch will have fish congregated in it.

The only rod on that list that I've used is the 6'8" Mojo Bass Worm n Jig Rod, I've had no problems feeling the bottom with it. It's a great rod for the money and I wouldn't hesitate to make that purchase again! It's got a really nice tip on it too that makes pinpoint cast a breeze.

Although I haven't used these yet, I do use the VMC and Trokar versions and I really like them.

I've got fuses, wire pliers, assorted connectors, needle nose, a few screw drivers, pull rope, prop wrench, and some other assorted stuff. I carry my normal tool kit in my vehicle, so I think I've got what I need to get in hopefully.

We usually keep it pretty low at just bragging rights for the year haha. We've considered getting a trophy/plaque combo with the plaque showing each years winner and then the trophy can be held by the winner for the year. Oh, and the loser usually has to buy the meal on the way home.

We do a best of 5 series so we have a few left. The remaining lakes on the list are the Dairyland Flowage, Otter Lake, Eau Galle and Fireside. Since dad won the last one, he gets to pick the next venue.

The second bass battle of 2016 is in the books! This contest took place on Marsh-Miller Lake. It's a 441 acre impoundment located in Chippewa County Wisconsin. The lake features a maximum depth of 14' and averages somewhere in the 5-7' range. Other things to note about this lake is the bottom composition that consists of 90% muck, and that this lake is absolutely full of wood. Literally the only area that doesn't have stumps of some kind is the narrow channel that runs through the lake. There is both submergent and emergent wood and there's so much that you might as well only idle because if you don't you'll hit something planing out or coming off pad. The water color in this lake is pretty stained with a lot of suspended particulates. Bass species present are largemouth only. With a pretty sever thunderstorm passing through the area the night before the battle, I was a little curious how the bite was going to be. There was another front set to come through the day of the battle though, so I figured things would work out alright, although thunder and lightning on a shallow lake seems to mess with the fish more. The general consensus was that fishing was tougher than expected. After cycling through many baits in my arsenal to only find nothing working. Things were looking pretty bleak for me as it was after halftime before I even had my first bite. It gave me plenty of hope as it wasn't really a hit, but rather a violent almost rip the rod out of your hand type strike. Unfortunately that was the last one of those I had. I only managed to boat one more small fish and had two other bites that I missed. It was almost as grueling of a day for dad. Had it not been for finding 4 bass on one laydown, he only caught one small bass and a northern elsewhere. A few other fishermen we talked to said it was very slow for them as well. At the end of the day, dad had caught almost all his fish on a 5" red shad Yum Dinger with a rattle inserted. My fish came on a 3/8 oz jig with a Berkley Chigger Craw in Electric Blue. Bass Battle Round 2 Results Dad - 3 fish for 7 lbs 11 oz Me - 1 fish for 2 lbs 10 oz Series Score Me 1 Dad 1 If you missed out on what's going on, check out the first post below

I would guesstimate right around 3 lbs.

I just started fishing a jig heavily this summer, and I've had really good success using the Berkley Chigger Craw, and Crazy Chigger as trailers. Unless you set when they've only got a claw in their mouth I average about 10+ fish per trailer.

I haven't tried that specific rod, but I've got one of the LTB Graphite Cranking rods (7'2" m/m) that I use for square bills. I was also debating going glass. I called up St. Croix and had a talk with one of their staff who told me that the graphite rods have more sensitivity and load the same as the glass. They make glass rods, because there are a demand and there are people out there who swear by them and won't buy anything else. As far he was concerned, the graphite cranking rods are superior in his perspective and although I haven't used a glass rod, I've had zero complaints about the graphite. Incredible hookup percentage and landing percentage as well. I don't think you went wrong with your choice.

The other option might be to move the winch stand up on the trailer if possible. It's usually just U-bolted on so unbolt it, move it up until the stern is not touching the straps once installed.

@00 mod the results are great! Although the light might be dim, you can see the whole fish and yourself. I think your time and monetary investment in your upgrades were well worth it!

This is true. The bait in my picture is an Xcalibur EEratic shad with overall length of 4 1/2 inches so you can use that for scale lol