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Changed our plans and are heading to Mille Lacs Saturday morning. The weather is looking d**n near perfect. Fish are biting too.

Can't go wrong with either. The lews will palm smaller though, the K is kind of a tank.

Cool! We're going to fish the Wednesday night greenhorn league again next year.

I don't think I've used a carolina rig in like 4 years... haha. I got to revist some of those presentations I used to use. I ignored the jig for a year or two but tossed one all summer this year to great effect. Nice job Sully, when are you going to start cleaning up in the local derbys?

I have one Diamante.. and it's awesome. I guess i'll have another one now haha.

I'm always excited for fall. I'm going to try and get out to Stella Washington this weekend to chase some smallies. Next weekend we're going back to Alexandria to camp at Carlos and fish the chain. The classicbass guys are there this weekend beating it up for their final tournament... glad I"m going next weekend. Then the first weekend in October me and 5 of my buddies rented a couple cabins at Grandview Lodge on Kabetogama. We're going to chase smallies & walleye's for a long weekend. Going WAY north in the fall is a must if you guys haven't done it. The lakes huge & mostly are dead from boat traffic.. and the fishing can be bonkers if you time it right. It's stupid cheap to go up the resorts in northern MN in the fall. We're spending like $65 a night after tax per person to stay right on the lake with a sick view and boat slips. We did this trip last year at the end of Sept, but the weather was still pretty warm.. the first day there we wore tshirts and shorts and it was pretty hot. The fishing was decent... but this year we bumped it back 2 weeks and hopefully we catch the smallies with their fall feedbags on.

15% off sidewide on eBay today until 10pm PST.. PREGAME15

Guys have any suggestions for a buzz frog? I need to pick a few up.

Nice! I got out to Lake George for a little bit last night, mostly to play around with the new Lowrance live-charting software update they just released. I did find some fish up VERY shallow, like less than 3 feet. Water temp's like 72. S

Also, someone told me once to slap a menace on a z-man NED head for the river. I did.. I caught smallies.

The menace grub is my #1 most used jig trailer. It rules.

Minnetonka was quite the experience. We had our final Greenhorn TOC derby yesterday. It seems that most people had a terrible practice. Ours was garbage. We fished twice after work and got probably 5 bites.. one keeper. Going into the derby we were pretty depressed. Then the magic of the Minnetonka morning bite kicked in at 7am. That lake is a whole different animal before all the boat traffic fires up. We went to a few of the spots in Crystal bay that we couldn't fish during practice due to the chop/traffic. First spot we pulled up on we caught 4 fish, all over 2lbs.. within about 20 minutes. We were just flipping a super bug D-bomb (best color ever btw) on a powershot with a 3/4th weight. Making a lot of quick pitches close to the boat. It was so much fun. We ran the powershot/dbomb + coontail pattern all day and ended up with 16.6LBS and a 5th place finish. We did get tired from flipping all day so we mixed in dead-sticking some jigworm senkos.. and caught a few nice ones on that. Same spots.. just letting the worm sit and do-nothing. I still hate that lake.. but the tournament ended up being super fun. 17lbs won it, and 2-5th place were all 16lb bags so the competition was TIGHT. We caught a ton of 2 & 3lbers. That +4lb kicker elluded us. Our biggest was 3.85lbs. I got a new found respect for the Dennys Super 30 series guys who fish Tonka all year, and do it at such a high level. That place is a beast. So much water, so much structure, so much pressure, so many boats. Plus one part of the lake is muddy, the other part is gin clear.. it's like 10 different lakes in one. A buddy of mine who fishes tournaments all around the state (and fishes Dennys) says Minnetonka is the single hardest tournament lake in the state. That was probably my last tournament of the year. Now on to fall fun fishing!

I got sucked into this and the bait monkey got me for a AGS guide tatula elite spinning rod for half price.

I'll be honest... I'm not going to put that much effort into the 'Tonka derby. Work's really busy this week and we've been running around the state camping/fishing the last few weekends. I'm a little burnt out and definitely can't devote the time/focus it would take to try to win on Sunday. I'm just glad we got into the TOC! That being said, i'm still going to get out there and do a very small amount of practice. I just really hate making that drive from Andover to 'Tonka... especially with 169 down to one lane through Champlin. If you want to toss something that river Smallies (and walleye) love, rig up a 1/4oz jig head and a Keitech swimbait. That's been a good producer for river fish, especially from the bank, for me over the years.

Negative. I just spent the weekend up in Vermillion (which was AMAZING. I need to make a post about that). I might get out Thursday evening or even maybe Friday night. If you're out there Friday and I get out there, we should grab a beer! I gotta get your #

Guys, we've been through this before. This is the second wave of cheap tatula reels that hit eBay with zero seller ratings. What it is is people's accounts get hacked and these listings get put under their account with out their knowledge. The orders will not get fulfilled. Just ignore them.

Wow nice Muskys! I'm heading up to Lake Carlos and the Alexandria chain for 5 days. Can't wait!

I think we're going to be on Big Marine tomorrow also. I'll keep an eye out.

This cold front must have really turned the fish on because we had an EPIC day fishing Saturday morning on Lake Independence. Boated a ton of bass in 10-15' around grassy points w/ a Neko rig and dropshot. I also hooked into TWO muskys, and was able to actually land one 41" beast on a spinning rod. Pulled a couple nice fish out from under docks with a jig too. I hit Big Marine last night for a bit for some tournament practice and the fish seemed to be pretty active as well. This doesn't feel like the usual "dog days" of summer.

What's up man! This is a pretty good site.. watch out for the "latest deal" thread because your bank account will suffer greatly.

I'm most excited for the new Zman products. They might as well have a direct deposit setup from my bank account at this point.

I'm guessing we're gonna see a lot of Tatula rods go on sale soon with the new model coming out.

Thanks man! The electronics helped us find the rock piles (side scan) on the flat near the grass on White Bear Lake. We fished like 4-5 spots in practice and only got bit on two of them, so we fished just those two spots during the derby and the fish were luckly still there and still biting on the same pattern. All the action was in 16-22' pretty far offshore. That was the first tournament I've EVER won.. and it came on a lake I've literally fished twice in my life. Funny how that works. I pretty much only use 4 trailers on a swim jig these days.. Keitech, rage menace, or a rage craw. I pretty much only use the Menace on 3/8ths swim jigs and either the keitech or rage craw on a 1/2oz. I'm tossing a 1/2oz swim jig like 75% of the time.

The LiveTarget craw jig looks... awesome. I bet it's going to be expensive. The new Tatula rods & Tatula 100 reel looks pretty cool. I think Daiwa won in the rod & reel department this yea (for freshwater).

It used to be the dropshot... but i find myself reaching for the deadly nedly these days. Neko rig with an Exo Stick is a favorite too.