Whitefish Will Always Have A Special Place

The Classic Bass Champions Tour season kicked off on the Whitefish Chain in north central MN this past week and it brought back a ton of memories.  I was fortunate enough to get to spend much of my high school summers on the chain with my good friend Matt Rauenhorst, and it was those 25 year old memories that gave me the confidence I needed to close out the first tour event on a lake that has been so good to me over the years.  

It was a stacked field of 50 hammers that left out of moonlight on Thursday morning all with the hopes of hoisting the hardware at the end of the day.  When the dust all settled, I had caught 61lbs of bass over 8 hours and was fortunate enough to win the dang thing.  These events are so hard to win, and I almost gave it away in the afternoon period but late in the day I ran to a dock I grew up fishing with Matty and the bass were pretty well loaded up under it.  I was able to skip that dock for a total of 7 bites, 5 of which were weighable bass for our format.  Those final 5 bass put me out in front of Dean Capra far enough that there wasn't enough time left in the day for him to catch me.  

I did most of my damage in the morning on a specific little weed area.  My go to set up for catching a majority of my bass/weight that day was a G.Loomis NRX 852 JWR rigged with a Shimano 3000 Twin Power spinning reel.  I spool it with 10lb Super Slick V2 power pro, and then run a 5-8' 12lb Sunline FC Sniper leader to my jig worm.  I was fishing a deep weed edge in the first 4hr period that was steep right off the edge of a dock, I was sitting in 21' of water and casting to about 6-8' and working letting the worm soak in the weeds or snapping it occasionally to get them to react to the worm and bite it.  The fish were set up in the weeds just on the flat weeds about 15' from the end or edge of the dock.  

As many of you are aware, I was having to drive a back up boat since I was in an accident with my Vexus, hence the Ranger with an Evinrude in the pictures.  But I should have my Vexus with my 250 Mercury ProXs back up and running soon and be back in the rig I have come to love.  It was a special day I won't soon forget and have to give a shout out to all the companies that have supported me in the past and the present, without you guys I would not be able to do what I do.  Until next time, Fish On!