Streiff's Tournament LOTW

[ChrisWallace]

Last wednesday after work, Low King aka kyle and I made the truck to woods. After stopping in Remer at the Woodsman for one of the best Roast beef and mash potatoes I have ever had, we kept on going. Stopped at his place to Pick up the GenMar and to Springsteel via Warroad.

Had a good time that night waking up Josh at a little after midnight. Went outside, the weather was gorgeous and BSed until 4 am about the fishing. Got up at 8 the next morning, had breakfast, went to Strieff's to register and pick up some odds and ends and off we go.

Thursday the weather started with a nice one foot chop and by mid-afternoon, that chop was getting rough.

Picked up some nice fish along with some eaters pulling cranks and three waying the mud around the reefs, lost one pig going over the top of the reef snap weighting, you can blame Josh for that. The fishing turned on as soon as the rough water came in. So we went in.

Here is a picture of one of the fish, no tape, but well into the slot. Picked this up on a hammered gold number 6 blade 3 waying the transition line of the reef.


Here are some of the pics of the awesome sunset and the storm that was almost.






The second day, friday greeted us with tougher winds and different fish, the cranking pattern we had was gone and slowing down to and using lindy rigs, and rigs with spinners going very slow.
Here's Low King with a nice slot, I think it went 24.


Friday night found us in town again at Streiff's for the rules meeting and the Calcutta. Met a lot of nice guys there, finally got to meet Fiskynut, which again was my pleasure. I hope your buddy got his boat problems taken care of.

Brandon and I clean the boat up, re-rig, tie some extra leaders, and other putsy stuff, before we know it, its 2 in the morning.
5 am finds us launching the boat, as Brandon parks the truck, I could have swore I heard water coming into the boat. Well before we know it, we are up to our ankles in water. So turn the bilge on and away we go, I noticed the water isnt receding much, so we stop and again take a look, the Bilge pump hose was disconnected, so put that on. Realize the plug wasn't in, which was in the night before, so he puts in his spare and continue to the check in. If you think it cant get any worse, it does. That plug didnt fit, so we had to get towed into the check in. Call Todd, he brings us another plug. We miss the waves and finally get out fishing after 9:30 am. Here's Brandon taking a nice morning swim to shore.


We head off after that, hit our first spot, nothing, second spot, same thing, third spot, same thing. So we picked up and went to a reef that was similar to what we were pre-fishing but never did get too. Considering the 40 plus boats on 12 and 16 mile each, we hit an inside turn on a reef that came out of the main lake to 18 feet of water.
Pulling three ways, I hook up within the first few minutes, coming to the boat, nice eater, cool. Nope sauger, back it goes, brandon hooks up, another sauger. For the next half hour all we caught were nice saugers some of them pushing 17 and smaller walleyes. Sizes that we chose we were not going to weigh, hindsight is 20/20 though.

Come into the corner, I hook up, I honestly didnt think it was that solid, half way she gave a nice head shake and back to the bottom she went. Got her up, took a few measurements and she was right on the nuts for the slot. We took the gamble and tagged her.
We picked up some more slots and smaller fish and then like someone turned a switch on, the bite was over.
The fish weighed 10.4 at the weigh in.



We ended up weighing 11.4, put us in the top 25 of 87 boats. Not a great finish but for the morning we had, it was a lot of fun.

Streiff's did a heckuva job putting that event, very well run and organized. It was a great vacation.

[Mayfly]

Thanks for the report...Look like a lot of fun. Ever since my trip up there this year I am in love with LOTW. What a great place!!!

Here is a link to my recent LOTW article: http://www.outdoorsweekly.com/feature.html