Musky Caught on Drop Shot!

Booyah Fall Fishing!

Here are a few photos from my last outing. Buzz and I headed to a metro lake here in the Twin Cities hoping to catch a few big ones. We caught three bass total for the day, with this 4.51 pounder as our first catch of the day. I caught this fish burning a black Booyah spinnerbait with one large Colorado blade. This baby thumps through the water and when this bass hit, it about took the rod out of my hands. It was great to get out and catch my largest bass of the season so far. This fish was weighed on our digital hand scale and approximately 20 inches.

Thanks for checking in!

Carl "Skip" Spande

Lake Minnetonka Muskie

Here is Jeff's 11.15 pound muskie from the Viking Invitational Bass Tournament that I wrote about in the post below.

Viking Tournament on Lake Minnetonka

On Sunday, October 4th, Team BassAckwards fished Lake Minnetonka in the Viking Invitational Bass Tournament. Tim and Carl fished as a team, and Buzz fished with an up-and-coming bass angler named Jeff. Both teams fished well and we have the photos to prove it.

Tim and I had prefished a few spots last Wednesday and we put together a gameplan. Basically, it was to drop shot a stretch of water and catch a nice limit. We found an area of water that held some fish in deeper water on a deep weed line. We had caught fish in water from 20 feet to 14 feet. Our prefishing was immediately after a cold front and when we found these active fish, I was confident we could get some to bite no matter what the weather was like come Sunday. We didn't want to waste time by traveling the lake so our spot was within ten minutes of our take off at Maynard's. On tournament day, we stuck to our plan and caught 4 nice fish for 9.09 lbs. We each caught two bass on a slow and tedious day, drop shotting for 7 hours for those four fish. Trophies were given down to tenth place, with the tenth place weight being around 10.3 lbs and first place just over 13 lbs. I truly believe that we could of had a trophy in our hands had we caught at least one more fish for our limit. Our fish were of quality size and I think we were in the right area and just couldn't get one more.

Buzz and Jeff caught a nice limit for 9.38 lbs. They caught fish throwing spinnerbaits around shallow vegetation. They also caught some fish using a rattletrap. Jeff hooked into a 12 lbs Musky and landed that beast on a tube around docks. Hopefully I can get that picture from them and throw it up here. It is a nice photo and a cool fish.Overall, the tournament was a lot of fun and the Viking Bassmasters did a great job hosting this event. They have put on this event for over 30 years and they do a good job making this charity event fun. The weights overall were not very large so anyone had a shot at taking home some hardware. A few guys from our bassmasters club, Lakes Area, were there and it was fun to see them. I am looking forward to this tournament next year and I think I have had my fill of drop shotting for a while!

Thanks for reading!

Carl "Skip" Spande

Still Fishing...

I admit. It's been awhile. I've been busy. Fishing. The past few weeks have been great and I feel the fall will be great this year. I'm heading to a lake on Sunday known for nice fish, so I'm hoping to land a season's best. Also, on Oct. 4th, I will be fishing the Viking Invitational tournament held on Lake Minnetonka. I believe it is a charity event and the weigh-in will be at Meynards on the lake.

Recently, I have caught fish in a variety of ways. I have caught a lot of fish using a white and yellow swim jig. A steady to fast straight retrieve has worked best. Also, I have caught fish using a stickbait around docks when the fishing is tough, and also dragging a black and blue jig along the bottom. I have caught a bunch of fish real shallow using a crankbait that only dives 1 foot. Again, the successful colors were yellow and white.

I recently took 2nd in my Bassmasters club tournament on Lake Minnetonka. It was a fun tournament and I caught an 18 incher at 2:52pm. Our weigh-in time was 3 pm so I was cutting it close and my dad couldn't believe it. It was a clutch catch and culled my remaining 12 incher. I ended up with a total of 9+ pounds for the day. Not great, but I wish I could've figured out the pattern I found with 15 minutes to go a bit earlier.

I will be fishing on Sunday and hopefully I can catch a few big fish to add to this season's total.

Carl

Lake Minnetonka Prefishing

I headed out to the infamous Lake Minnetonka over the weekend with my dad to prefish for our upcoming club tournament this weekend. We started the day fishing lily pads with frogs and flipping creature baits. I had a few nice blow ups but didn't hook into anything. We then headed to a steeper breakline with tall vegetation and we were flipping jigs. Nothing to show there either. We decided that we wanted to catch some fish so we headed to the docks. We were skipping stickworms and I was also pitching a black and blue jig. I ended up catching the nice 19 incher pictured above that my dad spotted cruising the shallows. It took me 3 casts in front of his face to finally get him to bite. It is always fun to see the fish attack. We ended up catching a bunch of dinks, a few decent fish, and this big one. Overall it was a great morning to get out and I think we might have a few spots to try next week.

Blog Update and Awesome News

Sorry that it has been a while since my last post. I have been busy trying to move from my current residence. I will be posting an update on my last tournament with Full Throttle Outdoors as soon as they post the results.

On a non-fishing related topic, my wife and I found out at our ultrasound that we will be having a baby Boy!! We are super excited and I really wanted a son as my first kid. Only 4 months left to go!

Carl