In 1997 when I started doing my Internet site on fishing I started visiting a bass fishing news group. After several years of posting messages and reading the posts of others I felt like I knew some of them pretty good. That group of fishermen started getting together for a bass tournament twice a year.
In the spring we had the “Mid Tennessee Classic” on either Dale Hollow or Center Hill Reservoirs. Each September the week after Labor Day we met in Rhinelander, Wisconsin for the “North Woods Classic.” When I retired in 2001 I started attending those tournaments and they have been a lot of fun.
We have people come from as far west as Texas and southern fishermen from Georgia and Florida. Some folks came from North East states like New York. Our love of bass fishing brought us together and it has been a lot of fun.
I left on Labor Day in 2009 for the 1200 mile trip north pulling my bass boat. I drove 919 miles the first day in 15 hours and spent part of the night in Madison, Wisconsin. That left a short 250 mile drive for Tuesday morning. I got checked into my motel and went to Boom Lake to practice.
Boom Lake is a 2500 acre lake right in town that connects to the Wisconsin River and several “flowages,” ponds that interconnect through small channels. The lake has been tough, in all my trips there I had never caught a limit of five bass and Tuesday afternoon started that way. I caught three small bass.
Wednesday, the day before the tournament started, I picked up Dan and we headed to the lake. It was scary. I caught bass everywhere I tried, ending up with nine nice keepers. That night at dinner everyone said they had caught fish.
Dan fished with me on Thursday and I started catching fish around lily pads on Senkos. At noon I had four largemouth in the boat and went to deeper water to try to catch a smallmouth. Less than 30 minutes later I landed one over 14 inches long and had my limit and was through fishing for the day.
Wisconsin has a no cull law. When you put a fish in your livewell you can’t let it go and keep a bigger fish. It is a hard decision when you catch one just barely 14 inches long like my third largemouth. If you keep it you can’t cull, but if you let it go immediately, hoping to catch a bigger fish, you may not get a limit. Since I had never limited before I put all keepers in the livewell.
At the end of day one I was in first with five weighing 11-14. One other fisherman, a local bass expert, also had a limit. Most people only had one or two fish, more typical of past trips.
The second day was predicted to be stormy and my partner met me at the ramp and said I was on my own, he was not willing to go out if it was lightning. I never heard thunder all day but it did rain. I started catching largemouth immediately and had a limit at 11:30. For the rest of the day I tried to catch a big pike or muskie but didn’t have any luck.
I ended up winning the tournament with ten bass weighing 20 pounds, 2 ounces. Second was 19-1, a bass guide from Florida had landed five smallmouth the second day weighing almost 15 pounds to go with his four pounds the first day. There were four limits the second day but I was the only one with limits both days.
A friend from Des Moines and I stayed for another week at a cabin north of Rhinelander and had some great fishing but weird weather. A week ago last Friday it sleeted and snowed on us. Saturday morning my pliers were frozen to the carpet in my boat and the lockers were frozen shut.
Our favorite lake was Crab lake, another 2000 acre lake. It is a glacier lake so there are rock piles everywhere. One day I found one about a foot under the water while running on plane. That cost me a new prop and lower unit in my boat. But in four days fishing Crab Lake I landed 101 smallmouth, the biggest weighing 3 pounds, 15 ounces, the biggest I have ever caught.
I am glad to be home and very glad it has cooled off here. I don’t think I could stand the hot weather I left on Labor Day after wearing a heavy coat for a week in Wisconsin!