On Friday, July 31st I took time away from making jigs to do some pre-fishing for an upcoming Wisconsin Team Circuit tournament. It has been a couple of years since I have been on Balsam, and I am far from well versed on the lake, since I have only fished it twice in my life. My guest for the day on the water was Troy Razim from Chetek, Wisconsin.

Since Steve Crotteau (my team tournament partner) and I had already drawn a middle of the pack boat position for Balsam Lake, it was necessary to try and find some less than obvious fishing areas.

Troy and I spent more time actually side-imaging the lake with my Humminbird 997 SI than actually fishing. I was trying to find areas that suit my fishing strength, which is off shore deep water structure. After making a pass around the lake at 6.5 miles an hour with the Humminbird recording, we were ready to start fishing. I had waypointed 23 spots that I felt had potential.

We spent 15 to 30 minutes on each area, using a variety of Super K football head jigs an Carolina rigged soft plastics in the deep areas (22' to 31' of water), and Super K K-Plunk (1/2 and 3/4 ounce) and Super K swim jigs (3/8 to 3/4 ounce) in the shallower weed flats of 6' to 10' of water.

When it was all said and done, 16 of the original 23 waypoints made the cut for tournament day stops, but 3 areas had better potential then the rest. We did find that the fish were very size and color specific in regards to the bait choice. I think it would be a true statement to say that this summer of 50 degree mornings has these fish seeking stable conditions.

Pictured is the big fish of the day caught by Troy - 5 of these would be awesome on tournament day!!

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