On Saturday, June 27th, I had my 5th tournament of the season on the Chetek Chain of lakes in Chetek, Wisconsin. This was the second stop in the East Division of the Wisconsin Team Circuit (WTC). My team tournament partner Steve Crotteau and I had an awesome practice with a number of spots that held good fish, so we were optimistic going into the tournament. This tournament had a full field of 48 boats with incredibly talented anglers so we knew we had to bring our "A" game.
During practice we found that there were some fish that had moved to their summer areas and some fish that were still in a post spawn phase. Cut-off for practice was Sunday, June 21st and the forecast for the week prior to the tournament was 90+ degrees for most of the week so we felt that the warm weather would move even more fish to their summer haunts.
Boat check-in was at 5am, a pre-tournament meeting at 6:30am and take-off at 7am with the weigh-in at 3pm. Of course being tournament day, the rain started at 6:45am. We were boat # 8 to take off and one of the boats in front of us already had occupied the spot that we wanted to start, so I did a u-turn and went to another spot. We fished that area until 7:20am without a bite and move to spot number 2.
That is when the day truly began for us - we rotated through 5 different areas over the next 7.5 hours and caught 50+ keepers over the course of the day - to say the fish were on fire would really be an understatement. One of the highlights of the day was when we stopped at a spot and caught 5 good fish on 5 consecutive casts while Steve was in the back of the boat measure and weighing bass - he didn't get a chance to even cast for a while. But, when I failed to get a fish on my next cast Steve got to throw in and connected with a 4.56 lb toad of a bass. That was our big bass of the day and it shut me up from the ribbing I was giving him while he was working of our fish management!
Went we went in for weigh-in we both felt that we had left nothing on the table and did everything in our power to to put together the best possible 5 fish limit we could.
When it was said and done, our 5 fish limit was 18.36 pounds, which was good for second place. First place was a 19 pound limit from Ron Kubin and Bryan Johnson. Third place was Pat Schlapper and Rob Yule with over 17 pounds on 5 fish. As a side note, our big bass of 4.56 lbs. was edged out for overall big bass honors by one of the last teams to weigh, who had a 4.59 lb. bass. This game is about ounces and 3 hundredths of a pound was the difference of receiving the $470 big bass pot - yikes!!
Full results will be available soon on at www.wtcbass.com.
Our bait choices for this tournament were:
A prototype color of a 3/4 ounce Super K Jig
Modified crankbaits
Variety a soft plastics
As in every WTC, Bill, Karen and Bear Schutts of the WTC put together an awesome tournament. Also The Pokegema Inn, it's owner Craig and staff were awesome and gracious hosts for this event - we appreciate you!!!
A special thanks to all of our sponsors!!
Grafe Auction Company
Props Sports Bar and Grill
Hauck Power Sports
Crotteau Chiropractic
Super K Jigs
A&J Landscape and Maintenance
Miller Lite
Humminbird/MinnKota
Quantum