Sorry HYPE fans that's been a month since I've last been here. Mostly due to my little break I had for a couple weekends and a very poor performance at the Silverado Tour tournament on the Le Homme Dieu chain in Alexanderia, MN July 28. I generally look forward to fishing this body of water but this year it's was a tough bite. I spent the Friday before the 4th and the next Friday over there prefishing and really wasn't able to get on anything. I did catch one 3lber and a bunch of 14" fish on lipless cranks which is always a goto bait if nothing else produces over there. I then spent Thurs. and Friday before the tournament trying to get a feel as what to do and just could not get a pulse as what to do. My biggest problem was not fishing shallowing enough due to my past success out on the weedlines. With the off spring and early summer weather we've had the weedlines didn't grow up the way they normally would but were much shallower and alot of stringy grass type weed with no leaves on it covered the flats. With nothing to go on I tied on 3 different types of lipless crankbaits and a swimbait and covered as much water as possible tournament day and still only had a limit of 6 fish for 9.69lbs by far the smallest limit I've ever weighed in and ended up 38th out of 49 anglers.

 Now with July almost over and no checks in the bank due to not so good performances and getting a little depressed as to how the year has gone so far things need to turn around. What better place than my favorite water the mighty Mississippi River. PDC ( Prairie du Chien)  WI, is the next venue for the BASS/ABA Weekend Series a place I haven't been for at least 12 years when I was a nonboater in the old RedMan now BFL events. With only two days of practice I decided to stay on pool 10 rather than locking up to 9 and with the info I could find and guys I had talked too one pool really wasn't any better than another. As I looked at the map I found to areas of the pool I wanted to check out. One area being close to our launch site and the other mid pool.

This tournament found Mary not traveling with me and Bri was not coming down the good friend and competitor Josh Douglas so he decided to stay with Connor Summers and I and make it a guys weekend out of it. We decided to go down Thursday night so we didn't have the long drive early Friday morning, which was 6 1/2 hours for me, 5 1/2 for Connor and 4 hours for Josh. Getting on the water early I headed north from the ramp about 3 miles to a little cut of the main river channel. It had rip rap on both sides of it with decent current running through it. Small fish were busting shad at the entrance I caught a couple on a buzz bait before making my way into the cut still throwing the buzzbait I was able to hook up with a short fish and a nice fat 15" keeper. My phone rang and my buddy Josh had spun a hub and was limping his way back to the ramp from about 7 miles down river so off I went to help him out couldn't leave my boy hanging. With Josh taking care of, back to the cut I went and spent the rest of the day in that area fishing 3 little lakes that had current at the mouths but none running through them, this will prove to be huge. They also all had pad lining them with deeper water under them. Pulling into the first lake still throwing the buzzbait and not getting bit for sometime I switched to a 1/4oz Outkast Swim Jig and Fat Tail and almost immediately starting catching fish. Paralleling the outer pads seem to be the best bite and held up through all the lakes. 

After talking with Connor and Josh back at the room it sounded like Josh down south didn't do so well and Connor north of where I was doing fairly good also I decided to stay north. The weather is going to play a huge part in what happens at this tournament also as severe thunderstorms raged throughout the area dumping large amounts of rain and causing mud slides that closed some roads in the area. The water as you might expect turned to chocolate milk and I knew the bite was going to get tough. Day two of practice found me fishing with Loren Berg my link for the series which was nice to have another stick in the boat. Connor had wanted me to check an area he had found to see if we should both start there. We didn't get as much going but did eliminate a lot of water which can be just as good as finding that secret honey hole. We did manage to catch quite a few fish and a couple decent ones on swim jigs and shallow running crankbaits. With practice over I decided I would spend the tournament fishing those 3 little lakes that I found on Friday. 

Tournament morning my co angler Nick and I were boat 34 out and headed to my first spot which has 3 other boats in it. I started the day throwing a pumpkin/orange tip 1/4oz Outkast swim jig on 16lb GAMMA EDGE fluorocarbon. I boated a nice 2 1/4lb fish to get things started then a 3lber and small keeper, with nick boating a small keeper also. I decided to run to the second lake to get on some fresh fish before guys started running around to much and it paid off. Nick was able to boat another keeper and I was lucky enough to boat the big fish of the tournament a beautiful 4.33lb largemouth. Off to the next lake this gave up another keeper for me and a 3lber for Nick. Back to the second lake we caught some more key fish and decided to run back into our starting lake. Thinking I needed one more 3lb fish I picked up the flippin rod and started pitching a craw tube into the thickest stuck I could find but wasn't able to find a good fish. In the end I didn't need another fish as my 5 for 14.71lbs was enough to top the 70 boater field. This is my first major win and it couldn't have come at a better time. I thank the good LORD for all the blessings he has giving me and this victory definitely being one of them.