Viking 2010

Nick and I submitted our entry to the 2010 Viking Bassmasters Invitational late so we ended up launching toward the back of the pack. We headed over to the bay that we had been practicing in on Thursday, but there were already a couple of boats in ahead of us.  We decided to give it a shot anyway. A couple of casts in Nick had a fish nail his line. He started cranking it in and instantly felt a good sized fish on the end of the line. Our adrenaline was pumping, but as it got closer we saw it was a small muskie.  So, it was a bit of a let down. We kept working along that weedline and down a few docks and Nick ended up catching a couple of smaller largemouths but nothing great.  We decided to jump to a different part of the lake and started fishing weedlines in bays. By 10am Nick had 5 fish for us, mostly caught on jigs. We had a couple of decent ones around 2 - 2.5 pounds each, but too many little ones to really do well. We kept grinding it out looking for some decent fish and a kicker.  I managed to add another 2 pounder on a spinnerbait. Nick threw a jig most of the day and I bounced back and forth from a spinnerbait to a senko not really sure what I should be doing. So Nick recommended I keep throwing the spinnerbait and use the senkos around the docks. I caught a couple of small ones and a few pike, but nothing else that would help. Nick did manage to catch a few more that helped us out, but it was by ounces and not pounds. It turned out to be a grind it out kind of day, but we ended up with a bag near 12lbs that landed us in about 15th place out of 80+ boats.  I had also caught a 7+ pound northern that we thought would help us in the big pike pot, but it ended up being the 3rd largest pike turned in and it was beat by nearly 3/4 of a pound.  All in all, we had a decent day and I really enjoyed my first bass tournament, not to mention, our buddy John was the guy who turned in big bass for the day - a nearly 7lb largemouth that was truly impressive. After that day I knew I had to do this again, so I joined the Renegade Bassers and 2011was my first year fishing tournaments in the bass club.