Randy Rock (5rocks from the site) is in 2nd!!! as a co-angler. Keep it up Randy. Obviously he had Skarlis day one.

Place Partner1 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Total
Weight Fish Weight Fish Weight Fish Weight Fish
1 Jeff Sass
Waupun, WI 21.56 5 21.56 5
2 Randy Rock
Brandon, SD 19.50 5 19.50 5


A good friend of mine is hanging in at Oahe, Lynn Jurrens is in 13th place after day one.

Place Partner1 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Total
Weight Fish Weight Fish Weight Fish Weight Fish
1 Darrell Peters
Slayton, MN 21.56 5 21.56 5
2 Tommy Skarlis
Waukon, IA 19.50 5 19.50 5
3 Gary Maher
Menoken, ND 18.63 5 18.63 5
4 Brian Deffner
Eland, WI 18.06 5 18.06 5
5 Scott Handel
Chamberlain, SD 17.81 5 17.81 5
6 Keith Kavajecz
Kaukauna, WI 17.63 5 17.63 5
7 Tom Kemos
Oconomowoc, WI 17.44 5 17.44 5
8 Joe McCartin
Land O Lakes, WI 17.38 5 17.38 5
9 Chase Parsons
Glidden, WI 17.19 5 17.19 5
10 Matt Lyon
Pierre, SD 16.94 5 16.94 5
11 Gary Parsons
Glidden, WI 16.88 5 16.88 5
12 Kevin McQuoid
Isle, MN 16.50 5 16.50 5
13 Terry Nelson
Pierre, SD 16.31 5 16.31 5
13 Lynn Jurrens
Watertown, SD 16.31 5 16.31 5
15 Tom Keenan
Hatley, WI 16.25 5 16.25 5
16 Pete Harsh
Sauk Centre, MN 16.06 5 16.06 5
17 Derek Nelson
Onida, SD 16.00 5 16.00 5
18 Gerrick McComsey
Ft. Pierre, SD 15.94 5 15.94 5
19 David A. Andersen
Amery, WI 15.88 5 15.88 5
20 Dan Plautz
Muskego, WI 15.81 5 15.81 5

Well, Day two went as poorly as Day 1 went well. What an awesome experience though. I encourage anyone who loves fishing to give this a shot. Probably the biggest thing I learned is that I am not cut out to be a FLW pro; they work too hard! It takes something I love, fishing, and turns it into work. I learned how I should fish to get the largest and most fish and realized that I will probably still fish how I want rather than how I should.

As you can see above, I got a great draw in Tommy Skarlis. He is a lot of fun but also all business. I started the morning by telling him I have never done this before so feel free to tell me what to do. He said that is the attitude he likes because he won't have time to say please and thank you all day. That is how it went too. We had 20 MPH winds so it was a full time job keeping the boat going where it needed to be. We started by pulling large crankbaits over trees in an area known as Peoria Flats. Started at 7AM and had a 28.5 and a 24.5 in the box before 8AM. Talk about nervous, the big one was the first fish that hit and I was still learning how he wanted me to bring them in. He had me reel in every fish. At 8, we took off and headed north to try to find big slot fish. It is interesting to spend the rest of the day wishing for smaller fish. Did end up getting a couple of 18's to throw in so we weighed in over 19 pounds for day one, 2nd place. I was interviewed and am quoted in the article for day 1 on the FLW wedsite site.

Day two was a different story. My pro's home water was Lake Michigan and we fished like we were there. We started by pulling large reef runners over open water with 120 feet depths trying to get suspended fish. I looked at the clock at 10:40AM and we had the big goose egg going for us, We then went to his plan B, which was smaller reef runners following shore contours targeting 30 feet of water. It did produce some fish, but not nearly as well as the day before. I could go on but let's just say the experience from the day before was much better. We ended up weighing in just over 9 pounds which dropped me all the way to 30th.

I got a check for $375, one of my buddies also placed and got a check for $350. There were three of us who made the trip together and we agreed to split the winnings so I came out of it with just over $240. It cost $350 to enter so I did not think two days of guided fishing for $110 was a bad deal.

One thing to keep in mind, they are going to boss you around and you cannot take it personally. The goal it to catch as many good fish as you can as quickly as possible. This was obviously going to be luck of the draw. I went in with the attitude that if I got one good draw and and had one good day, I would be happy. I got one excellent draw and one awesome day. I also feel like day 2 was not a total bust because I learned alot about targeting open water, suspended fish I didn't happen to pan out that day but it doesn't mean it won't some other day. All in all, I felt like it was a wonderful experience and I recommend it for anyone.

Randy,

Sounds like you had a good time and learned alot. I have fished a couple of AIM Tournaments on Oahe the past 2 years with my son Rich and Rich drew Tommy Skarllis on day 1 also. On day 2 Rich drew a much lower ranked Pro so I think it is fairly common that they try to give everyone the opportunity to fish with a pro in the upper 50% on one of the two days.

It is common for the Great Lakes guys who have never fished much on Oahe to struggle. The greatest bag weights the past several years has been obtained by pulling crankbaits over the top of submerged trees but that can get really expensive which takes some of the fun out of it. You definitely have to have your crankbait depths dialed in.

I have heard that Chase Parsons and Keith Kavajecz will be revealing their secret winning technique on the Next Bite this winter. Supposedly they learned this technique from a NE Tournament. With the next AIM Tournament on Oahe coming up on Sept 15- 17th I can understand why they did not want to totally "Let the cat out of the bag".

Some version of using Willow Leaf Spinnerbaits through the trees, either really large ones, using leadcore, or combination of both - 99% sure.

I've had a few guys emailing me from around the US asking for info on it and all I can say is I know it works, but I never spent enough time trying it.



http://www.lurenet.com/FishingResources/Articles/2010/walleyespinnerbaits.htm

http://www.yankton.net/articles/2011/07/30/outdoors/doc4e33886d400d5936606068.txt

I guess I didn't include that info in my post but you are correct. The speculation was that the fish people were taking on day one were hitting above the tree tops. Then the front came through and moved them down into the trees. Rumor was that the big bags from days 2 and 3 came from pulling lead core with bass type spinners down in the trees. The spinner bait would bounce off of the trees when a crank bait would have hung up. We were going to go out on Saturday with my boat and give it a try but a big storm was coming through so we just drove home instead. Family is pretty understanding for me on these things so if I have an opportunity to get back and have some weekend left with them, I like to do that. Starting to think about the next trip. Probably down to one-day trips to L&C to finish out the open water season.

Yes, I had read that the 2010 and 2011 Cabelas Regional Walleye tournaments on Big Mac have been won by guys trolling bass stype spinner baits on leadcore through the trees. I haven't tried it yet either but sounds like it would be worth a try.