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Race to 1000 inches – 2013

The challenge is back and this year we have a few changes. Last year I broke 2000″ which means one of two things.  The Challenge was too easy or it was just one of those years.

To make sure it isn’t too easy we are changing the rules to the following

Rules of the Challenge
*Every bass Counts (all fishing over 12 inches) *new*
*Following species of bass count: Largemouth, Smallmouth, Spotted, White
*Two of the challengers must be present for fish to count
or
Photo of each fish next to ruler must be taken
*Rules are subject to change at anytime

[easychart type=”vertbar” height=”300″ width=”350″ title=”Race to 1000 Inches” groupnames=”Mike, Brad, Bert” valuenames=”Inches of Bass” group1values=”1052.75″ group2values=”114″ group3values=”604.25″ groupcolors=”009900,ff0000,ff9900″]

[easychart type=”vertbar” height=”250″ width=”350″ title=”Total Inches of Bass by Month” groupnames=”Mike, Brad, Bert” valuenames=”March, April, May, June, July, August, September” group1values=”0,13,0,13,633,208.75,185″ group2values=”0,0,0,28.5,0,0,85.5″ group3values=”0,52.5,0,0,211.5,304.25,36″ groupcolors=”009900,ff0000,ff9900″]

[easychart type=”vertbar” height=”250″ width=”350″ title=”Avg Length of Each Bass ” groupnames=”Mike, Brad, Bert” valuenames=”March, April, May, June, July, August, September” group1values=”0,13,0,13,13.19,13.92,13.21″ group2values=”0,0,0,14.25,0,0,14.25″ group3values=”0,17.5,0,0,13.22,14.49,12″ groupcolors=”009900,ff0000,ff9900″ watermark=”13.72, 13.52″]

Blue line is the years Overall Avg length of each Bass which is 13.62″

[easychart type=”vertbar” height=”300″ width=”350″ title=”Biggest Bass” groupnames=”Mike, Brad, Bert” valuenames=”Inches of Bass” group1values=”19.00″ group2values=”17.5″ group3values=”20″ groupcolors=”009900,ff0000,ff9900″]

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Fishing Season Wrap Up

With the other night being the official end of WNF for the 2012 season it brings an unofficial close to the fishing season too for us.  It’s sad to see this summer end!  It was filled with highs and lows.  We came very close to winning the HGP Spring fishing tournament when Brad landed his biggest bass of the year at 19.25 inches.  She was a pig and we thought we had it in the bag.  But that length wouldn’t hold up. The rest of the spring was lots of fun with quite a few bass caught by everyone.  Unfortunately, that came to a screeching halt as an electrical short in our trolling motor caused the boat to catch on fire and the front end burnt up.  Almost the entire month of June was spent on the shore as we waited on the insurance company and the new boat to arrive.  The biggest surprise was that in July I hit the 1000″ mark!  Not only did we think this would be tough but almost impossible.  What is even crazier is that as I write this, I passed the 2000″ mark on the last WNF of the year!  Never would I have thought that 2000″ was a number that was reachable atleast not in our local waters!  So what does it all mean.  I have no idea yet! I am still sifting thru the 7 months of data I collected.  For instance, I learned that this year our Best chance of catching a fish 14″ or bigger was in May.  We boated 27 total.  May was also the month we caught the most inches with 1170.5″ boated between the 3 of us.  Our worst month for boating a fish 14″ or bigger was June with only 4.  To add an astrisks to the month of June that was the month of the boat loss and we only fished once the entire month so that number maybe not be accruate.  September was the next lowest this year with the number being 5 and probably should be deemed the worst month for us to catch a 14″ or bigger fish.  I imagine as each year comes and goes these figures can and will change based on the weather.  It will be neat to see this and really see if I can continue this kind of dedication to logging information.  Only time will tell.  One big advantage we now have with logging information is the new Lowrance HDS sonar.  With its waypoint and trail mapping its been really neat to see our fishing trails and then to map each and every catch location along said trail.  I believe this will be the greatest way for us to track and log a lot of this data here forward.  I’m hopefully that I will get the boat out yet in Oct and hopefully find some fish.  The only way that will happen is if deer season has a slow start.  So, time to clean the reels and lower the drags and put them away for hopefully what turns into a great Deer season followed by some great ice fishing!

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WNF – 3-28-12

Yep it’s that time of year! Wednesday Nite Fishing is starting! I’m not sure it will be an every Wednesday occurence for a while but we’ll at least get a couple in till Turkey season comes to a close. In preparation of this season I have rewired all the electrical connections in our boat (eliminating a lot of extra splices in the process) and then cleaned the heck out of it with a vacuum and power sprayer. So the boat is definitely ready to rock an roll. For the first inaugural outing the venue will be Hickory Grove. I have not been out to the lake yet this year and am curious about the water temp. Our pond was already at 60 degrees and if Hickory is at that temp too then we should see the fish moving up to the shallows on the North side of the lake. If it’s colder than that I think its going to be a tough outing. My plan will be to drag some tubes along the bottom and maybe even throw the frog to test out the shallows now and then. Tomorrow will tell right?

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Last WNF – 9-21-11

WNF tonight will be held at Hickory Grove. There is a four species fishing tournament this Saturday at Hickory (Bass, Bluegills, Crappie, and Catfish. So we’ll use tonights WNF as our practice day for this tourney. As of right now Bert and I will be a team as Brad is unable to attend. We just had a cold front pass thru yesterday/last night but weather is supposed to become stable as the rest of the week progresses. So, I’d imagine, if we find the fish today then they should still be in the same spot on Saturday. However, I do know Hickory and fishing Hickory in the morning is completely different than fishing it in the afternoon/evening. So that being said my predictions for tonight are as follows. I think crankbaits will be a good bait early. Something that runs in the 6-12ft range. Learning from our last WNF at Ada Hayden as the sun dropped and turned to dark the crankbait bite quite completely and the bite moved to a craw/bottom bouncing technique. I definately wont miss this switch if it holds true again on this different body of water. But I’ll be honest I rarely fish this late into fall as my mind quickly shifts to big antlered deer so this tourney and WNF will definately be an eye opener! Here is a quick link to the tourney if anyone is interested.

http://www.storycounty.com/index.aspx?DN=7910,15,6,1,documents

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WNF – 8-10-11

Tonight the original plan was to go to Ada Hayden.  Brad texted last night that he had to work late and would like to move it to Hickory, so he could get more fishing time in.  I just did some searching and found out that Tri-County Bass is having their championship tourney at Hickory tonight.  We have fished Hickory while these guys have had previous tourneys and they are very nice but it is a lot of extra boat traffic and the bass get pretty spooky quick.  So we’ll see what Brad wants to do but I am leaning towards sticking to the original plan and going to Ada Hayden if Bert doesn’t mind hauling the boat to Ames.

Here are my predictions:

Hickory – fishing will be tough and pitching sunken habitat or drop shotting will be the winning techniques.  Ada Hayden – will be either the frog over the weeds or jerk-a-licous thru schooling bass as they crash the surface while chasing shad.

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WNF – 8-3-11

Just  Bert and I fished at this weeks WNF.  We went to Hickory Grove.  There were not a lot of boats out which was nice but we did end up fishing the same path as another fisherman and he definately made it tougher for us.  We did see him pull out a very nice bass which looked to be pushing the 5lb range.  We ended the night with 10 total bass and two of those being 16″.  Unfortunately, they were all by me and on my frog.  Dad couldn’t buy a bite!  Next Weeks WNF will be scheduled for Ada Hayden unless its really windy and if that is the case we’ll move it back to Hickory Grove.

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Lower Pine 7-26-11

We ended up doing some shuffling this week due to storms predicted for our normal fishing nite. So we all got our stuff together and got on the road and headed back up to Lower Pine to try an evening fish. It was not the same lake… haha… but they never are. Only 1 keeper was caught and that was by Brad. He actually caught the keeper in the creek channel between Upper and Lower Pine in like 1ft of water. Top water bite was not present much. It was just an all around much slower nite and probably a more normal night for that lake. Which begs the question… “Why was Saturday so Good??”

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WNF – 7-20-11 Cancelled!

 Due to the excessive heat we’ve been in I’ve decided to cancel another WNF. I am pretty sure I got a little heat exhaustion on Friday when we were at the Omaha Zoo so I’m not too anxious to put myself back out into that heat. It looks like the heat should break a bit for Saturday’s Lower Pine Challenge and that is still a go. I think we’ll just get up early to be on the water at first light and fish away. I am really hopeful for this trip. I sure hope it pans out.

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WNF – 7-13-11

I am definately behind this week. I spent time getting AMOutDoors on Facebook instead of giving my normal weekly predictions for WNF. So here are the results. The three of us went to Hickory Grove. We launched from the south ramp and worked our way east along the south shore. We only picked up a few very short bass here and there and once we got to the tubes we decided to make a drastic move. We motored all the way down to the dam. We fished the dam with craws and top water and we did much better. Not great but much better. The first first caught off the dam was a 15.5″ caught on a MoneyCraw. We fished the damn a couple of times picking up a few 12″-14″ fish each pass. As light was fading fast we started to head back to the ramp. We continued to fish the South Shore using craws and frogs. Bert was able to pick up the biggest bass of the night at 16″ just below the primitive campgrounds. I did not catch a keeper and caught a few bass on the frog but the fast and furious catching with the frog has definately started to dwindle. Still a great pattern for over a month!

Next weeks WNF is up in the air… No location has been decided and Brad maybe on vacation so may just be Bert and myself.

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WNF – 7-6-11

Ada Hayden here we come!!   I have not been to Ada Hayden in quite awhile as the wind and weather has been terrible.  Tonights forecast looks pretty good.  As of right now they are calling for 7-6mph winds out of the ENE and temps starting at 83 and dropping to 79 degrees at sunset.  Should be good fishing even with these bluebird conditions.  There is supposed to be a system moving thru tomorrow so hopefully the fish get their feed on. My prediction for tonight will be the Jerk-a-licious will out preform all other lures and will be especially successful on the wind swept shorelines.  Hopefully Brad will attend and with winds that slow he should be able to sneak away from work.  If not it will be Bert and myself.  I am not sure what Bert will throw, athough, I imagine the weeds have grown quite a bit so maybe the frog or even a crankbait run over or on the outter edge of the weeds should produce as well and might be berts go to baits.  We shall see. 

tight lines