Well guys as you probably noticed, I have not been on in 4 days because I was at a lake in northwest Iowa called Lake Okoboji for my clubs biggest tournament of the year. The tournament was Saturday and we were up there Thursday afternoon - Sunday morning. Fishing was tough as earlier in the week the daytime temps were in the lower 90s but on Wednesday the high was only in the 50s. The temp slowly rose up to the lower 80s by Sunday.
My boater and I put the boat in Thursday at about 5 and fished till dark. I caught 5 largemouth that day. 3 of them bit on a senko in the holes in the weeds that were in the canals while the rest came on a jig and a texas rigged Rage Craw on the docks.
Friday we decided that we would hit the rock reefs in the morning with a topwater to get some smallies. I started out with a XPS Slim Dog and started getting fish to boil on it but they were missing it. I finally got a solid 2lb smallie to smash it and got her in. She was my 1st ever keeper smallmouth and only my 2nd smallie I had ever caught. http://s721.photobucket.com/albums/ww219/LilJakeC/?action=view¤t=smallie-1.jpg I kept fishing with the Slim Dog and caught 2 other smallmouths on it including one 3lb 17” smallie. Didn’t get a picture of her though. I switched to a bubblegum fluke and caught 3 more. They were all around 14-16”. We moved to some docks in a shallow bay with some weeds around it and caught a couple of largemouths on them. I was pitching a Rage Craw and caught a 4.1lb largemouth. She was only 17 1/4” but she was FAT and filled with eggs still. http://s721.photobucket.com/albums/ww219/LilJakeC/?action=view¤t=biglargie.jpg The coulds rolled in and I picked up that Slim Dog and on the 2nd cast had a 6-7lb Pike hit it and jump 2’ out of the water as it hit. She went straight to the marker buoy and got me wrapped around it. Luckily I got it unwrapped and got it in the net.
Come Saturday my boater and I decided to hit the rocks with topwater to get some quality smallmouths on the card (we measure the fish and write down the length of the fish on the card, then release it. The longer the length the more points you are awarded). I caught a 16” smallie on the Slim Dog and that was the only fish we caught there. We went over to the same bay with the docks that I caught the 4.1lb largemouth and fired away at them. Once again I was throwing the Rage Craw and caught a 16 1/2” largemouth. A couple of cast later I caught an 18” largemouth. By this time it was about 9am. I didn’t get a single bite until and hour left in the tourny. By then it was about 1PM and the tourny ended at 2pm. I tied on a Pro Blue Megabass Vision 110 and within a couple of casts I had a 14” largemouth in the boat. with 15minutes left we went to a rocky point by the boat ramp with the wind blowing 20mph right on it. I smiled ear to ear and told my boater that I am going to fill my limit with a nice smallie on the jerkbait since the conditions couldn’t have been better for it. What do you know, 2nd cast a 16 1/2” smallie hammers it. I get it in the net and start “Going Ike On Em” I caught that fish with about 8 minutes left to the day.
I ended up winning the tournament with 1035 points and Big Bass with that 18”. 2nd place had 1000 points. To tell you how close he was to beating me, if he would have caught a fish only about 1/2” longer than his smallest one he would have won. It was a great trip!!! Now time to get ready to head up to our cabins in Detroit Lakes, MN tomorrow through the 11th 
