I’m a proud Uncle…my nieces and nephews are headed out on a fishing trip this week. My niece wanted to practice so she tied a water balloon to the end of her line.

Don’t forget to get those last minute culls in! SUF and Barde’s tournment ends on Thursday.

Well since BLat went to the trouble of adding SM to the King of the Ring, I’d decided to go out SM fishing this evening. Caught this 21” smallie on a ned using Brian Barde sick stick replica.

Thought this was interesting. Received a local fishing newsletter from Lake of the Woods Ontario, a place we go every year to fish for a week. Late June, Smallmouth are in between Pre-Spawn and Bedding. If anyone wants a trip of a lifetime with all world class freshwater species, I’d highly recommend Lake of the Woods.

I am friggen estatic to represent the angler development program! Yes, I’d love a jersey as well! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

PSA - check your knots. Had a tournament yesterday, my father in law and I both lost a 4+lber because we didn’t check our knots. We were in a spot they were biting and just kept throwing.

Finished 2nd in my tournament this weekend with 12.89lbs. (Lost a 4lber 😬). Stayed in one spot for 6 hours, found myself some good weeds! Thank you for the 18-20” vibes Tron and Barde!! For 2025, one thing I wanted to accomplish was finish higher than 3rd in a tournament. ✔️

On a point in the weeds. This guy missed it 3 times before just hammering the frog. (Insert Bobby Berrick sounds effects here).

Lake Breakdown follow up:

Redstone Lake - unique lake to Wisconsin, created in the 1960’s and has a tanic/brown stain water.  Majority of WI lakes are natural.

We only had 6 hours so Mark and I started out on the lily pads in coves and pockets we waypointed from Google earth and Omnia.  We flipped and threw topwater, no luck.  Then we decided to try our secondary spots rip rap w/ docks.  Multiple species were hanging out right on the bank of the rip rap.  The bass weren’t on the docks, they were only on the rip rap that had docks adjacent.   Once we figured out where they were, we hit as many of those spots as we could.  Caught em’ at will.  We threw a 1-2 punch with a jig and crankbait.  Once we made the switch to a jig and crankbait we realized the bites we were getting were bigger. 

Mark caught a nice Musky and also a new net for himself off the bottom.  We were also able to catch Walleye, Crappie, and even Smallmouth off the same rip rap the LM were on.  Even though on the DNR site it says there are not any Smallmouth…there were.  For 5 biggest bass we each ended up having a bag with 8-9lbs total.  From our research, winning tournament bags have been 9-12.5lbs.  

We had a great time and looking forward to hitting the next lake we broke down, Dutch Hallow.  

Don’t ya hate it when after you tie a perfect connection knot you cut the main line instead of the tag end. 😡