Local Bass Tournaments

How many of you guys are fishing in the local tournaments around town? I am in a new one this year that is a solo format and I’m really enjoying it. I did the Greenhorn series for three years before too and that’s a great one also. Last weekend I got my first tourney win and got big bass as well. It helped getting a 5 lber right before weigh in. If you haven’t tried a bass tournament they are really fun and you can really learn a lot from fishing them.

Seems like everyone. Can’t even fish our area these days, back to back tournaments on our local lakes. Every one is a bass master elite now.
Run in to a few serious attitudes out on the water when we sit on a spot they want to fish. Running multiple tournaments on a single lake in 2 days, is tiring.
Obviously not everyone has a bad attitude or king sh!t, but the few that are kind of put a bad taste for all.
I miss the days where Frankie’s Tuesday night league was the only one around. Good program, Tuesday nights and they were all courteous

Congratulations Mahtofire14! Well done

I did not watch the video but I bet it was a great feeling hitting that 5 at the end of a small fish day

I fished a circuit many years ago. Never did very well though. I think there were 7 events and then a final tournament if you qualified. Its an enormous time investment. You have to devote a fair amount of time to pre-fishing.

I might give it a try again someday. Another issue I foresee running into nowadays is getting one person to commit to do it with me too. As Bearcat stated, some of these lakes are receiving an enormous amount of pressure. It seems like almost every weekend some of these lakes turn into a miniature Lake Minnetonka. Its good for bass fishing overall, but its definitely making fish smarter and harder to catch too, especially in the greater metro area. I think the DNR should be capping the number of tournament permits they allot on some of these lakes.

Nice job on the 5 pounder. “That never happens to me.” Haha

I fish the high school BASS tournament trail run through Bassmaster. It’s really a cool deal we have two teams from White Bear that made nationals last year. We fish three big tournaments throughout the summer to qualify for state and then we have derbys every Tuesday as well. We get sponsors from the team and get discounts and a lot of cool products as well such as St Croix rods and Gander Outdoors before they blew out their fishing section.

There are a lot of cool opportunities you get through the team such as boat marshaling in the Greenhorn league that Mahtofire was talking about. We get some really cool guest speakers to come in even Seth Fieder the MN tournament legend came in to speak several years back.

I do one charity tournament a year now. Kind of burned out on all the added pressure of the local lakes since covid, actually really tired of it. I now avoid most larger bodies of water and focus on smaller ones where there aren’t enough parking stalls for a tournament. Its better fishing and more fun. Love my boat and electronics, but there may come a day when all I use is a kayak and get away from the crowds on small waterways.

That being said, nice “W” Mahto – looks like it was fun ~

FryDog62 wrote:

I now avoid most larger bodies of water and focus on smaller ones where there aren’t enough parking stalls for a tournament. Its better fishing and more fun.

This is me too more often now. Lakes with limited parking don’t have the room for a tournament so the pressure isn’t as bad.

I used to do a Wed night league and it was nice to have some competition. I am also in a BASS affiliated club, that one has no money involved, just pride and end of year trophies. That one is nice to go somewhere for a weekend and shoot the sh*t with the guys while fishing, super laid back. The club is nice because we bounce around the whole state so we get to see different waters and we’re small enough (typically 5-10 boats) no one ever really notices when we’re out on the lake. Weekly league got to be too much with kids sports and the 5 weekends a year for the BASS club is almost at that point too, but I am trying to do as many as those as I can..

Nice work on the W and big bass! Good way to start off the year!

I totally get where you guys are coming from with the added pressure on lakes it creates. Whether or not they limit the number of tournament series or tournaments, or cap the number of boats in each tournament I agree something should be done about it. Fishing has exploded in the last couple years and it’s something that is effecting all of our fisheries. Unfortunately changing bass tournaments probably won’t help all that much.

I really enjoy the competition in them It’s the only thing that I think is missing from recreational fishing. Otherwise it would be perfect to me. So the tournaments are that outlet for me. It’s also an incredible way to learn how to fish. I have become a much better angler since I started them.

Aboxy17 wrote:

I fish the high school BASS tournament trail run through Bassmaster. It’s really a cool deal we have two teams from White Bear that made nationals last year. We fish three big tournaments throughout the summer to qualify for state and then we have derbys every Tuesday as well. We get sponsors from the team and get discounts and a lot of cool products as well such as St Croix rods and Gander Outdoors before they blew out their fishing section.

There are a lot of cool opportunities you get through the team such as boat marshaling in the Greenhorn league that Mahtofire was talking about. We get some really cool guest speakers to come in even Seth Fieder the MN tournament legend came in to speak several years back.

Austin that’s awesome that White Bear had teams go to nationals. I wish they had a fishing team when I went to White Bear. You guys have such an awesome opportunity that we didn’t have with as well as BASS has grown the high school series.

This is my 15th year fishing with the Baxter Bass Snatchers as a non-boater. I enjoy the chance to fish with some of the best bass fishermen in the Brainerd area, ride in their boats, and hear their fishing stories. I have only one once, and that was last year on my home lake; It is the only tournament where I ran the front of the boat all day. I enjoy the challenge of fishing as a co-angler that has to adjust to what the boater is doing and trying to catch fish behind them. Some days doing that easy, and some days are like the first tournament this year where I didn’t make the right adjustments or just didn’t have any opportunities and crashed and burned while my boater kicked arse and got the W. My boater was fishing docks and not getting many bites, but when he did, it was big.

As a non-boater, what are your favorite lures/techniques?

What’s the best advice a front-of-the-boat partner ever gave you about the Brainerd lakes?

Bass Pundit wrote:

Some days doing that easy, and some days are like the first tournament this year where I didn’t make the right adjustments or just didn’t have any opportunities and crashed and burned while my boater kicked arse and got the W. My boater was fishing docks and not getting many bites, but when he did, it was big.

That’s how I fished in my last tournament series when I had a partner. I didn’t have any confidence off shore so I basically fished shallow the entire tourneys and pretty much made my partner useless in the back of the boat. Once I got confident off shore and we started fishing off shore we both started catching nice fish. Had much better finishes. I like the solo format a lot because it’s all on you but I also like having my best friend in the boat for the 7 hours too.

I’ve got White Bear this Saturday which will be an off shore slugfest so we’ll see how I do. I can catch fish no problem but getting the 3 lbers to bite is the key.

FryDog62 wrote:

As a non-boater, what are your favorite lures/techniques?

What’s the best advice a front-of-the-boat partner ever gave you about the Brainerd lakes?

I love topwater and frog fishing, but it will break your heart, especially frog fishing as a co-angler because you don’t get to set up your casts.

The best advice was to start using Texas-rigged craw tubes. I was in the club for three and a half years before one of the guys made me put one on and use it.

Bass Pundit wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>FryDog62 wrote:</div>
As a non-boater, what are your favorite lures/techniques?

What’s the best advice a front-of-the-boat partner ever gave you about the Brainerd lakes?

I love topwater and frog fishing, but it will break your heart, especially frog fishing as a co-angler because you don’t get to set up your casts.

The best advice was to start using Texas-rigged craw tubes. I was in the club for three and a half years before one of the guys made me put one on and use it.

The newest Topwater/frog bite for me to try was the GOAT Toadz on a stout 5/0 EWG. Hook up percentage has been 90% where usually a standard frog is 50-50 many days. So far, so good!

I did the tourney thing for many years. I fished the Silverado pro am on the am side for several years. I really enjoyed the competitive nature of tourney fishing. The last few years I lived in the metro I stepped away from tourney fishing. I thought I would really miss it and go back to doing them in a year. Ended up not missing them at all. Found it fun to fish when and where I wanted to, rather than when and where I needed to. It was crazy to see the # of hours some fishermen would pre fish even for a small weekday league. There were guys spending 3-4 full days a week prefishing for a tourney with maybe a 400.00 winning payout. Unless you have the time and $ to spend to = others amount of time on the water, it’s hard to compete even if you are a better fishermen. So it was fun while I was doing it, but don’t miss it at all these days.

fishthumper wrote:

Unless you have the time and $ to spend to = others amount of time on the water, it’s hard to compete even if you are a better fishermen.

I feel like I could afford to join a relatively lower-competitive league or circuit, but the time devotion is an issue, and so is getting a partner to commit for me. I don’t have days on end to pre-fish. There just isn’t enough time in the day with a family, house, dog, full time job, etc.

The weekend leagues are the long ones. Weeknighters are usually 4-5 hours. I work evenings during the week so I get the long days. I don’t mind. You really learn to pattern the bite when you fish that long. The money isn’t too bad for registration. I made my fees back and then some with my win last week. But of course now you have to really take into account gas. It’s worth it for me. With two kids under 5 it’s my alone time which I really cherish.