Well, the 2010 tourney is in the books. This was me and my fishing partners (Randy) first crack at Lake Oahe in the Mobride area. Since the weather was so crappy on Thursday, we were limited to about a 2 hour prefishing time frame on Friday, we were only able to rule out one area for the following day. The ice was less than 15 inches in most areas, and less ice under the deep drifts, snowmobiles were the prefered mode of transportation. Some were getting around on wheelers, but you better have some chains on. Due to the cold Saturday AM temps, the take off time was pushed back an hour to 9AM. We went to an area previously scouted by Randy’s son and friend, and this was accessible by foot. Holes were drilled and we started the process of trying to mark fish. No doubt there were some red marks following, but no takers. We kept drilling circles of holes and found a drop off from 24 to 32 FOW and marched around hole to hole looking for something to chase. I went with a Go Devil in perch because we had iced a few tiny perch, and a white Demon, downsized to 1/16th and just a head of a minnow. Persistance was the word for the day, she was a cold one! We had shacks set up to warm up in, and to keep stuff from freezing. Kind of a highlight was catching a 3.4# catfish, what a hoot! We were told to keep anything if we were to finish in the money, well we threw back the 6-7 inch dinks and kept our limit of 12-13 inch dinks to be weighed in. We ended up in 28th out of 400 teams, not to shabby for some Iowa hicks!
Those who caught nothing still had a pretty good shot at some prizes, as there were nearly $90,000 of prizes given away, most to random drawings. The tourney was very organized, and ran well. I don’t think they can get much more than 400 two person teams next year, but we will see. There were a couple big fish caught, they traveled a big distance. Altogether the size and numbers were way way down, some locals showed us some pictures, so we know some real tankers swim there. (also the prior years weights) We will be back, and hopefully move up the leaderboard.
January 11, 2010 at 6:04 pm
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