Berkley Staff trip,June 12,Spirit Lake,IA

Joining me in the boat for the a.m. bite this morning was Erin Kelly of Cherokee,IA.Erin is a good friend of mine who enjoys relaxing out in the boat for a few hours when he gets a chance.We started by slip-bobber fishing rock piles and had moderate luck doing this.Erin caught many bass and walleyes doing this.After the sun gets up a little the fish leave these shallow areas so we moved out to deeper water and tried vertical jigging plastics and live bait.We worked on this for a few hours with only a few eyes being boated.We had flat calm conditions,which is rare on the Iowa Great Lakes.So I thought trolling crankbaits might be the best choice.Erin had never caught a crankbait eye so it was fun to watch him bring in 2 eyes about a minute apart.He caught walleyes 3 different ways during the day and had a good time.Here is Erin with a eye caught off of a Frenzy Firestick Minnow/leadcore.

In the afternoon I had a trip for the annual Berkley staff sales meetings.Joining me in the boat for this were Mike Batta of MA, and Jeff Williamson of Ohio.They made it clear to put away my trolling rods,they wanted to fish bass.

I thought that working some shallow reeds and cattails would be able to put a few fish in the boat.After trail and error on a few different techniques they got the presentation tuned in big time.They were pitching 4" Gulp! sinking minnows into very thick cover and pulling many bass out of this stuff.Many of these bass were in the 12-14" range with a few bigger fish being caught.Here is Mike Batta with a nice 17.75" largemouth.

Mike and Jeff were very good bass anglers who taught me alot about pitching jigs into shallow cover.They also used the new Vanish line during the day.When exposed to the air it is a bright gold color but when in the water is turns clear so the fish can not see it.I had a great time with these 2 fine anglers.I did not fish as I had a great time just watching them fish.A big thanks goes out to Mike and Jeff for a very fun and high action day of fishing.Here is Jeff with a 15.5" bass.I bet we put around 40 bass and 4 walleyes in the boat.Hard to believe walleye would be in 1-2′ of water but they were.

Ryan Hale