Wow, you are fast! Great tournament, Gary, as usual! Pretty weird though fishing June bass in April weather and water height conditions. Can't believe I wore my rain suit all day.
I think it would be great if some of the top competitors, particularly Hobbs or Wolsky, kind of gave a synopsis of what they did, even if it's just a paragraph or two. I don't think I have ever seen potholes fish so tough for largemouth.
Jr., Mike, Steve, Blake, Tim, Brett your thoughts?
Ben Hanes said:
I think it would be great if some of the top competitors, particularly Hobbs or Wolsky, kind of gave a synopsis of what they did, even if it's just a paragraph or two. I don't think I have ever seen potholes fish so tough for largemouth.
Well, I know they must have been North, because we were south and had motor problems. One dink smallmouth and not even a jerkbait catch. Crazy day for us.
I talked to Mike. It's not my place to speak for him or Ron, but let's say they didn't do anything crazy. They just fished hard and read the fish. I'll let them go into more detail if they wish.
I would say it was crazy fishing. At our first spot I fired out a Yamamoto D-Shad (Fluke) and got slammed right away; hard! It was pretty dark out still, and we didn't see the big fish until it went into the net; a big CARP, and yes, it ate the D-Shad!
Congratulations for Blake Lesher and Steve Lebsack who came in first place out of eighty-two boats at Potholes. Three flights blasted off shortly after safe light. All except two boats entered the Big Fish Options Pot which paid a whopping $1,333.34 per flight! All except twelve boats entered the Big Stringer Option for an additional $466.68 per big stringer per flight. Highlighted weights show the winners of the Big Fish and Big Stringer Options for each of the three flights. |
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Flight #1: Boats #53-79 + 82-83 / Flight #2: Boats #80-81 + 2-26 / Boats #27-52 |
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PLACE | TEAM | BOAT # | #FISH/ LIVE | WEIGHT | PENALTY | BIG FISH | TOTAL WEIGHT |
POINTS | PAYOUT |
1 | BLAKE LESHER-STEVE LEBSACK | 40 | 5/ 5 | 23.90 | 6.12 | 23.90 | 100 | $ 5,000.02 |
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2 | MIKE WOLSKY-RONALD HOBBS, JR | 80 | 5/ 5 | 23.42 | 5.52 | 23.42 | 99 | $ 3,066.68 |
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3 | TIM TADLOCK-BRET NINE | 66 | 5/ 5 | 22.86 | 5.84 | 22.86 | 98 | $ 2,466.68 |
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4 | LOUIS, SR. KURUCZ-DAVID CONKLIN | 36 | 5/ 5 | 21.42 | 5.72 | 21.42 | 97 | $ 1,500.00 |
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5 | DAN JENSEN-TAYLOR SMITH | 31 | 5/ 5 | 19.38 | 4.68 | 19.38 | 96 | $ 1,200.00 |
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6 | JORDAN DOUCET-CHAD EIDSON | 51 | 5/ 5 | 17.86 | 5.12 | 17.86 | 95 | $ 1,000.00 |
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7 | JAKE BOOMER-JASON BRYAN | 46 | 5/ 5 | 17.72 | 4.02 | 17.72 | 94 | $ 800.00 |
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8 | LEVI MESEBERG-KELLY ROSS | 19 | 5/ 5 | 17.62 | 4.76 | 17.62 | 93 | $ 700.00 |
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9 | JEFF MCBROOM-LOREN ENGLISH | 60 | 5/ 5 | 17.40 | 4.76 | 17.40 | 92 | $ 600.00 |
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10 | LEON WILLIAMS III-DALE WILLIAMS | 21 | 4/ 4 | 16.78 | 5.62 | 16.78 | 91 | $ 1,883.34 |
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11 | JONATHAN BLANK-STEVEN POTTER | 29 | 5/ 5 | 16.56 | 4.40 | 16.56 | 90 | $ 500.00 |
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12 | SHAWN O'CONNELL-D.J. LAROCHE | 10 | 5/ 5 | 16.14 | 5.10 | 16.14 | 89 | $ 450.00 |
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13 | HARMON SAPP JR-HARMON SAPP SR | 13 | 5/ 5 | 16.14 | 3.84 | 16.14 | 88 | $ 400.00 |
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14 | DAVID MOHN-JOHN COWARDIN | 37 | 5/ 5 | 16.06 | 3.92 | 16.06 | 87 | $ 350.00 |
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15 | RAY YOUNG-DONALD YOUNG | 17 | 5/ 5 | 15.82 | 4.48 | 15.82 | 86 | $ 300.00 |
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16 | CHRIS TREFFRY-MARC LIPPINCOTT | 78 | 5/ 5 | 15.58 | 3.30 | 15.58 | 85 | $ 250.00 |
Chad and I didn't have anything secret squirrel going on. We fished hard and had about 12 bites throughout the day. Capitalized on 8 of them, mostly on jigs and senkos. I wouldn't say fishing was 'good' but it certainly wasn't bad for us, but only in a couple areas did we find fish. There was alot of nothing going on outside of that.
I do want to say a special thank you to Nick Barr who stopped fishing, picked us up with our fish and took us to the weigh in early as we had a throttle cable break way back in the dunes at about 1:00. Very classy move and much appreciated! I also want to thank Josh Potter who also offered to come get us if we didn't find a ride.
We only had 5 bites all day. Luckily, we were able to land all 5 of them. We had 1 rat that was under a pound but couldn't cull the damn thing. It was a very strange day out there to say the least. Our fish came on jigs and spinnerbaits.
For those looking for a little redemption there is an open this weekend.
Here's a synopsis for you I will make it really easy, we didn't prefish, we caught every fish on a jig, we fished in the middle of the dunes, and we caught them in or next to willow bushes. We caught probably about 20 fish and culling out and easy 16+lb limit. It was great fishing for us, we were oblivious to the tough bite, I think guys were fishing there prefish and not fishing the current conditions and they made it tough on themselves. Didn't do anthing special at all we just got some lucky bites to get that kind of weight. I will not really go on about what jigs baits we used I have made mention on here before what jigs I use so guys should take better notes next time.
When you have spent as much time and money on your tournament fishing as Wolsky and I we are a bit reluctant to give out any information about specifics and what happens where, spend more time on the water and you will be better prepared next time, but I am not going to give out short cuts.
Ben Hanes said:
I think it would be great if some of the top competitors, particularly Hobbs or Wolsky, kind of gave a synopsis of what they did, even if it's just a paragraph or two. I don't think I have ever seen potholes fish so tough for largemouth.
Posted by Tom Melowitz on September 7, 2019 at 2:45pm
Posted by Eric Urstad on April 3, 2019 at 7:38pm
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