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This past weekend, my tournament partner Doug Robinson and I fished the AIM Professional Walleye Series State Championship on beautiful Lake Vermillion. The event was based out of Fortune Bay Casino. Let me tell you, the folks at Fortune Bay were more than accommodating to all of us. They have a large protected bay with plenty of dock slips and very helpful marina staff. Before pre-fishing and entering the waters of Lake Vermillion, all teams had to go through a brief AIS Ins

Not everyone will agree with me on this but for the few who do, they understand. I live on a lake that has rocks and car size boulders all over. If you are like me, sometimes you are not looking down directly into the water when fishing. Whether you are watching your line on your drop shot or poppin’ a frog, sometimes we get distracted. I was more than distracted when throwing my fluke the other night and didn’t notice a huge rock that decide to give my trolling motor a big h

Can you feel it? The trees are starting to show their colors and the water temperatures are starting to fall. I know, the summer heat that we had a few weeks ago might be done, but let's hope for some warm weather for the Labor Day weekend. Looking ahead, it looks to be in the 70's with stable weather which is always a great sign for great fishing. This week the water temperatures dropped from 73 degrees to 68 degrees and the fish are still in the areas where we have gotten t

Back in February this year I was honored to take part in the annual The Club for Boys outing in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. This event offers fellowship and mentoring to 60 boys from the club for a 1/2 day of ice fishing. These fellows are teamed up with professional fisherman from all over the USA and Canada. Each year at their fund raising dinner on the Saturday of the event the club has unique and exciting outdoor related silent and live auction items. My ba

This is a bit of a long story, but a fun one. Never in most of our lifetimes has one naturally occurring scientific event captured so much of the country's attention as did the total eclipse from last week. There was so much build-up for the eclipse that it became a must-see event for those who could make the trip to the totality area of it. I myself was one of those who wanted to make the trek. With totality coming through Wyoming and Nebraska and within three hours of Rapid

One thing we are still working on is catching stripers on a more consistent fashion. There was an incoming tide in the early morning hours so we made the trek out onto a breakwall where a river is coming into the ocean front. With the tide coming in, our setup was to run bait chunks for trying to catch these stripers. The setup consists of a three way swivel that has a 5/0 circle hook and also a 3oz weight tied on. On the circle hook we will use either a cut piece of mackerel

Summer time water temperatures have the fish looking for cooler and more comfortable water zones and that means fishing deeper water. There are many deep water locations that hold fish and then there are areas that hold better quality and more variety. Finding these locations can be very rewarding and typically do take a good amount of work, but once they are found, can be goldmines on a regular basis. Good electronics these days, allow you to create mapping on demand, and th

Now don’t get me wrong, the good ol” motor and trolling motor are my number one choice, but I can’t always have that. When I first started fishing back when I was 16, I threw an old beat up aluminum canoe on top of my Chevy Monte Carlo and went on my way. I have upgraded and wouldn’t trade a bass boat for anything, however, now that I’m only feet away from the BWCA, I have to handle canoes on a daily basis. At Nor’wester Lodge, we rent out canoes each and every week and usual

Sometimes when the going gets tough, you just find a spot where you know you will catch fish, even if the size of the fish isn't the most desirable. With the Sturgis Rally happening this week, my wife and I had a college friend visiting for the week who wanted to attend it. Jared has visited us before for the Rally and we're always happy to have him visit. So I had the day off a few days back and asked him if he wanted to give fishing a go for one morning, not knowing if he w

Waters are warm these days, with being near the 80 degree mark and that has the fish going deep for the cooler waters. Fishing deeper water requires good electronics and an understanding of what they are showing you and how to fish that structure. One location that I have found, is a very small sunken island that is about the size of a boat, and is void of much vegetation because of the depth. Utilizing the SonarPhone Tpod with the Navionics application this has allowed for c