Southwest Michigan Challenge Results

Pipestone Lake

5/27/2007

Everyone who decided to stay home because of the torrential rain missed out on catching huge Pipestone Lake bass.  There were a total of eight teams that decided to stay home because of the weather, I'm guessing.  The boats that did fish caught a bunch of monster bass.

The fishing was as good as I've ever experienced on Pipestone this morning.  Mike Rappette and I started the morning fishing for a couple nice size males guarding their nests. I found these bass the night before and I thought they would be easy to catch.  During the first hour of the tournament we caught each bass I previously found on the first cast with jigs, and senkos.   By 7:30 am we had a 15 pound limit in the livewell.  The rest of the day we caught random fish flippin the arrowheads and blind casting the inside weed edge.  We culled up to around 17 pounds.  With about and hour to go in the tournament Rappette made a cast up towards a huge bass by a dock.  It turned on his bait and engulfed it.  Mike had its head up out of the water trying to keep it out of the weeds when his line snapped.  It was at least a 5 pound fish!

 

Mike and I weighed in our bass first and they totaled 17 pounds 3 ounces and our biggest bass was 4 pounds 5 ounces.  I thought for sure we had it in the bag.

"The top water bite was on during the rainstorm," Chuck Nearpass said as he unloaded 5 giant bass into his weigh sack.

I thought to myself, "oh my, those are nice bass."

Chuck Nearpass and Scott Davis picked out their biggest bass to weigh first and it weighed in at 4 pounds 4 ounces.  Then they started unloading the rest of their bass to be weighed.  They had 4 more quality bass that weighed in at 17 pounds 13 ounces.  Chuck and Scott snuck by Mike and I to take home the first place prize.  Nice job fellas!

 

 

 

 17 pounds 3 ounces

 

 

 

17 pounds 13 ounces

 

 Magician Lake

July 21, 2007

Sorry about the technical difficulties the results page was experiencing!!!  They are better now.

 

It was a tough bite on Magician Lake for all but one boat that masterfully unlocked the secret.  It sounded like they found a very productive pattern while prefishing and they stuck to it all day.  Scott Solomon and Todd Kurita fished their way into first place with five bass that weighed in at 9 pounds, 3 ounces.  Mike Rappette and Krista Cvejic finished in second place with one giant bass that weighed 4 pounds, 1 ounce.  They also won the big bass prize with their hog.  Tournament first timers Terrell Morrison and Mike Mabry also caught one bass to finish in third place.  Nice job fellas and thanks for fishing!!!!

 

My father and I didn't do so well today and we were skunked.  We started the morning throwing poppers around a couple shallow weed beds.  We caught a couple short fish but nothing over 14 inches.  When the sun started to heat up we started fishing docks and other shallow cover.  Again, I caught only short fish.  With and hour to go we started cranking and fishing tube jigs over deep weeds.  Still we only caught short bass!!!  With a half hour to go the feeling of failure started to set in and I knew we were going to get skunked.  I still had a very enjoyable time fishing with my father.  I'm not sure what we could have done differently to catch a couple keepers. 

Paw Paw Lake

August 18, 2006

It was a chilly start to today,s tournament on Paw Paw Lake but the field was eager to catch some bass.  Lately Paw Paw Lake has been on fire.  It's has been taking at least 16-17 pounds to win a tournament.  The bite wasn't quit as good today but a couple limits were still caught.  In fact it was the closest finish I've been a part of this season.

I fished with Mike Rappette today and we targeted docks all day long.  We were able to catch a limit within the first couple of hours and cull the rest of the day.  The problem we were having was actually catching a bigger fish that would cull one of our small ones out.  We were catching plenty of keepers but none of them were bigger then the ones we had. 

With an hour or so to go we did manage to upgrade one bass.  It was pretty cool!!!  I skipped a jig under a dock and I felt a bite.  Right when I set the hook I received a phone call and the Notre Dame fight song played while I was fighting a 3 pound bass to the boat.  It was like I had theme music.

In first place today were Nick Armes and Bob Luttke with an impressive sack weighing 11 pounds 15 ounces.  Mike Rappette and I came in a close second place with five bass weighing 11 pounds 13 ounces.  The big bass champions were Terrell Morrison and Mike Mabry with a 3 pound 2 ounce Paw Paw Lake hog.  Nice job everyone!!!

 

St. Joe River

9/22/2007

It was a bright sunny morning on the Joe with a brisk wind blowing from the North.  The lake had 8 ft waves today so everyone was locked into the river.  It was tough for four of the five boats but John Gipson Sr. and John Gipson Jr. whacked'em.  They came in with a very impressive sack of smallies to win today's tournament.

I fished with Mike Rappette today and we had a tough time getting on track.  We burned sandbars all day long looking for a school of smallies.  We caught tons of dinks but no keepers for the first five and a half hours.  Finally with 20 minutes to go we found a school of bass and managed to catch one keeper.  Thank goodness we didn't get skunked.  I guess the bass weren't on sand bars today.

Like I said at the beginning, "Gipson Sr. and Jr slaughtered five huge smallies".  They blew out the field by bringing in five smallmouth bass that weighed 17 pounds, 11 ounces.  Their biggest bass was 4 pounds 6 ounces.  They claim there biggest bass came off next to the boat!!!!  What a day and great job.

 

St. Joe River (Benton Harbor)

October 13, 2007

 

Well it's in the books and it was amazing!!  The weather was perfect for the SMC Classic on the Benton Harbor stretch of the St. Joe River.  It was a little chilly in the morning with temps around forty degrees but it warmed up to about sixty by 2:00 pm.  The fishing was incredible for two of the four boats that fished but tough for the other guys.  The fish were very picky and were set up in the middle of the river on logs and other current breaks.  The smallies were only bunched up in two areas of the river and were waiting to move up.  The two boats that found these areas brought in huge sacks of Lake Smallies.  First place was determined by ounces.

 

Ron Nelson was my partner for this event and we keyed in on transition areas in deep water with little current and wood.  We were using small crayfish baits tied on 6 pound Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon.  I started the day off on a good note when I hooked and landed a 3 pound 8 ounce smallies on my second cast towards our magic log in 22 ft of water.  Ron followed it up with a very fat 4 pound 8 ounce smallmouth.  We caught around eight 2-3 pound smallies off of our magic log to give us 15 pounds with seven hours to fish.  We needed to find upgrades and cull out our 2-3 pound fish.  I caught the first upgrade that weighed around four pounds and our second upgrade that also weighed just under 4 pounds by randomly casting behind logs.  Ron caught our last upgrade off a rock pile in the middle of the river that weighed 3 pounds 5 ounces.  By 10:30 am we had over 18 pounds in the livewell.  Our goal for the remainder of the tournament was to catch a giant but we never did.  Overall we caught 20-30 keepers that weighed in at 18 pounds 14 ounces.

 

I thought we had the tournament in the bag with our 18 pound 14 ounce sack but John Gipson Sr. and his partner had a beautiful surprise waiting in their livewells.  Gipson Sr. and his partner brought in an amazing sack of beautiful Lake Smallies to be remembered.  They weighed in five smallies that went 19 pounds 8 ounces!!!!  Their big bass was a pig bellied 4 pound 10 ounce smallmouth bass.  They won first place and big bass.  What a tournament!!      

  

19 pounds 8 ounces

18 pounds 14 ounces