Raw Tournament

[hillbillyflyshack]

My partner and I fished the Raw Tournament saturday but again the results were not what was expected however the day started with a real nice trout to start with but alas lost it at the boat and it was downhill after that. What ever we tried was not working for a long time but we persevered and finally caught some fish later in the day but only three were worthy of weigh in so when it started raining we released what we had and came on in. Congratulations to the winners and fishermen that caught fish it was a blessed day but again not so much for us however will be looking forward to the Elfrink tournament and better luck. Don't like to admit it but even resorted to minnows and worms but results were miniscule at best will stick with artificial less mess.

[Phil Lilley]

 

[Phil Lilley]

All big rainbows were released in great shape.

Again, saw some very nice trout brought in.  Most of these were caught on jigs but the winners, I think they used night crawlers - not sure.

No browns weighed in... surprising.

[Seth]

@hillbillyflyshackno need to feel bad for using bait when it's legal. Dad is a bait guy and will fish bait from the back while I toss a jig when we fish RAW and he typically catches our biggest fish of the day. There is no denying that live bait catches nice fish. All of our weigh fish came on black jigs and sculpins. Our biggest was a 3.05 rainbow and it came on a black jig. Our numbers were still way down compared to normal, but we grinded it out all day in a few areas and it paid off for us again with a fourth place finish. We didn't fish clean and a couple late day mishaps likely cost us the #2 spot though.

We prefished a few hours on Friday with minnows and caught several nice fish between 1-2.5#. I don't think we ever boated a fish on a minnow Saturday though. Crawlers produced several fish for dad, but they were all 3/4# stockers.

@Phil Lilley the Kunz teams are sculpin fishermen. They anchor up and "catfish" them. We watched them do it last year and bring in that 16# bag of fish so we tried it ourselves for a while this year and it produced several nice fish for us as well. They were fishing directly across lake from us early and we watched them land one of their two big bows.

Lookin forward to the Elfrink in two weeks. I sure hope this weather breaks by then or it's going to be brutal out there! My boat is frozen up tight right now. Hatches are froze shut and it's covered in 1/2" of road slush. Too cold to do anything about it right now though.

[fshndoug]

No fun having a ice cube for a boat.

 

[Seth]

It's not the worst I've ever had a boat iced up. This was a few boats ago after we made it home from a Tablerock snagging trip one March.

[walleye4butch]

We fished the tourney saturday , my son and nephew fished together out of my old lund he bought from me. My buddy Duane and I fished my boat we were waiting for the takeoff and I mentioned to Tim his 2 stroke motor was smoking and drifting into our boat and maybe he should shut it off. Well he did and in fifteen minutes he couldn't get it started again, we left the takeoff on time without them behind us, Phils crew came to the rescue and helped him get it running { they worked 30 plus minutes many thanks to them} 45 minutes later they roared past us and anchored about 100 yards upstream from us. They weren't there 5 minutes and he hauled in a 4 pounder and a few minutes later my nephew had one a few ounces smaller. That settled them down and they brought in the 18 pound bag but not the big tourney fish that went to the 2nd place team. Duane and I ended up 3rd, we do fish sculpin, crwlers, corn, powerbait eggs and occasionally shad. Now the cats out of the bag thanks to all the guys we get hang around with before and after the tourney its fun to hang out and act like kids again thanks again to Phil and his crew they are first class and good people.

[hillbillyflyshack]

Thanks Seth for the feel good it is just that I am not a big fan of bait fishing not that I am against it but would rather catch them on some kind of artificial as apparently we are not to good at bait fishing must not have the patience needed. Hope to see you at the Elfrink tournament at weigh-in with us at the top...lol    Good luck to you then.

[Seth]

8 minutes ago, hillbillyflyshack said:

Thanks Seth for the feel good it is just that I am not a big fan of bait fishing not that I am against it but would rather catch them on some kind of artificial as apparently we are not to good at bait fishing must not have the patience needed. Hope to see you at the Elfrink tournament at weigh-in with us at the top...lol    Good luck to you then.

It seems contradictory, but I feel way more at home with a jig rod in my hand than bait fishing. I had to fiddle around with my hook and weight setups before I actually started catching fish. Dad likes to rib me about it since I always gave him crap for being a "lowly bait fisherman".

Good luck to you in the Elfrink as well. We always seem to struggle a little more in that Elfrink tourney that the Masters and RAW for whatever reason so we'll how it goes.

[Seth]

24 minutes ago, walleye4butch said:

We fished the tourney saturday , my son and nephew fished together out of my old lund he bought from me. My buddy Duane and I fished my boat we were waiting for the takeoff and I mentioned to Tim his 2 stroke motor was smoking and drifting into our boat and maybe he should shut it off. Well he did and in fifteen minutes he couldn't get it started again, we left the takeoff on time without them behind us, Phils crew came to the rescue and helped him get it running { they worked 30 plus minutes many thanks to them} 45 minutes later they roared past us and anchored about 100 yards upstream from us. They weren't there 5 minutes and he hauled in a 4 pounder and a few minutes later my nephew had one a few ounces smaller. That settled them down and they brought in the 18 pound bag but not the big tourney fish that went to the 2nd place team. Duane and I ended up 3rd, we do fish sculpin, crwlers, corn, powerbait eggs and occasionally shad. Now the cats out of the bag thanks to all the guys we get hang around with before and after the tourney its fun to hang out and act like kids again thanks again to Phil and his crew they are first class and good people.

I don't think you guys have much to worry about. We've fished around and watched your nephews two years in a row now and even tried the same techniques and didn't even come close to what they caught. If it were that simple, we'd all be hauling in mega bags of trout like them. I'm gonna try to talk dad in to fishing the Lazy Valley tourney this year. He's wanting to come back down and fish sculpins again. He's already buying better equipment just for that purpose lol. It was a pleasure talking with you guys at the weigh in. Hopefully we'll get to do it again her in a few weeks.