WWM We Need to Read your Breakdown

[Bill Babler]

Give us all the skinny on your marshalling. Looking forward to your thoughts. 

[WWM]

Lol sorry Bill and everyone, been busy since returning to work last week. Stage 6 was my 2nd event with BPT. We were back into somewhat COVID protocols, meaning we were going to be with the same guys all week for groups A and B. Group A I had Takahiro and group B was Jeff Sprague. 
 

I’ll start with Sprague, he had a mixed bag going day 1. Started off the morning fishing docks, mainly skipping a wacky rig into shade. He caught five, two plus pound largemouth in the first hour of the morning then it shut off. We left the dock deal after 2 hours of no bites and moved out to drop shot. From 12:30 to 4:30 had 11 offshore bites that were scoreable, all but two were small jaws. Quality of fish jumped up when we moved out. 7 of the 11 were over 3 lbs, biggest was 4-5 brownie and he lost a 5+ smallie (I swear it jumped 3 ft out of the water). Day one, 3rd place, 44-01… His day two, we ran straight to the offshore spot we sat first day and scraped up another 33-08 in the same manor with the drop shot to finish the round in 6th. Mostly smallie but did have a 4-13 largemouth (pictured). Jeff was a super nice guy, was willing to share nuggets of info and we had a good couple days on the water. I wasn’t with him knockout round but it looks like his area shut down since he only had 3 scoreable fish all day and finished 36th. He was fishing one bay, we didn’t move more than a mile or 2 in two days of fishing when I was with him. Guessing he eventually went looking in the knockout round, not ideal.
 

Tak- now this was fun! Each morning we had a one hour ride around period before lines in. Takahiro and I didn’t go very far the first morning so we had about 40 minutes to talk openly with no other competitors around. He said, he fished 25 hours of practice and found his marina bite in the last 30 minutes of the 2nd day of practice. He wasn’t sure if it was going to work out but didn’t have anything else, sooo… it ended up working for 2 days to get him to the knockout round. Caught 40 lbs each of the first 2 days. 90% of his fish came on a swim jig skipped under docks. Jighead was poured for him by Tom Monsoor, he ties the skirts, and menace was his trailer of choice on the jig. We were in a marina or fishing small private docks all three days. He wanted no part of going out and fishing deep. He kept saying, as long as the grass is clean and not snotted up (see picture of clean grass) the fish would be in the shade. Biggest bass I weighted for Tak actually tied for BB of the tourney at 5-14 (tied with Shaw).  His marina bite wasn’t enough in the knockout round, he finished 15th on the day 15lbs back from the cut and 17th overall for the tournament... Getting to spend three days on the water with a Classic champion was a real treat! Tak you are the man!

My thoughts on Champlain, what an unreal lake, just the total opposite of TRL! More times I felt like I was on the ocean and not a lake. The wind, I see why there is a million sail boats on the lake. We were lucky and only had 1 day that I would say it was “bad” but was still nothing for that body of water… I hope to go back one day and apply some knowledge! Beautiful area of the country!

Really enjoying getting to work with the MLF crew and help make this format happen. The men and women that work these events put in a lot of hard work and crazy long hours (weather delay day I was on boat from 7:15 am to 8pm). 

Last thing I’ll say is Wheeler. Love him or hate him, that guy ain’t going nowhere. His ability to find schools of fish and then get those fish to bite, is crazy. If you look at scoretracker insider on MLF website, the last 2 stages, his wins have almost solely been because of his quality of fish. He’s catching 3’s and 4’s while the other guys are catching 2’s and 3’s… Oh yeah, he just caught two in the time it took you to catch one, good luck. He will be a beast in the sport until I’m no longer doing it. 

Shoot out to MLF photographer Josh Gassmann for sending me some good pictures!

[Travis Swift]

I knnneeewwwww it, I knnneewwwww it .    Best classic champ line ever in my opinion.  Good write up! 

[Jerry Rapp]

really enjoyed the story.  Thanks.

[Bill Babler]

One of the best pictorial write ups we have ever had on this forum. Can't thank you enough. 

[pstone]

Thank you so much for sharing that summary of your time with Sprague and Tak.   That had to be an awesome time, although I know you guys work your tail off!   Tak seems like he would be a blast to spend a day with.   

[WWM]

19 hours ago, Travis Swift said:

I knnneeewwwww it, I knnneewwwww it .    Best classic champ line ever in my opinion.  Good write up! 

I hadn’t watched it in forever and so I went back before day 2 and watched again. Great finish!

My favorite thing that happened with Tak, on day 2 there is like 15 minutes left in the third period, I notice on scoretracker he is in 6th place, 1 ounce behind Shin Fukae. (He had asked me how Shin was doing throughout the day) So I say, Tak gonna hit you with a little update blah, blah, Shin Fukae is in 5th place 1 ounce ahead of you. He gets all serious about his casts, boat placement, and just starts catching out of nowhere. He caught 4 for 10 lbs in the last 15 minutes all while saying, “Dis for Shin” “Dis for Shin”… his drive to beat his friend and be able to talk smack took over I think. It was really fun 10-15 minutes. 

[WWM]

1 hour ago, Bill Babler said:

One of the best pictorial write ups we have ever had on this forum. Can't thank you enough. 

😳 Wow… that means a lot coming from you Sir! I will do another after St. Clair next month. 

[Quillback]

I agree, great write up!  

Well I see Mike McClelland is leading day 1.  Weights are pretty low overall, big change from the last tourney.

[cheesemaster]

10 hours ago, WWM said:

😳 Wow… that means a lot coming from you Sir! I will do another after St. Clair next month. 

Please do. I am already looking forward to it. Great read for sure.