McKee, Kramer repeat

After a strong showing on Lake Washington in which three-time defending champs Stu McKee and Roger Kramer posted a four-fish weigh-in over 13 pounds, the duo followed up with a two fish, 13 pound 3.8 ounce showing at Madison Lake.

The duo also won the big-fish prize for Madison, pulling in a walleye topping the scale at 8 pounds, 4.3 ounces. The top billing pushes the duo into first place, ahead of Dan Griep and Bill Holland, who didn't boat a fish at Madison Lake.

Second place went to Chris Roemhildt and Dan Bunde, who netted two fish for a 3-pound, 6.6-ounce stringer. Third place went to Lloyd Tru and Ron Patterson, who weighed one fish at 3 pounds, 2.9 ounces.

Tim Hobbs, who helps organize the tournaments, said 21 boats registered for Tuesday's Madison Lake tournament with 38 anglers participating, a good number considering the rainy weather.

"After the first 45 minutes, it wasn't too bad," Hobbs said.

Next up, the walleye tourney heads to Lake Jefferson, which brings me to my next thought.

Big Jefferson
Went out fishing Thursday with my brother-in-law, Dave. We really wanted to mix things up and try a lake we don't normally fish, so we headed out to Big Jefferson (East Jeff for those of you still confused).

I'd heard the rumors of overgrown weeds and the difficulty the weeds were causing anglers, but until I saw it, there was no way to really understand how bad it has gotten.

If we were in 5 feet of water, there would be 6 feet-plus of weeds. Thirteen feet of water, 13 feet of weeds. In close, out deep, the weeds were everywhere.

We spent the first three hours battling the weeds and finding pockets to fish through. Dave, being a master of the mimic minnow (he contends there is a special skill for using this lure that involves twitching and jerking, something a straight retrieve can't mimic), hooked into a couple of stripers before catching a small walleye.

For me, nothing but a bullhead. Needless to say, the frustration level was high, so much so that even I tied on a mimic minnow, which led to my first largemouth of the outing.

The struggle got so bad that I'd contemplated calling it a day, and anyone who knows me knows I hate to leave a lake. With little hope for the lake and with a big list of complaints growing in my head (something I intended to vent about here in this blog), I suggested to Dave it was time to throw on a scum frog.

"Well, you better do it soon, cause we're running out of daylight," Dave said.

With the invitation, I tied on the old scum frog, more so because I just wanted to throw a lure that I wasn't going to pick weeds out of.

Within a minute I lost a bass. Within five minutes I had two bass on. During those last waning moments of daylight, I managed to pull in five bass, all pretty decent in size and all very violent on the bite.

What went from a horrible outing on Big Jeff turned into a pretty tasty day on the lake. I just wonder if we would have caught bass all day had we switched to that presentation earlier.