What's that stink?!

Some people may think the stink coming from Big Jefferson is the blue-green algae that has dominated the lake.

But after Tuesday's walleye tournament on the eastern half of the Jefferson Lakes chain, the smell might actually be attributed to the skunk the anglers left behind.

That's right. Not a single walleye was caught during last Tuesday's tournament, something that hasn't happened in some time.

"I think we've gone two years without catching anything," Tim Hobbs said. "It does make it interesting though because it basically double the pot for German Lake."

Basically, Hobbs said the tournament money paid in for Big Jeff carries over to German Lake, where a variety of things could happen. If only one team is lucky enough to catch fish and win the German Lake tournament, that team would win all of the money carried over from Big Jeff plus first place in the German tournament. The second and third place prizes from German would then carry over.

No matter what, the money from Jeff will be paid out provided someone catches fish at German. Even if multiple teams catch fish, that money will be paid accordingly from the first tournament.

Stu McKee and Roger Kramer lead the Tuesday Nite Walleye Tourneys for top team. Unofficially, they have registered 30 points. Bill Holland and Dan Griep, week 1 winners, trail McKee and Kramer by a point and are situated at 29 points.

There are four tournaments left in the season before the year-end tournament. With a return to Washington, I think the top prize is still pretty wide open. McKee and Kramer took in four walleyes at Washington, one less than Holland and Griep, but their total weight was nearly 2 pounds more than Holland and Griep.

I imagine Washington, unless something drastic happens on German, will be where this season's top team is decided. But still, four tournaments are a lot, and anything can happen.

Weed control

Hobbs said, surprisingly, that a lot of the weed cover at Big Jefferson has either died off or been cut down. He said weeds weren't the issue with the anglers this past Tuesday, but he couldn't place a finger on what attributed to the slow bite.

Having not seen the lake in nearly two weeks, I'm not sure what to think. Generally in July we see a lot of area lakes start to shed some of the weeds that give us trouble in late spring and early summer, so Hobbs comment that the weeds weren't bad shouldn't be too surprising.

But the mass of weeds I saw on that lake has me surprised that the die-off is happening so quickly. And I'm a little unsure about the weeds being cut, because as I've stated before, if we were in 13 feet of water, we were in 13 feet of weeds. Who's out in the deeper stuff cutting the weeds?

I wouldn't be, that' for sure. But I know near shore, several property owners have been cutting and raking weeds, which must be a pain in the you know what. Weeds will always be a part of fishing, good, bad or otherwise. 

But those weeds ... well that's not right.