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Location: Rhinelander | AM:
Three hundred boats headed out onto Winnebago at 6:20 this morning...and then headed right back in as a large thunderstorm cell moved into the area sporting lightning and heavy rain. It'll be awhile before the field will be allowed on the water, abbreviating the last day of the Merc National.
Day one leaders Matt Jacobson and Jim Hughes aren't worried about the weather; they feel their fish will be there no matter. They are worried about getting enough bites, though, as they are fishing transitioning post spawn fish and the action is very slow. They only had 5 bites yesterday, but stuck them all. They refer to their weight yesterday as 'lucky', but hope to repeat despite the tough conditions so far today.
PM:
The rain, thunder, and generally horrible weather closed down the Walleye Weekend Festival due to rough weather and lightning, flooded green areas, and soaked playing fields and tracks, but opened up a hot bite for some of the Teams who stuck it out and fished through the bad weather. The skies broke just long enough to get the weigh in completed, as storms moved through the area the rest of the late afternoon and evening. In the end, Daniels and Saunders took the win with two solid 17 pound plus baskets, edging out Jim Hughes and Matt Jacobson by just under 2 pounds.
Greg Golliher and Joe Robl took third, Ronald Goldapske and Dave Knueppel took fourth, and Brian Keller and James Keller took fifth.
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Location: Waukesha Wisconsin | WOW I have a feeling that there will be lots of stories shared after this one. How many people raced from the storms cells? How many were unhappy to be sent out on day 2 only to be returned? I hear that they closed the park yesterday. Good call with all the ugly storm cells in the area. Hope everyone got back okay without damage. Did they stop the weigh in or keep going? I hear that many came back very early to weigh. Was that because of the weather or early limits or both?
What a disparity of weights and catches. Leaders come in with 21.59 and there were 133 boats with either a zero or one fish. Congrats to Jimmy Hughes and his partner on a GREAT first day catch. Jimmy is a class act and knows that system as well as anyone else. You were due my friend. Hope you keep it going. Troy Saunders is/has been one of those young guns rising to the top for a few years now. Glad to see you in thick of things. You'll make a BIG impact before this one is done. Some very good sticks from WalleyeFIRST that had a real tough time out there. Again, looking for the details and the stories. It had to miserable for some. Great coverage by WalleyeFIRST, but that is no surprise. You guys rock! |
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Location: Waukesha Wisconsin | I hope everyone is safe! Too many friends in this tournament not to concerned. Any reports Steve?
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| Just spoke with Jim Coon and he relayed that the flights were delayed approximately 1 hour. Weigh-in times for today remain the same. |
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Location: Appleton wi | Mmmm interesting! jimmy hughes,greg golliher,joe robl,keith daniels all in top 3 spots. looks like live bait and jigging is putting some nice fish in the baskets! cant wait to see today results! |
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Location: Rhinelander | Day Two Album is complete, video number one is UP, Daniels and Saunders WIN.
http://upload.outdoorsfirst.com/watch.asp?id=971 |
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Location: Berlin | Brutal, that is all can say as far as the weather. I have not been this sore from fishing in a long time. Congrats to the top ten, you earned it. Amazing how many times you see those names in the top ten!
A big thanks to Zach and Steve for covering this event through the horrible weather. Awesome coverage! Thanks guys. |
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Location: Waukesha Wisconsin | 32nd place is not too shabby either Rich. I know that you always want to do better but congrats. YOU should be proud. The common comment that I hear from everyone that fished this one is "brutal". Care to elaborate? One good friend indicated that they stayed close to one of the many harbors on Sunday in case they had to bail. Those were some very nice baskets from the top 5 in very tough conditions. |
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Location: Berlin | It was just the weather. It was always at one extreme or another. At no point did we say "Man, this sure is a nice day to go fishing!"
You know how it is, the wind, waves, thunder, lightning and long drives in a tough bite just suck the life out of you. I can't even walk straight right now. In other words...BRUTAL |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | wow , brutal,,, yes on your mind! just go fishing i was thinkin,, it was tuff, for me.. went threw only about 20 fish this weeken and 6 to the scale... sunday held us up and we went out almost last on sat and almost first sunday . we caught back up to the storm as we ran north that they held us up for . if we could have gotten out in front of it.. oh well... never know, our fish at best coulda put us in the top 10 maybe.. 20 lb catches woulda been hard to get on the east shore maybe next to impossible , 2 days ya.. i dont know anyone who stayed dry but it was warm out at least.. CONGRADULATIONS KIETH AND TROY,, YOUNG GUNS , DID YOU HEAR THAT ! YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN CASHING CHECKS AND BUILDING A PLYWOOD COLLECTION FOR TEN YEARS AND THEY STILL CALL YA YOUNG GUNS! GREAT JOB !!!!!!! BRAD.. oh ya , sunday was nuts.. trying to anchor up wind from on litte rock pile to the next,, just get set up and the wind changes... you cant even reach the little rock pile your trying to fish.. then you would pull up , move to the other side.. and the wind would switch agian.. i dont think i was ever more frustrated in my life... this went on for 3 hours... and with a morning bit till about ten thirty and the clock ticken i fell appart like a cardboard box in a rain storm.. oh well , maybe next year... mwc next for me
Edited by bradley894 6/9/2008 9:41 AM
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Location: Orland Park, IL | great work guys in some terrible conditions. |
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| I certainly learned a couple things:
1) Just how far my Lund can go on a tank of gas
2) Bilge pumps are relatively important when you get 3" of rain
3) You can catch rockbass trolling
4) Don't throw back legal fish (this one is pretty important)
5) Why they call it "Stinky Point" (WOW, I don't think all that brown water was from mud...) |
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Location: LaCrosse, WI | I learned a few things as well.
1.) I'm tough on equipment.
2.) The whitebass on Winnebago really like my "Hot-Color" crankbaits.
3.) I can jump 5 feet from a moving boat to a pile of rocks in the rain without killing myself (Barely).
4.) I now know what it feels like to be shot with 5,000,000 bb's in a half hour (the Sunday morning ride)
5.) Dave taught me that you can't stop a sheephead fishermen from catching sheephead, even in a Walleye tournament.
6.) LaCrosse isn't the only part of the state that has a nice selection of Mullets, Skullets, and Femullets
7.) If you look up at 40mph, your hat will fly off into the lake.
8.) You're probably in for a long day when you cast and your slack line rises 15' into the air and hangs there.
9.) You can turn a pair of KSwiss into aquasocks in about 30 minutes if you really try.
All in all, it was still fun. I had a good time despite the weather. I'm sure my chiropractor will be buying a Merc with all the money I pay him after this weekend.
Edited by GNWC Rookie 6/9/2008 12:59 PM
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| Didn't agree with the decision of letting us go out on the 2nd day. By the time we got about 3 miles south of oshkosh we had to stop cause of the heavy rain, couldn't see anymore. lighting and rumblin all mornin, what were they thinkin???? I realize they didn't want to make it a one day tourny but they should think of safety first!! when they did anounce they were gonna leave us go they only gave a 10 minute warning, took us more than 20 minutes to get out of the channel with all the boats in there!! So instead of being in the first 25 boats to leave that morning, we ended up mid flight by the time we got to the pontoon. Some bad decisions by the directors!!!!!!!  |
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Location: Southwest shore Bago | I was there on shore and timed the release. They started to let the field go at 7:10a.m. at 7:23a.m. the field was gone with the exception of three boats. One quit and two were told to hurry out as the two release boats were about to head back in. All teams must check out at the release boat or with the director before they leave. Some were asking to be let out sooner. Cant please all 600 fishers I guess. But they sure do try hard.  |
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| So buckwheat u say i am not right about the timing that this all went down?? Nt tryin to start anything just stating what went down. 4 years ago they held us and gave us a launch time and that was great just wish they would of gave us the same warnin thas time!! |
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| Over on lake-link under the winnebago thread there is a post about two coolers found floating in winnebago last weekend that had live walleyes in it. Is there any truth to this or is it hearsay? Not sure if people planned on entering those fish in a tournament or not.... |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | holy crap !!!!!!!!!!! i just went over there and checked it out... looks like someone went threw a lot of trouble to build these coolers.... and if its a hoax went threw a lot of trouble to do the post.. sounds to me that there is a team in the 300 boat field that is getting a bit sneaky! (understatement) or another tournament over the weekend. UNREAL! says the dnr was all over this one. and there was talk at the tournament about it... i dint hear any talk about it ... although i was sitting in the corner crying because of the small catch i had ... said all large fish inside , and one cooler had 2 6lbrs in it.. whats up? there is a photo of the cooler they found check it out ll fishing report board for baggo. has latches on it and everything....
Edited by bradley894 6/13/2008 1:01 PM
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Location: Rhinelander | We heard nothing about this either. |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | test test
(Cheaters_06132008105640.jpg)
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| I can't believe anyone so stupid could actually catch two 6 pound fish to put IN the cooler......
That's a pretty distinctive cooler, can't be too many of those around. Somebody must have seen that thing before. |
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| Sounds like some river tourny guys are expanding out into the lake tourny's to me  |
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Location: LaCrosse, WI | I remember hearing similar stories a few years ago. From what I remember, the fish they DQ'd in an event on Bago looked an awful lot like Bay fish (shorter and thicker), and they looked pretty pale and like they'd been there for a while.
I also remember hearing rumors of two of the top 3 or 4 teams getting DQ'd from the Merc one year (probably 10-15 years ago). I hate to say it, but if you put 300 teams in one event, there's bound to be some bad apples.
I really hope they find out who did this and ban them from all tournaments for life. Tournament Walleye fishing has a hard enough road ahead of it without cheats. Thanks to all involved for helping bringing these items to everbodies attention.
Making sure that people know about these things, and that people are on the lookout for this kind of activity is the only way of preventing it. |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | ok so what your saying is that if i want to compete on baggo and beat the guys pre-fishing the river for otterstreet and the mwc , im going to need my big white lake michigan cooler and im going to need to do all my pre-fishing on the bay of green bay. or erie? i didnt budget for that? these tournaments are gettting too expensive!!!!!!!!!! although i never thaught about putting those nice little latches on my night crawler cooler.. i always forget to spin it around in the back of the boat and the lid always blows open... anyway , any chance there is some DNA on that cooler? |
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Location: Berlin | I have not heard anything about any of this. Just another rumor. |
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