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Message Subject: Mississippi Sweet and Sour Saugers

Rick Larson

Posted 9/29/2003 4:13 PM (#8274)
Subject: Mississippi Sweet and Sour Saugers

Actually, the Saugers we caught the second, and final day of the MWC Lake Pepin Tournament were the sweet. The sour award goes to my MWC partner for the event - Pete Huibregtse - who had a very tough contest.

And believe me, I suffered right alongside my veteran MWC partner! For starters, the cold winds that dominated our 5 days on Lake Pepin, made for miserable fishing conditions and discouraged the walleyes from grabbing our baits. This was reflected in our take of one legal walleye in 3 days of pre-fishing practice.

Since we had no success during those 3 days, we fished what my good friend and former touring pro, Ralph Brunner, would describe as "fishing memories". My very sturdy veteran partner does have alot of these memories and this is where we were forced to draw our strategy from.

The first day's catch of 2 "memory" fish - one caught vertical jigging and the other casting cranks to the shoreline - was good enough for us to claim the 61st position. This not only kept us in the game, but moved us up the championship standings from the outside position of 44th place to the inside one of 36th.

That left just one more day of fishing to obtain our goal of making the championship!

Nighttime found us talking at length planning our strategy for that final day of the contest. And we didn't talk much about catching walleyes. The conversation kept our fingers circling around and pointing to the area on the map Pete would call "the Sauger Sweet Spot".

And that is where we spent most of the day trolling lead core line. Straight from the boat as it was important to the fish in keeping our clown shad raps and red wally divers pounding the bottom.

Now I do need to descibe something a bit more personal about Pete than would normally want to do. He had a very sour day of fishing and wasn't much help to the cause. All day he fought with tangled lines as his short 7.5 foot rods just didn't have the reach like my 10 footers did. Couldn't even tell you how many times he had to deal with this, but it seemed like he didn't get much fishing in.

But one thing that was certain through-out the day, Pete just furrowed that brow of his and never gave up. He would get to the job of fixing his rigs back up and fishing. Even at the last 10 minutes of the contest he set about untangling a line as if he could get that rod back in the water before we had to leave.

As I busied in getting the boat readied for the speed ride back to check-in, that stubborn fool was holding the rod out the side of the boat and was letting the line out to fish those final 2 minutes. Really do think never say die is a good attitude, but for 2 minutes?

When I heard him call for the net, it was my brow that furrowed. As I turned to react to this quip, his tense pose and clenched fists drew my gaze to a solid bend in that rod! And when the fish surged and took line from the reel, I snapped to attention like a private in the 3rd day of boot camp!

Really was startled by that 3 pound Sauger as it popped from that muddy Mississippi water. As my eyes looked upon that fat fish laying on the floor of the boat, I realized for the second tournament in a row this lucky partner of mine pulled a money fish up with time expiring!

This money fish, along with another fat sister and 2 nice walleyes, did win us an $800 payment for 25th place, and awarded us our goal of a spot on next year's MWC Championship Roster!

Edited by Rick Larson 9/29/2003 5:53 PM

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