Page 58 MidWest Outdoors Wisconsin Section “Helping People Enjoy the Outdoors” June 2011 market. I personally have been using it since 1994. Sight Fishing: Smallmouth Bass Deciding to use added weight to your presentation is determined by how much wind there is and clarity of the water. By using a small split shot at the head of And Plastic Worms your worm, you will have better accuracy casting and your bait will descend faster BY JOHN ANDREW Fence Lake, Lake Minocqua, Pokegama worm is only six inches long and has a into the strike zone. In clear water, a slow The Angler’s Choice Guide Lake, Katherine Lake and Crab Lake are straight, narrow shape, like a pencil. This dropping non-weighted worm seems to all located in northern Wisconsin and are is a very hard-to-pass-up meal to the create more strikes. The added weight It was opening day for muskie fishing, great smallmouth fisheries. Remember, smallmouth bass. When the bass only will also allow you to slowly jig the bait and we were casting large 10-inch Slug- this works on other lakes as well, such pecks at your worm and you set the hook, back to the boat, or use a slow, steady Os along the northwest shoreline of Lake as: Lake Holiday, Lake Wild Wood, you have a much higher hooking percent- retrieve. Tomahawk, in northern Wisconsin. As we LaSalle Lake, Lake Thunderbird, age. There are a few primary colors we Sight fishing is best done at mid came in range of a double dock with a Heidecke Lake, Lake Michigan and sev- have found that work very well; these are morning to mid afternoon. Yes, you will boatlift, one of my clients made a long, eral other Illinois lakes. black on sunny or windy days, dark green catch fish sight fishing at other times of accurate cast between the boatlift and We search in shallow water from one at twilight or twitched on the surface at the day, but we do the best at this time- dock. He then set the hook and yelled to five feet deep, with the help of a pair of twilight, dark red on cloudy dark days frame. We like sunny, calm days as our out, “Got one!” To our amazement, what polarized sunglasses. The sunglasses cut and motor oil in the middle of a sunny top choice. The warmer days of spring, we thought was a muskie was a hard the glare off the top of the water, and day from noon to 3 p.m. You may catch and steady weather patterns—for exam- fighting and jumping, 22-inch small- allow you to see down a couple of extra smallmouth bass on other colors, but this ple: two, three, or four sunny days in a mouth bass. It was the biggest small- feet into the water. works for us. row—are our best times for success. Now, mouth on any lake, anywhere. After experimenting with several dif- We like to be very quiet and move when it is colder, cloudy and windier, we That was back in 1987. Over the next ferent baits, to entice a strike from these along slowly from spot to spot with our still use the same technique as described several days, we started using smaller shallow fish, I learned long ago that a ores or trolling motor. When we are with- above, but we move our baits much slow- Slug-Os and plastic worms on other lakes plastic worm and putting an extra hook in around 80 to 10 feet of our target, we er and use added weight. We also switch around docks, swim rafts, boatlifts, logs, inside the plastic worm, tied to the shank cast using our seven- to eight-foot-long colors throughout the day. boathouses and shoreline brush piles. We of the front hook, allowed us to land sev- St. Croix spinning rod and Diawa spin- As the water temperature warms up had great success, although we were los- eral more of our short striking bass. ning reel loaded with Berkley six-pound to the high 60s and low 70s, and people ing a lot of our strikes due to the single The plastic worm has made several Fire Line in the smoke color. We cast as begin swimming around our good bass hooked bait. advances over time, and now we like to close to, or slightly past, our intended areas, we do not venture too close. Mom As we learned over the years, spring- use a pre-made and pre-rigged, three- target. You must watch your line as close- and the kids do not like hooks around time, during the cool water time is a hook plastic worm. This worm has a hook ly as possible. If there is the slightest their space, so be respectful to other peo- great time to sight fish along the shore- in the head of the worm, then a second twitch on the line, you set the hook and ple enjoying the great outdoors. line for smallmouth bass. Several lakes hook in the middle, and a third hook reel fast, to bring the fish away from the You can contact John Andrew, at such as Trout Lake, Presque Isle Lake, located in the end of the worm. This cover you are casting towards. This www.theanglerschoiceguideservice.com, super-line, in my opinion, is the or at 715-892-3020. smoothest, farthest casting line on the Bliznik, Greear Win Cabela’s MWC Detroit Tournament Presented by the North American Fishing Club A slow-handed jigstroke with Berkley sively, but we were almost deadsticking,” Gulp! softbaits landed Greg Bliznik and said Greear. “We’d find bottom, then slow- Keith Greear, both of Brownstown, ly raise the jig a couple of inches.” Their Michigan, 43.49-pounds of walleye and top area was an 8 to 10-foot-deep flat pro- first place honors in the Cabela’s Masters truding into the main channel, Bliznik Walleye Circuit’s Detroit River Eastern noted. Jigs were tied direct to 10/4 Division season opener. Berkley FireLine Crystal. “It’s a great feeling to win on our home Bliznik and Greear collected the waters,” said Greear. Added Bliznik, $16,350 first-place check for their efforts, “We’ve done well on the MWC before, but plus a $1,000 Cabela’s gift card through first place is what we’ve been fishing for, the Cabela’s Angler Cash program, $500 and we finally got it!” Given the tourna- Berkley Baits prize package, and a ment’s Motor City setting, it was fitting portable Oxygenator unit. Jeff Vereeke of that the six year Circuit veterans are Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Joe sponsored by the United Auto Workers Lockman of Middleville, Michigan, fin- Region 1A. Bliznik works at the Ford ished in second with 41.85 pounds, earn- Auto Alliance Plant in Flat Rock, ing $6,820 plus the $1,000 Ranger Cup Michigan. award, and $500 Lowrance HDS/Elite The team jigged 1/2-ounce chartreuse DSI contingency. Bob Devine and Steve and orange leadheads armed with Velte won the $300 Worldwide Marine stinger hooks, and tipped with smelt-pat- Insurance contingency for being the high- tern Berkley Gulp! softbaits and min- est placing team to request a quote prior nows. “Other teams were jigging aggres- to the tournament. In all, the top 22 teams shared the $58,240 cash purse, plus thousands in contingencies and $4,910 in Big Fish Pot winnings. Day One was marked by a great bite as the 112 teams brought 485 walleye weighing a total of 3,047.69 pounds to the MWC scale—of which a full 91 percent were released alive back into the river. Day Two was cancelled due to strong west winds and resulting low water lev- TELEVISION els at the Elizabeth Park Marina, making the ramps unusable. “It’s extremely disappointing not to NOW AIRING ON get our teams out on the water on Day Two, especially given the fantastic bite Charter Media on the river,” said MWC executive direc- tor Dan Johnson. “Our on-site tourna- Wisconsin ment director, Dan Palmer and local site coordinator Danny Bloxem, reviewed all the options and we had no choice but to Channel 87 call the tournament. We are already working with our Angler Advisory Panel members to schedule a bad-weather day for our return to this great destination in 2012. We thank all of our MWC anglers Tuesday | Thursday | Sunday for fishing this tournament with us, and the Downriver Walleye Federation volun- 8:30 PM teers for making it possible.” With the mighty Detroit yielding world class numbers of walleye, 81 teams tallied five fish MWC limits. Big fish of For a complete list of air times in your area the tournament was an 11-pound behe- visit moth brought in by Dave Schmidt and midwestoutdoors.com Mark Zillges, both of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The catch earned the team $2,560 for first place in the Big-Fish Pot..