8/13/11 - Fishers of Men Legacy Series, Heartland Division, Lake Ida
Teamed with 13-year old Charlie Peterson of Bemidji for this tournament.  Started our day in the area Bucky Scholl and I had caught lots of fish last week.  No bites!  Headed to our second area where the bite was much better.  Wasn't long before we had our tournament 5-fish limit including a couple "good ones".  Around 9 AM, Charlie landed a 16 3/4-incher that allowed us to cull out a "rat" and really upgraded our weight.  With a pretty good limit in the boat, we went hunting for a "kicker" in the shallows and also tried a smallmouth spot.  Both attempts were fruitless.  Late in the day, we returned to our good spot from earlier where we were able to upgrade with a 3-pounder on a Jungle Jig-Worm tipped with a new Impulse Dip-Stick Worm.  Charlie and I ended our day with a 5-fish limit weighing 13.24-pounds, good for the 4th place check.  Fun day, with a good stick!  Thanks Charlie!! 

7/24/11 - Alex Chain - Excel Bass
Filled in for my buddy Travis Peterson for the Excel Bass event fishing with Trav's brother, Craig Peterson.  Two days of pre-fishing yielded good catches.  The challenge, as always on the "chain",would be to find 2-pounders with a couple of kickers.  Our tourney day started with us fishing spinnerbaits, swimjigs, and Jungle Jigs.  We put a limit in the boat fairly early and continued to upgrade our catch throughout the day.  However, the 16-plus inch fish we had caught the day before on jigs were elusive.  Late in the day we returned to our most productive pre-fish area and Craig caught a 16 3/4-incher by switching to a new Impulse Dip-Stick bait.  I changed to the same bait and quickly put a twin in the livewell.  Just before weigh-in Craig lost a quality fish when it simply came unhooked on the way to the boat!  Frustrating as we finished in 9th place and could have jumped up several places with another good fish.  17 1/2-pounds is a good day on the "chain" but left us with that "what if" feeling!


2011 Mike partnered with Bucky Scholl to compete in the Alexandria area "Reel Team" bass tournament circuit:
Here's a season re-cap:

6/4/11 -  Alex Chain
Bucky and I started our day in Lake Victoria fishing shallow - docks and trees.  We found fish, but most not the size we needed to compete for a check in this early season event.  Later we fished LHD and finally hit Darling at the end of the day.   Darling prodcued most of our weigh-in catch which totalled just under 15-pounds putting us in 13th place.  Not a check, but keeping us in the hunt for the end-of-the-year Tourney of Champions (top 10 teams by season total weights).  Most of our fish came on finesse style Jungle Bug Jigs and Dip-Stick Worms. 

7/9/11 - Lake Minnewaska
We drew boat #6 for the tourney and were "pumped" for this event as we had located a school of quality largemouth the weekend before.  Unfortunately, our day didn't start well as Buck's engine didn't start and we lost an hour-and-a-half and our hotspot.  We rallied however to catch just under 19-pounds good for 8th place and gift certificate prizes.  More importantly, the finish moves us into 10th in the year-long standings.  We caught fish on various presentations, our biggest was a 3 3/4-pound largemouth that ate a 5/8-ounce Jungle Jig.  Bucky also caught a 3-plus largie and a good smallie in the last hour on a Dip-Stick worm fished jig-worm style. 


8/6/11 - Lake Ida
Can you say frustrated! Our last Reel Team tourney today and Bucky and I experienced boat troubles again that cost us the first 1 1/2-hours of the day for the second tourney in a row, amazing! Buck had his engine repaired after our last tourney and it has run flawless since, but once again wouldnt start today.  If it wasnt for bad luck, we'd have none. 
Nevertheless we called on the LUND walleye boat as a backup again and had a pretty good catch, just under 19 pounds.  We finished about 15th though official results arent posted yet.   Our catch came on 5/8- and 7/8-ounce Jungle Jigs and also on the new IMPULSE Dip-Stick Worms.  A horrendous rain storm complete with thunder, lightning mid-day shut down the jig bite and we went to the IMPULSE fished on Jungle Jig-Loc's.  We made long casts to heavy weed clumps and fished them very slowly on spinning rods with the new Bionic Bass Braid.  This was the ticket, as we were able to upgrade our catch, with two of our largest fish coming in the last half hour. 
However, the bad news is we finished in 11th place in the season long standings with 52 and 1/4-pounds for the season and missed the top ten championship tourney by one place and 1/4-pound.  Ouch!!