2006 SMC Tournament Results

2006 Southwest Michigan Challenge Results

Pipestone Lake

5/27/2006

Today was the first Southwest Michigan Challenge Tournament on Pipestone Lake. It was a very foggy morning that turned into a hot and sweltering day. There were 12 boats that showed up to fish the tournament. This was the perfect number of boats for Pipestone Lake any more would have been to many. The morning top water bite was on fire. Rich and I had a limit of bass by 8:00 am. Throughout the day bass were moving up to their beds to spawn. Although the fish were fussy we managed to aggravate a couple into biting by swimming small plastic worms right by their nose. We culled out 3 of our top water fish to help out our total weight. Rich and I ended up catching 15 lbs 7 oz to narrowly take home the victory. It was a tough tournament to win. Rob Frabiszak and Rob Freshour also caught a limit of bass weighing 15 lbs 7 oz. The tie was broken by which teams big bass was biggest. Luckly my partner Rich caught a 3 lb 11 oz largemouth to break the tie. Brian Spear and C.R. Gooding also caught 5 bass weighing in at 11 lbs 14 oz to take home 3rd place. 26 total bass were caught and all were released alive. The next tournament is on Paw Paw Lake and we will be launching from the Watervliet Ramp.

Team	# Bass	Big Bass	Total Weight	Place	$$$$$
Charleston/Hahaj	5	3 lbs 11oz	15 lbs 7 oz	1	$350.00
Frabiszak/Freshour	5	3 lbs 7 oz	15 lbs 7 oz	2	$180.00
Spear/Gooding	5	3 lbs 10 oz	11 lbs 14 oz	3	$120.00
Smucker/Bowman	3	3 lbs 8 oz	8 lbs 8 oz	4
Flotow/Walls	3	2 lbs 13 oz	7 lbs 2 oz	5
Leech/Horavath	2	3 lbs 5 oz	6 lbs 1 oz	6
Greenman/Frick	2		5 lbs 5 oz	7
Davis/Nerpess	1	2 lbs 8 oz	2 lbs 8 oz	8
Nelson/Wilfert	0		0	9
Small/Maggert	0		0	9
Klingerman/ Partner ?	0		0	9
Williamson/Backus	0		0	9

Paw Paw Lake

June 3rd, 2006

It was another beautiful morning that turned into a phenomenal day at Paw Paw Lake. The spawn was still running strong but you could find pre-spawn and post spawn fish. Rich and I started the morning throwing top water over a coulple spawners that we knew were on beds. No takers. Once the sun was out and we could see into the water we started sight fishing. We fished for a coulple huge 5 lbers locked on beds early but we couldn't aggravate them enough to bite. The males on the other hand we very aggresive and were easy to catch. The only problem was they were only 1-2 lbers. Rich and I decided to start blind casting wacky worms around the docks to get a post spawn female to eat. This didn't work either we still only caught males. We had our limit by 9:30 but it wasn't much, 9.10 lbs. We needed a big fish so we put our trolling motor on high and started looking. We couldn't find a big fish anywhere. We did find a couple decent 2-3 lb males guarding fry. They were easy to catch and raised our total up to 10.10 lbs. Going into the weigh in Rich and I knew it was going to be a shootout because the males were so active. The winner was going to have to of caught a big fish.

The weigh in was everything that we predidcted. Five of boats brought a limit to the scales and almost every boat caught bass. In fourth place Mark Flotow and Randy Walls brought five bass to the scales that weighed 9 lbs 13 oz. In third place was Scott Davis and Chuck Nearpass with 10 lbs 1 oz. Squeaking into second place by 1 oz was Rich Charleston and Justin Hahaj with 10 lbs 2 oz after a dead fish penalty. In first place was Nelson and Goosey with a grand total of 15 lbs 7 oz after two dead fish penaltys. Nelson and Goosey also took home big bass with a 3 lb 6 oz largemouth. Congratulations to the winners and will see you July 15 on Magician Lake.

Team	# Bass	Big Bass	Total Weight	Place	$$$$
Nelson/Goosey	5	3 lbs 6 oz	15lbs 7 oz	1	$240
Charleston/Hahaj	5	2 lbs 11oz	10 lbs 2 oz	2	$120
Davis/Nearpass	5	2 lbs 14oz	10 lbs 1 oz	3	$80
Flotow/Walls	5	2 lbs 12oz	9 lbs 13 oz	4
Lieberg/Kolenko	5	2 lbs	8 lbs 3 oz	5
Powell/Michlski	3	3 lbs 1 oz	7 lbs	6
Blake	2		3 lbs 7 oz	7
Williamson/Backus	0	0	0	8

Magician Lake

July 15, 2006

Sweltering heat and unrelenting boat traffic couldn't stop John Gipson Jr. and Jim Weaver at Magician Lake. It was a tough bite for most anglers on Saturday and only two limits were brought to the scales. The deep bite dominated the tournament. It was reported that most anglers caught their bass in 15-25 ft of water. Mark Nelson and Jim Wilfert finished one spot out of the money with four bass weighing 6 pounds 3 ounces. In third place were Scott Davis and Chuck Nearpass with four bass that weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces. Brian Spear and C.R. Gooding took home second place money with a five bass limit weighing 8 pounds. Finishing first were John Gipson Jr. and Jim Weaver with an impressive sack weighing 8 pounds 13 ounces. Big Bass honors went to Scott Solomon and Matt Pruitt with a chunky 3 lb largemouth. Twenty-seven largemouth and one smallmouth were caught and successfully released. The next tournament will be held on August 19, at Paw Paw Lake. We will be launching from the Coloma Ramp.

Team	# Bass	Big Bass	Total Weight	Place	$$$$
John Gipson Jr./Jim Weaver	5	2 lb 1 oz	8 lbs 13 oz	1	$325
Brian Spear/C.R. Gooding	5	1 lb 13 oz	8 lbs	2	$195
Scott Davis/Chuck Nearpass	4	2 lbs 8 oz	7 lbs 14 oz	3	$130
Mark Nelson/Jim Wilfert	4	1 lb 12 oz	6 lbs 3 oz	4
Bill Small/Ryan Maggert	2	3 lbs	5 lbs 3 oz	5
Scott Solomon/Matt Pruitt	2	3 lbs	4 lbs 5 oz	6	$60
Andy Klingerman/Randy Savage	2		2 lbs 14 oz	7
Rich Charleston/Justin Hahaj	2		2 lbs 11 oz	8
Chris Leech/Chris Lahti	1		1 lb 15 oz	9
Mike Imler/Tony Laratta	1		1 lb 9 oz	10
Sam Perrone/Sean Perrone	0		0	11
Todd Kuriata/Craig Checkley	0		0	11
Tom Rochfort/Less Rochfort	0		0	11

Paw Paw Lake

August 19, 2006

Paw Paw Lake has proven to be the hottest bass fishing lake in southwest Michigan this season. In two SMC tournaments sixteen boats have weighed in 65 bass that had the total weight 140 pounds and 2 ounces. On the morning of August 19th eight boats braved a torrential down pour and battled Paw Paw Lake.

When Rich and I arrived at Paw Paw Lake It was raining like twenty cows..... Well you know the rest. I knew today was going to be great fishing weather and that a lot of nice sacks would be weighed in. Rich and I started the day throwing top water baits over shallow weeds but we couldn't get any to rise. We made a quick adjustment and fished a deep hump in 26 ft of water that produced 2 chunky keeper largemouth. The next threee hours were fairly uneventful as we were unable to find another school of deep bass. Rich had a notion to try and skip docks. What a decision! We skipped four docks and had caught four nice 2-3 pound bass. We ended up catching 15 keepers on the day and we had a blast.

Before the weigh-in started I knew it was going to be a battle for the top three places. Five teams brought limits to the scales and two teams managed 4 bass. Coming in fourth place was Chuck Nearpass and Scott Davis with five bass weighing 11 lbs 4 oz. In third place was Nick Armes and Eric Block with their limit weighing 11 lbs 11 oz. Rich and I were in second place with five keepers weighing 12 pounds 4 ounces. The winners were C.R. Gooding and Brian Spear with 13 pounds and they also had big bass that weighed 3 pounds 3 ounces.

Team	# Bass	Big Bass	Total Weight	Place	$$$
C.R Gooding/Brian Spear	5	3 lbs 3 oz	13 lbs	1	$240.00
Justin Hahaj/Rich Charleston	5	2 lbs 12 oz	12 lbs 4 oz	2	$120.00
Nick Armes/Eric Block	5	2 lbs 7 oz	11 lbs 11 oz	3	$80.00
Chuck Nearpass/Scott Davis	5	2 lbs 14 oz	11 lbs 1 oz	4
John Gipson Jr./Jim Weaver	4	2 lbs 9 oz	8 lbs 13 oz	5
Mike Imler/Tony Laratta	5	1 lb 13 oz	8 lbs 3 oz	6
Randy Savage/Andy Klingerman	4	2 lbs 9 oz	7 lbs 5 oz	7
Jim Puckett	2		3 lbs 13 oz	8

Magician Lake

9/23/2006

Magician Lake was tough today! Only five boats ventured out this morning to fish and only three boats weighed in bass. The problem wasn't catching fish, it was catching keeper bass. The pike were feeding like sharks all morning. Rich and I couldn't keep them off our lures. Rich did manage to catch two nice largemouth bass. One was on a crank bait and the other was on a Carolina Rig. I didn't have a quality bass bite all day long.

The weigh in was pretty close, only ounces seperated the top three:) In third place, Herman Barry and Josh Lang caught two bass weighing 3 pounds 2 ounces. In second place, C.R. Gooding and Brian Spear brought in two bass that weighed 3 pounds 8 ounces. The winners were myself and partner Rich Charleston. We brought in two bass that weighed 3 pounds 14 ounces. Rich and I also took home big bass with a 2 pound 6 ounce largemouth.

Team	# Bass	Total Weight	Big Bass	Place	$$$$$
Justin Hahaj/Rich Charleston	2	3 lb 14 oz	2 lb 6 oz	1	$145
C.R. Gooding/Brian Spear	2	3 lb 8 oz	1 lb 15 oz	2	$75
Herman Barry/Josh Lang	2	3 lb 2 oz	1 lb 9 oz	3	$50
Mark Nelson	0	0	0
Nick Arms/Eric Block	0	0	0

St. Joe River (Benton Harbor)

October 14, 2006

It was a very chilly morning for mid October in southwest Michigan. The air temperature was a brisk 40 degrees at the start of the tournament. The last couple of days have been unseasonably cold and windy to say the least. The water temperature dropped to 47 degrees during the cold front and the water level has also plummeted. In the fall this is the perfect recipe for exciting smallmouth fishing.

Only eight die-hard bass anglers came out to compete for the 2006 "SMC" Classic. The classic was a $100 buy in, and winner take all tournament. Rich and I were fishing our last tournament together because he's moving to Georgia to get away from the cold. Needless to say we have been putting in a lot of time on the river. We had a very precise plan to cover as much water as we could until we located a school of smallies. The first two hours of the tournament we concentrated on Shallow weeds throwing spinnerbaits and rattle traps. Rich started the day hot and caught two nice keepers. On the other hand I could only catch pike and steelhead. After the first three hours we had four bass in the livewell that weighed 10 pounds. We knew we had to find a bigger school of bass. We decided to try a different technique and it paid off in a huge way. We tied on small jigs and fished rocks adjacent from the sandbars. On our first pass we culled out 3 of our four bass on our way to 15 pounds 6 ounces. On the day we caught three limits of bass but no monsters. Our

biggest was a 3 pound 12 ounce smalljaw. We were pretty confident going to the scales.

Finishing in third place were Mike Rappette and Ron Nelson with four bass that weighed just over 10 pounds. They also had a giant 4 pound 12 ounce smallie and took home big bass honors. In second place were John Gipson Jr. and Jim Weaver and they had 13 pounds 5 ounces. Like any anglers that have a nice sack of bass we waited until last to way in our bass. Rich and I took home first place and $400 with, 15 pounds 6 ounces. Today was a great day on the water. Thanks for a great season!!