Four Bears Results

Yeah he's in the top 5 I'm sitting in 8th hope I got some luck left

Whats the weights look like.
Good luck to all

Heard 18lbs was leading the first day but i dont know if that was a 5 or 6 fish limit.

Heard 30lbs won the tournament, didnt hear who though, hopefully someone has results up here shortly.

Thats what I heard 30 to win. Sounded like it was a flip flop tourney.

Tim = choke.

Will try to get results and suppose offer a story line as I usually do whether it be failure or success. Been a lot of failure lately.

Congrats to place winners.

Good Job Rick and Richard and all the other top teams. Also, my boat was broken into Saturday night in the parking lot of the Casino, my partner and I had all of our Rods And tackle stolen, along with a Rain Suit and Serius Radio, Im guessing there was over 8 grand worth of items stole, If anybody has any information about this, I am offering a 1K reward, please contact me, Luke Sundby , 701-770-1880,  thanks

Sundby Said:
Good Job Rick and Richard and all the other top teams. Also, my boat was broken into Saturday night in the parking lot of the Casino, my partner and I had all of our Rods And tackle stolen, along with a Rain Suit and Serius Radio, Im guessing there was over 8 grand worth of items stole, If anybody has any information about this, I am offering a 1K reward, please contact me, Luke Sundby , 701-770-1880,  thanks

I heard about this happening this morning.  I hope you find out who did it!  Can't trust anybody anymore....

There was lots of nice fish caught this weekend first day i had some good weights but one fish short, and on the second day i had numbers but not as much weight first day i weighed 4 fish at 13.89 and the second day i had 5 fish for 10.15 for a little over 24 pounds total. i ended up taking 15th place it was a lot of fun and it was the first tournament that i ran the boat, so it was an absoulte blast.

Sundby Said:
Good Job Rick and Richard and all the other top teams. Also, my boat was broken into Saturday night in the parking lot of the Casino, my partner and I had all of our Rods And tackle stolen, along with a Rain Suit and Serius Radio, Im guessing there was over 8 grand worth of items stole, If anybody has any information about this, I am offering a 1K reward, please contact me, Luke Sundby , 701-770-1880,  thanks

dead or alive?

Sundby Said:
Good Job Rick and Richard and all the other top teams. Also, my boat was broken into Saturday night in the parking lot of the Casino, my partner and I had all of our Rods And tackle stolen, along with a Rain Suit and Serius Radio, Im guessing there was over 8 grand worth of items stole, If anybody has any information about this, I am offering a 1K reward, please contact me, Luke Sundby , 701-770-1880,  thanks

Wow! Thats ridiculous. That does more than just ruin your whole day. It stinks to have to carry all that stuff into your hotel room but my goodness, losing 8k in one night makes the haul worth it. I hope you find your stuff or get some info. Also, put the word out at the Scenic supper club. A lot of people pass in and out of there and can keep their eyes and ears open for you especially with a nice reward.

Where to start…I know where it finished.

I put some time into this and again, wasn’t rewarded. Well kinda…I choked the reward away.

I guess you could say I prefished for a total of six days. Half I spent with the boat cruising prefishing with the depthfinder checking depths, where the trees were, where the baitfish were, looking for fish hooks deep, etc. Sometimes prefishing helps, sometimes it does not, sometimes it does both and a person doesn’t even realize it. For me, I knew some of it was lost because when I started prefishing the lake was at 1853 and change. At the start of the tournament it was three feet lower. I was worried it would shut down a decent shallow crank bite (well decent for the current Sakakawea) and my worries came true…kinda. The drop in water also complicated some depth changes on points as well. But hey, all fisherman were dealing with the same things.

Outside the fast water drop we had inconsistent winds. Everyday the wind was flat or it was out of a completely different direction. Things would work on one point but then the next day I’d check on it the bite was different. What it was setting up was a run and gun scenario. I didn’t catch fish often or even frequent per location. It seemed you would pluck one and there would be no more. The sonar often confirmed this. If you marked a fish it was either a walleye or it was a northern. Mostly northerns. My goodness for them.

I prefished from boundary to boundary (well…they changed the north boundary at 4:30 pm on the night of the rules meeting…). Goal was to capture five spots of interest. I got that in the prefishing with a few other locations as well. They were further south and with a lower horsepower motor (sorry…I don’t have the cash for the big boy toys) I was hoping to only use them as reserves.

The days I drove around in the boat checking depths, structure, bait fish, etc I caught two to three fish a day. The days I fished for much of the time we caught no less than five weigh fish. The best day I had was 8 fish. So to say fishing as good is wrong. In addition, the fish were never bigger than 19 inches. I predicted around 26 pounds would win it based from my pre-fishing and other’s I knew were prefishing whom were kind enough to at the maximum share the size of fish they were catching. As I said above, it to me, was setting up to be a run and gun.

On Saturday Chris and I set out to the location Dani and I caught three on cranks in quick fashion. Of course, we pulled and pulled and pulled it with nothing but northerns, small mouth and white bass. I was absolutely unbelievable with northerns right away. I had several marks on the depthfinder and I was gitty in hoping they were walleyes but they were nothing but northerns. I bet we had twenty northerns before 9 a.m. Then finally plucked a 18 inch walleye. But that was it. At 10:30 I couldn’t take it and changed. Jumped to a different point and checked. Chris hooks what looked to be a 16 or 17 incher and it came off before I could net it. We were bummed since any weigh fish was going to go into the livewell with how slow it has been. We left for other areas. Next stop Chris gets a 19. Worked it for a bit longer and nothing…no marks no nothing. It is 12:30 and panic starting to set it. As the wind laid down (never was that windy) the sun got hotter. As it did fishing exploded for a brief moment as we moved to my other location. We popped three in about ten minutes. Wow, five fish in the well with time to spare. We put on cranks and worked one of my crank areas. Pulled inside of trees and bam, we smoke a 24 incher. Wow did we get lucky the 16 or 17 incher came off at the boat. Spirits were high. It was 1:50 pm. This never happens where I get to quit early as usually big fish hunting but being non cheating folk we headed into the ramp.

Not going to lie, I was feeling pretty good about the weight but was completely surprised by the weights. They were much bigger and the word was a lot of people got fish late. My theory is the fish finally moved to active mode from the last weather downpour the night before and lightning. They came up and were aggressive. I know it saved my day.

Since it did, I was worried because at 15.38 pounds I was not too confident in the locations since they were one fish places and judging by weights I’d have to duplicate for a win. But knew all I had to do was scratch the five fish weigh limits I had done in prefishing and would ensure a check. Did that for three days prior so why wouldn’t I be able to again???

Well, that stuff is easier said than done for this guy. It frustrates me I seem to always do one bad or mediocre day and one good day.

Sunday I knew the wind was going to blow and it did in the morning. Very rough water for awhile and I thought the weather man was goofing up. In the end, he was right. We got to our location for day one and being a south wind I was feeling pretty good because it was hammering in. Thought for sure there would be fish there. Had to do some boat control adjustments and take on the waves full force as I backtrolled but was only way to get adequate control since drift to fast and to rocky. Took a couple good waves but that’s what they make rain gear for!

Bad news, the graph is naked. I move deeper and then I move shallower. Nothing. Not good. Run to other location. Again nothing. Moved back to first location. Nothing. Moved. Moved back. Then this is where I think I made an error. At this time, the wind was still blowing. I just didn’t believe running too far would be wise because it would eat up my fishing time. So we stayed north from those spots. I would like to know what could have been but hell, why wouldn’t one just do his rounds on the spots he pulled 15.38?? I did until about 1 pm and then moved to new areas. Finally at 2 pm I put a nice three pound fish in the livewell. Hooked too more and thought we were having our last minute bash but they were both walleye mimicking friggin northerns. In the dumps I was and off to the weigh in I went.

There’s nothing worse than being the flip on the board. I bombed and someone else got to move up. I feel like I let myself and my partner down because it isn’t often you can be sitting with a chance to do well and maybe even win. I failed but once again, I am forced to put it in my back pocket and hope I learned from it. I think I did learn a couple things but man, I really don’t know what I would have done much different. Shoulda gone south maybe to check my three spots but didn’t want to take the chance at rough water eating my fishing time. If I’d have known the wind would let down in increments from 12 o’clock on I would have done it. Hindsight…you all know how it goes.

The request for the results is in so we’ll have to wait to see when I get them. See you all next year. Hopefully I don’t fail for a fourth year in a row.

Tim Sandstrom Said:
There’s nothing worse than being the flip on the board. I bombed and someone else got to move up. I feel like I let myself and my partner down because it isn’t often you can be sitting with a chance to do well and maybe even win. I failed but once again, I am forced to put it in my back pocket and hope I learned from it.

Welcome to tournament fishing but you already knew that!

This mindset helps me to put things into check, feel free to adopt: you made the best call at the time with the information you had at hand; if you know this to be true, doesn't matter if you made the right call or not.

Pete Harsh puts it into words better than I though; "swing for the fence and never look back".

My prefish and 1st day was very similar to Tim's.  Couldn't find any numbers of decent fish prefishing.  I wasn't real optimistic friday night.  I was actually more suspicious as to what prompted them to move the boundary on Friday afternoon at 4:30 after the flags had been set for at least a week.  That kinda stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth, almost enough to not come back to those shenanigans.

Day 1: Caught way too many northerns(I think they bit off 6 different spinner rigs in the first hour).  Caught our 1st eye at 12:15 and our 6th at 1:45.  Time to weigh in early with 14.36 pounds, thinking that could be good.  5th place not too bad.

Day  2:  1st spot dead, 2nd spot same thing, 3rd spot ditto, 4th spot pull in just gonna drive through and see if I mark anything, Bam big arch... turn around drop live bait, 21.5 incher, a little farther 18.5in, then a 19.5in, then dead(Hindsight tells me i should stayed right on the points not wasting time on the edges, becuase they were on the points all week).  Then we jumped around back to saturdays spot twice and all over the place, nothing.  Then with 45 minutes left back to where we caught fish today for the 3rd time, and pick up a 17in at 2:20 and a 15in at 2:40, back in at 3:00 with 5 fish for 11.08 pounds, dropped from 5th to 9th.

Overall pleased with results given the prefish but you always hate dropping spots on day 2. 

I'm glad I spooked those fish to you!  I went all three depths there about a half hour or so before you.  Maybe an hour.  The reason I came back was I figured that south wind would have to do something but since you were there and you said you had three fish I took a guess you got them there and I had nothing to get (my screen was naked).  So I left.  Probably good thing as would have just maybe stole the last two fish you needed so you didn't pull a me.

Nice job sir.  Maybe next year I can break the major, horrible, disgusting slump.

Did the party point just South of the casino ramp produce any fish?  With that south wind yesterday, I nearly decided to fight the tourney crowds and put a limit in the boat.

Fishing memories will get you in trouble - P.H.

wood duck 30 Said:
Fishing memories will get you in trouble - P.H.

And sometimes it will save your Ass!

BAW Said:

wood duck 30 Said:
Fishing memories will get you in trouble - P.H.

And sometimes it will save your Ass!

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