Shallow Sticks, Big Fish, and Toaster Ghosts?

Imagine walking into a house that was built in the 1850s, feel a slight tingle run up your back as the door creeks open, and go down to explore the basement only to find that one portion of the wall says “Kill Me”. As die hard anglers we will seek out the absolute cheapest living accommodations during a weekend away from home. Why is that? To save a few bucks so we can later throw it away on a bag of baits we’ll never use? Or because you know that a sweet, cozy hotel room isn’t going to kick out those memories that will stay with you forever.

Our weekend away from home led us to the Green Lake Conference Center where we shacked up in the Conwell House. Quite the place. Let me tell you. I think I still have bugs crawling around on me and I’m 4 days late on writing this blog! Either way everyone survived, pranks were made with the help of a two bread-slice toaster, and the cold beer helped get us through an eerie night’s sleep.

But let’s get into why we were really there. Madtown Bass Club tackled Little Green Lake on Saturday with hopes of fishing Big Green on Sunday. The weather was shaping up to have a beat down on either lake Saturday but Sunday didn’t look promising. Knowing that another club was going to be out on Big Green on Saturday we voted to jump to Little Green for Day One and fight the winds on Sunday out on Big Green. Fishing on Little Green was tough for some and stellar for others. Knowing how to adjust when you dumped your boat and saw that all the weeds had recently been sprayed off and the lake looked like chocolate milk was critical for success. Most anglers found themselves targeting the bank by frogging, flipping, and casting which produced a majority of the better bags from Madtown. But Brian Saari took home the cake as he relentless tackled deeper water and achieved only six bites all day for a 20lb-4oz bag. Brian’s secret bait – He Who Shall Note Be Names (Harry Potter reference) - was targeting deeper weedlines that had a mixture of rock down under. With dead calm seas, dirty water, and ugly looking grass everywhere most anglers sucked themselves tight to the bank, myself included.

With the approaching storms forecasted for Sunday we weren’t very hopeful that we’d be fishing the next day, therefore, Saturday night resulted in a LOT of empties being picked up the next morning. We rendezvoused at 6:30am at the Big Green landing for a club vote and determined the storm wasn’t the right one to go out fishing in and decided to call the tournament. Unfortunately, the drive home brought clear skies and sunny conditions before we even made it back to Madison. Thanks weatherman! In the end, at least we’re all coming back alive and nobody had to exorcise any demons over the weekend.

Top 5 Results

(Full results can be found under Tournament News)

1st - Brian Saari - 20.29lbs

2nd - Kevin Yeska - 17.35lbs

3rd - TJ Maglio - 15.24lbs

4th - Russ Cable - 15.06lbs

5th - Keith Matush - 14.33lbs