The 28th annual Bassin’ for Bucks tournament took place over the weekend on Lake of the Woods, in Sioux Narrows and as always, it was a well-attended and well-run event. Anglers were greeted with three days of beautiful weather, which made for a fantastic weekend. This time of year, we start seeing those cold, windy, rainy days show up so the three days of warm weather and sun made it fun to be out there.
Mike Reid and I grew up together. He is from Sioux Narrows and we have partnered up for Bassin’ for Bucks since the very first year of the tournament back in 1996. It’s always a weekend that we look forward to. Over the years we’ve had a bunch of good tournaments and some tough ones as well. All of the experience paid off for us this weekend as we caught fish off of places that have been good to us in the past, mixed in with a few new spots and we had a big day three comeback to get the win.
Day one started out kind of tough as we brought in a 16-pound limit to land in 21st place. We did slightly better on day two, bringing in 17 pounds to move us up to 9th. We felt like if we had a really good third day, we had an outside shot at winning but at every tournament there are always a number of teams that have that feeling. It doesn’t work out very often.
We decided we would fish our best big fish spots to try and make some magic happen. When we pulled into a spot early in the day and caught a five-pound largemouth to start us off, we knew we had the making of a good day started. It’s funny how fishing goes because as the day went on, it was like we could do no wrong. It seemed like almost everywhere we stopped, we would catch a big fish.
Later in the afternoon, we pulled up to a small hump that we used to catch smallmouths on consistently, but it had been a few years since we had caught one there. The first fish I set the hook on was a five-pound smallmouth, which is as big as they get in Lake of the Woods. In my life, I could count on one hand, the number of five pounds smallmouths I’ve caught from Lake of the Woods. Things were really coming together!
We ended up bringing in a limit that weighed over 21 pounds and it was enough to hold off some of the best anglers from the Sunset Country Region. We ended up winning the tournament. It was a special day for sure, one that we’ll remember for a long time.
Second place went to Jay Samsal and Troy Norman. These guys are some of my best friends and they are tough to beat in any of these tournaments around the region. Third place went to Brian McNanney and Matt Rydberg, who are local Sioux Narrows anglers who always seems to be near the top of the leaderboard.
The big fish of the weekend was a 5.58 pound largemouth caught by Dennis Mandamin and Chastan Mandamin. Our day three catch of 21.44 was the biggest catch of the weekend. It was the dream day!
Thank you to all of the volunteers who organize and make this tournament happen every year, especially Barb Salvador, who has been behind the helm for many years! It’s a great event for the community of Sioux Narrows and I already can’t wait to do it again next year!
