The final bass tournament of the season took place this past weekend on Lake of the Woods. The Frank McClymont Memorial Tournament was started back in the fall of 2012 by Rick Savage and has continued ever since. The one-day tournament took place out at Shoal Lake the first few years before moving to Kenora as the field size started to grow. This year 72 teams competed in the event that remembers Frank and promotes getting more kids out on the water.
Frank McClymont was one of the original bass anglers from the Sunset Country Region. Up until his passing in 2012, he had competed in every Kenora Bass International and Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship tournament and made a bunch of friends along the way. He took a lot of people bass fishing and was just well-liked by everybody.
The tournament promotes getting kids out on the water by allowing traditional two-person teams to bring a third person, if it is a kid under 16. I think it’s great. I was not able to fish this year but they got a great day weather-wise and it looked like a good day for fishing on the lake.
Paul and Coel Forsyth were the champions this year with a four fish total weighing 17.37 pounds. Their catch included the big bass of the day as well, a 5.35 pound largemouth.
Second place went to the team of Ben Gustafson, Blake Whitta and Chase Whitta. Their four fish weighed 16.16 pounds, while third went to Jeff and Mark Engstrom, who brought in 15.73. Another great turnout for this event.
Now that the tournament season is over for me, I like change my focus to some other species as the season starts to wind down. I’ve had a few guide trips over the past week where we were fishing for pike, walleye and crappie, while still mixing in some bass. Even though the weather is starting to deteriorate, the fishing is great out there for all of these different species and it will stay good up until freeze up.
The fish in our lakes know that another long winter is coming as the water temperatures start to fall and the days get shorter and I think that’s the reason why the fishing is so good in the fall. Everybody is eating as much as they can to prepare for winter.
When it comes to finding fish over these last few weeks of the open water season, the most important element is finding the bait or preferred forage of your target species. For pike and musky anglers, that means looking for the presence of baitfish around main lake rockpiles and point, or neck-down areas with current.
Walleye and smallmouths will be found a little deeper on these same main lake structures, especially if you’re seeing plenty of bait around on your electronics. Crappies will be found on the mud flats in the lakes and basins that they live in, where they’re feeding on bugs and invertebrates that come from the mud.
Find the food, find the fish. That’s the recipe for success on the water in the fall. A big thank you to all of the tournament organizers and volunteers across the region who help to make all of our great events happen. We have some of the best bass and walleye tournaments in North America as far as the field sizes, payouts and quality of fishing go, so on behalf of all of the anglers who enjoy these competitions, again, I thank you!
