Familiar duo wins Shoal Lake tourney

Seventy-eight teams took part in the annual Shoal Lake Big Bass Classic on July 5-6.
Although the wind blew hard, making fishing a little bit tough, anglers caught a lot of fish over the weekend and everyone had a great time.
Taking home the $12,000 first-place prize was a pair of anglers from the Sioux Narrows area, Dan Kelly and Dennis Mandamin. What’s remarkable is that this is the fourth time these two have won this event since 2000.
They brought in an 18.59-pound catch for the Day One lead, then hung on to first place with a 15.09-pound haul on Sunday.
Their catch on Saturday was the largest of the tournament, although Murphy Paypompee and Thomas White, also of Sioux Narrows, made a charge on Day Two with a 17.4-pound bag to finish only half-a-pound behind the leaders.
Theirs was the heaviest catch on Sunday.
Big fish honours on Saturday went to the team of Brent and Jamie Green with a 4.11-pound smallmouth. Sunday’s big fish was a smallmouth caught by Paypompee and White that weighed in at 3.95 pounds.
Each team took home $1,000 for their big fish.
Overall, the consensus at the weigh-in each day was that most of the anglers caught good numbers of fish, though the size was just down a little bit.
Most of the bass in Shoal Lake had just finished spawning, so they were not as heavy as they will be a in a few more weeks.
Most teams weighed in smallmouths, but several largemouths were brought in each day, too.
My partner, Chris Savage, and I had a mixed bag, weighing in five smallmouths and five largemouths during the event. We managed to pull out a seventh-place finish, which we were happy with.
We caught a lot of fish each day, but could not catch any “kicker” fish in the four-pound range.
The best story I heard on the weekend came from the team of Bill Godin and Norm Lindsay, who finished fourth. On Saturday, they located a large smallmouth that still was hanging around a bed.
Norm is probably the best sight-fisherman I know and tried unsuccessfully to catch the fish for half-an-hour. Finally they decided to give up and move on.
With the big motor in gear, they began to pull away from the fish when Billy made a last ditch effort to catch it by throwing a Mepps spinner towards the area the fish was guarding.
A couple spins of the reel handle and Billy connected with the big smallmouth and put it in the boat.
I would not have predicted that this fish would have fallen for a Mepps, but the moral of the story is never give up!
Next up on the tournament trail is the annual “Castin’ for Cash” showdown at Lake Despair Lodge this coming Friday and Saturday.