Busy week for bass anglers

It will be another busy weekend for bass anglers across the Sunset Country region with tournaments going on in both Kenora and Fort Frances. The 24th-annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship is set to kick off tomorrow morning on Rainy Lake while up in Kenora, the Bronzeback Classic is taking place out on Lake of the Woods.
It is unfortunate that these events happen over the same weekend every year because those of us who love to compete in these tournaments have to choose one or the other. Both are great events and the fishing is equally good at both lakes.
Our season is so short so we want the opportunity to fish in as many of these events as possible.
I have fished the Fort Frances tournament every year since 2000 and it is one of the weeks I look forward most each year.
It is a top-notch event in our region that compliments the great fishing on Rainy Lake. The live entertainment every night of the event is good and the party following the tournament on Saturday night is always fun.
I had a few different partners in the early years of this event but for the past 12 years I have fished with my friend John Peterson from Minnesota. John started Northland Fishing Tackle out of his garage in the ’70s and today it is one of the most well known tackle companies in the North America.
We met in the mid-2000s and have become good friends over the years. He comes up to the Kenora area to deer hunt every fall and visits the regions several times a year to go fishing.
Northland has also been a great sponsor of mine for many years. They make tackle for all species of freshwater fish and make a lot of the best ice fishing tackle on the market.
After a couple days of prefishing on Rainy it has been unusually tough for us. Likely a combination of the warm weather and all the wind we have experienced recently.
We have had some great finishes in this tournament over the years, including a couple of wins so we have high expectations heading into the weekend. We want to win so we’re fishing areas that we feel will give us the best chance at catching big fish.
All of these tournaments in our region require teams to bring in the five biggest bass that they can catch each day so it’s not about catching numbers of fish, it’s about catching big ones if you want to win some money, which is the goal of all competitors.
It’s funny how it changes so much from year to year. The tournament happens in late July every year so you would think that you can just fish the same good spots year after year but it seldom works that way.
As much as we want to go and fish places where we have good catches in the past, it’s important to keep an open mind for different areas every year because the conditions are never the same. The water level and clarity changes, weed growth changes and fishing pressure can have a negative influence on some areas.
We have a lot of good memories out on Rainy Lake so we hope that some of them still have a little bit of magic left in them!
The tournament runs Thursday through Saturday with weigh-ins starting at 3 p.m. each day.
Up in Kenora, a full field of 120 teams will be fishing in the Bronzeback Classic, a smallmouth only tournament running out of Tall Pines Marina. The format requires that all teams include a youth, female or senior person on each team so it is a fun event.
The Bronzeback is taking place Saturday and Sunday with weigh-ins starting at 3 p.m. each day as well.
Good luck to all the anglers out there competing this weekend!