It was nearly a perfect weekend of weather for area bass anglers competing on Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, where the Bronzeback Classic and Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship took place in Kenora and Fort Frances respectively.
It was my 23rd time fishing the FFCBC, which is always one of the highlights of the summer for me. Rainy Lake is an awesome body of water, with excellent fishing and so much area to explore. I spent a few days prefishing before the tournament and the whole week just flew by so fast. Rainy is a big lake but it’s a little quieter than Lake of the Woods. I really enjoy the exploring out there.
Since 2007, my friend John Peterson from Bemidji, Minnesota and I have teamed up for the Fort tournament. We’ve had some good luck over the years and always look forward to sharing a few days in the boat together. John started Northland Fishing Tackle in his garage back in the 70’s and built it into one of the top fishing tackle companies in North America. He has always been a big supporter of my fishing career and over the years we’ve become good friends.
Our strategy heading into the FFCBC has always been to fish shallow and cover a lot of water, looking for a big one here and there. Over the years we’ve compiled a good trap line of spots and some years our program works really well. After a couple days of prefishing this year, we felt like the shallow stuff was okay, but not as good as it has been in the past and probably not the best way to have a shot at winning the tournament.
When the tournament started, we put most of our time into using forward-facing sonar and fishing deeper water, looking for small groups of smallmouths chasing baitfish around in deeper water. Most of these fish were suspended in the water column, so we would see them on the sonar screen and then cast minnow-imitating baits at them. All of our fish came on a 3/8-ounce Smeltinator jig tipped with a Z-Man Scented Jerk ShadZ.
The first day we caught a good number of fish but didn’t connect with any of the big four-pound plus fish that you need to have a shot at winning. Our 17-pound limit put us three pounds off the pace in 14th place. Over the next two days we did better, weighing 18 and 19 pound limits to finish 4th. It was fun tournament.
Kenora anglers Ian Waterer and Motei Demers continued their domination of the local tournament scene, taking the big trophy home. They averaged nearly 20 pounds per day for a three-day total of 59.54. Second place went to James Hill and Chris Viel from Thunder Bay, who brought in 57.50 over three days, while the Fort Frances team of Mike Badiuk and Kyle Turgeon took third with 57.32. Big fish of the weekend at Rainy Lake was a 5.38-pound smallmouth courtesy of the team of Colin Barton and Ben Jesperson.
In Kenora, Tye Hiebert and Anna Amisola took the Bronzeback Classic title with a two-day total of 34.23. My younger brother Ben Gustafson and Ali Crandall took second with 34.13, while Ryan Lentz and Tara Collinson took third with 33.54. Hiebert and Amisola also caught the biggest fish of the tournament, a smallmouth weighing 4.72 pounds.
A huge thank you to all of the volunteers and organizers from each tournament. These are big events that take a lot of work to put together so on behalf of all of the anglers, we are thankful for these top-notch events!
