It will be a busy couple of weeks in the fishing community around Nestor Falls as they are hosting tournaments a couple of weekends in a row, with the Crow Lake Classic bass tournament taking place this past weekend and the Nestor Falls Musky Cup coming up this weekend.
I had fished the Crow Lake bass tournament on and off for several years but in 2017 Shelby and I teamed up and we have made it an annual event that we fish together. We rent a cabin at Hanson’s Hideaway Lodge, who host the tournament and get to spend a few days on one of the most beautiful lakes in the area, it’s a weekend we look forward to every year.
When you look at the weights for the bass tournaments on Crow Lake, they are not as high as the weights you’ll find on Rainy Lake or Lake of the Woods. The average size of the fish is not quite as good. But look down the list of big bass weighed in and that list will usually rival any other tournament in the region. Often, the big bass of the tournament is over five pounds, there are some big bass in Crow Lake.
As far as numbers of bass go, Crow Lake might be the best I have ever seen. There are incredible numbers of one-to-two-pound fish but finding the three pounders can be tough. It is a lake trout lake with clear, deep water, so a lot of the lake is not ideal habitat for bass. Whenever you get into the many bays around the lake, you’ll find smallmouths hanging around most of the humps, points and weed beds.
There are some largemouth bass in the lake and they appear to be on the upswing because there were reports of anglers in some parts of the lake catching dozens of them over the weekend. While there was one big largemouth weighed in on day one, coming in at 4.61 pounds, there were quite a few mixed into limits throughout the weekend. We have caught quite a few over the past few years but most have been small. It will be interesting to see if they start to grow up a little more in the coming years and become more of a factor in the tournament.
Shelby and I had a great start to the weekend, bringing in the biggest catch on day one, with 16.64 pounds. Shelby caught our biggest fish of the weekend, a 4.52-pound smallmouth early on day one that really made our day but it was tough for us to find the big ones after that. We had a few different spots with big fish hanging around on them but they got hard to catch after we caught a few out of the schools.
We had a much tougher second day, only capturing 11.81, eventually dropping to second place with a two-day total of 28.45 pounds. My brother Ben Gustafson and his partner Ali Crandall took the trophy home for the second year in a row, with a total of 28.91 pounds. Steve Hanson and Jamie Krukoski finished up third with 27.14 pounds. They also had the big bass of the weekend, with a 4.63-pound smallmouth on day one.
This a really fun tournament and one that I would recommend for anglers who are interested in getting into tournament fishing around the region. The fishing can be challenging but there are plenty of fish in the lake to find. A big thanks to Kiley Shebagegit and the Hanson family for making the tournament happen year after year, with their great team of volunteers. We will be back next year for another shot at Crow Lake!
Coming up this weekend, there is another bass tournament at Shoal Lake for the bass anglers out there, while as I mentioned earlier, the Nestor Falls Musky Cup with be happening on Lake of the Woods and the Rainy River Walleye Tournament on Rainy River. Good luck to all the anglers hitting the water this weekend.
