Washburn Lake Summary 

August 20,2005 

Here I sit, broken hearted, wanted to fish but didn’t get started.  In what has become a pretty damn boring year of interviewing top dogs, it’s same old, same old.  Larry, Darryl, and Darryl taking the top three spots.  Chuck Steinbauer kicked ass with a bag weighing 16-5.  His fish were reportedly caught in the lips and below the water’s surface.  He caught fish deep (no keepers), caught fish in slop (no keepers), and on docks (keepers, lots of keepers).  The most productive bait was his black/blue jig with a Chomper twin tail.  Gee, that’s a new wrinkle.  Second, and the nearest kickee, four ounces behind, was that pesky little scamp Nate Steinbauer with a bag weighing 16-1 (for those of you with math deficiencies), including lunker for the second tournament in a row.  Nate, who by the way didn’t pre-fish, fished in the west arm, hereinafter referred to as “the other side”, and caught an estimated five fish deep with spinnerbaits, no dock fish, and nearly wet himself catching fish in the reeds, including his lunker of 4-6.  The fish came on a Nate Rig, using red shad and blue shad, which he insists is a color.  He also fessed up that to those people he told he caught the lunker on a Lazy Ika, just teasing.  Nate figures he caught a dozen fish during the day.  Third went to Mr. Humble, Dennis Lothspeich whose bag weighed 15-9.  Dennis figures he caught 50% of his keeper fish on docks with 25% of those fish coming from 75% of the docks he fished, 15% of the time.  The other 75% of the fish came on the weed edge throwing baby-shit brown craw tubes rigged Texas style.  Dennis figures he caught 20-25 fish.  Nice job to all.  Over all a decent tournament with weights and numbers providing a perfect bell curve when graphed appropriately.  

 SHORTS!!    (Or thoughts as I review the soon-to-be

classic “Farenheit 9 on 1”) 

A 5-8 on the blind lake will be worth $640 if you are in the rolling big bass pot. 

Gnu is a neat word.  It’s one of those words where the more you say it, the cornier it starts to sound.  No, no, don’t think about it.  Are gnus and wildebeests the same thing? 

Got this in an e-mail.  Ever wonder why a woman would put boiling hot wax on her upper thigh, rip her hair out by the roots, and be afraid of a spider? 

Apparently the tournament directors have made alterations on the ease-off procedures.  If you are drawn as the last boat you will not be in charge of sending the other boats out and will not be allowed to start fishing until fifteen minutes after the other competitors.  I’m guessing you will get the new rules at the meeting Saturday. 

Any of you who have had the pleasure (?) of fishing with either Johanson, know that they use only spincasting equipment, i.e. Zebco 303.  I had the Chuck, the elder, on Washburn and could see no practical reason for doing so until he made a cast and the reel basically disintegrated.  I then watched as he repaired it with an old beer can (he brought one along for parts).  Maybe they’re on to something.  Or on something. 

And kudos should be given to two of our club members who will be advancing to an eight state BASS regional after qualifying in last week’s State Bass Tournament on the Le Homme Dieu Chain.  Curt Compton and Dennis finished in the top twelve of about 190 other slugs and will compete next year, also at Le Homme Dieu. 

See you all at Ben and Jerry’s Saturday am. 

With great fondness 

Ruff