Lake Winnipesaukee really showed out for District 17 National Semi-Finals. George Cooper of Maine started things off with a bang weighing a 5.60 lbs. smallmouth! George had everyone’s attention 17.40 lbs. bag which had him sleeping on a 1 lbs. lead heading into day 2. Not letting the host state down was John Levesque who crushed them on day 2 with a 20.42 which made up the 1 lbs he trailed by heading into the day and won the boater side by more than 7 lbs.

The co-angler side was a battle of ounces in the end but not after day 1. Andy Duffy of NH put a 15.60 bag together and edged Jeff Perron by 1 pound when day 1 concluded. Unfortunately, Andy’s big day 1 bag was not enough to hold off the rest of the co-anglers. When the scales closed on day 2 it was consistency that won. Peter Owen put back to back 12+ pounds bags together to take the title. His 2 day total would have been enough to finish 8^th in the boater ranks.

Congrats and good luck to New Hampshire and Maine’s national qualifiers.

Fishing was at its toughest this week at the 2021 District 12 WV/VA National Semi-Finals on Sutton Lake in WV. Coming off a full moon and blue bird skies, it was really tough to put a together a pattern. The locals said fishing hasn’t been good since heavy rains and lake flooding earlier this year.

Fishermen said “we were catching lots of small fish”. Out of 114 fishermen, there was only 226 bass caught, weighing an average of 1.26 lbs. We only had 1 fisherman that had a limit of bass for two days and 8 fishermen that caught over 5 bass in two days.

Sutton Lake has been one of the hottest fisheries in WV when it was chosen in 2020 to host this year’s event. Hope to see better fishing in WV in 2023.

District 19 TBF Semi-Final     September 25-26, 2021

The event ran quite smoothly beginning with the Friday Evening registration and banquet.  We had an awesome pulled pork, salads and baked bean dinner, lots of food!  Following dinner, we went over a few rules and safety issues.  After this we got into the pairings.  Basically, following the provided paper work everything went great with no issues.

The morning boat safety check and take off went well.  There was some concern of morning fog so we had a short window to get every one checked through and launched, same thing for day two.  Weigh-ins went very well with everyone accounted for and no late arrivals.  We only had one fish die during the entire event.

Fishing was under blue bird skies with little or no wind and no rain however there was an algae bloom going on which may have affected the fishing as the bite was a little slow and the weights were running about 5 lbs. below average.  The winning boater, Randy Siemens of Kalispell, did manage to squeeze out over 15 lbs. each day.  Big fish was a Smallmouth of just under 6 lbs.

The home state team took the majority of the plaques with 8 of them to Idaho’s 2.  This was refreshing as this was reversed last year when we fished on Idaho’s home water and they will more than likely beat us next year, however we plan to make them work for it!

From the Left: Karl Okerman 4th Boater, J.D. Woods 5th Co-angler and standing in for Jim Conlin 5th Boater, Randy Siemens 1st Boater overall, Jason Crone 3rd Boater, Tim Johnston 2nd Boater, Hunter Dahnke Top MT and 2nd overall Co-Angler, and Mark Hilyer 3rd Co-Angler

MT Top boater – Randy Siemens, left and MT Top co-angler – Hunter Dahnke, right

ID Boater-Jason Fuller

ID-CoAngler-Guy Blahus

Ranger Federation Bonus winner-Justin Soppe

Thanks to help from Randy, Karen and Katie we pulled off another excellent event. CLICK HERE for full results.

Don Collins
President: The Montana Bass Federation
www.mttbf.com

Nebraska Boater Jordan Hirt smashed day 1 with an impressive 21-09 big bag of the event and having a good Day 2 weight of 15-15. The 2 days weight sealed the victory and with nearly a 2 pound lead over second place. Weighing in at 37-08 secured Jordan a spot at the 2022 Federation National Championship.

Second, third and fourth place boaters all went to South Dakota giving the state bragging rights for a year with the State Pride award.

Second place boater was Chad Schwan with 36-01 with the 2 days weight. Chad also had a great first day of 19-02. That also landed Chad a spot to the FNC as top boater from South Dakota.

Third place boater was Justin Heidinger with 35-10. Justin had been competing as a Non-boater in previous years and swapping ends of the boat he gave the anglers a run for their money.

Fourth place boater representing South Dakota and helping secure the State Pride award weighing in 31-15 was Rocky Lamascolo. And a Veteran Nebraska Angler Kent Priel took fifth place with 31-05.

Co-Angler top honors and a shot to the Federation National Championship goes to Nebraska Co-Angler Scott Blaesi with a whopping 25-00 total 2 day weight. The Nebraska Co-Anglers showed up and showed out taking the top 4 spots on the non-boater side.

Nebraska Co-Angler Michael Hansen comes in second place with 23-06. Third Place goes to Mark Moorman with 21-04 and fourth place goes to Leon Gehrig with 17-14. Great job Nebraska!

Fifth place goes to South Dakota Co-Angler, Adam Hutmacher with 15-13 taking top spot as a Non-boater representing South Dakota at the 2022 FNC.

Thanks to all of the anglers who qualified and fished the District 8 National Semi finals good luck and we hope to see you all next season. CLICK HERE to see all photos from this event. CLICK HERE for full results.