Young Gun Wins Powerplant Shootout!

The 2013 Badlands Bass Bandits tournament season started off with a bang! It was the largest membership turnout in club history. Lot's of club members showed up for the historic Power Plant Shootout at Lake Nelson on April 27th. For the past 7 years this lake has hosted the Bandits first tournament of each tournament season. There were 29 club members in attendance that day all hoping to win a Power Plant Shootout trophy, for many it would have been their first. With that many members in attendance the lake was full of boats and anglers which indeed made it a shootout.  

When shots fired at 6 a.m. most boats headed North some headed West and some headed South. The big bite was on early in the morning with many members catching big Largemouth bass anywhere from 3.5lbs all the way up to 5 lbs. Nelson lake was indeed giving the Bandits exactly what they were hoping for. Of course what would a Bandit tournament be without mentioning good ol' Mother Nature. The early parts of the morning were calm, sunny and warm. Providing all the right ingredients for bass to start spawing, but....then the wind switched to the North and it was relentless providing white caps for the rest of the day. The funny thing was you didn't hear one Bandit complain because they were just thankful that it was finally warm enough to get the boats out!  

Many lures were tied on and many lines were cast with hopes and dreams of catching that one bass that would win them the Power Plant Shootout. No matter how many competitors you have, you'll always have only one winner. This year's 2013 Power Plant Shootout was a young gun from Beulah, ND who goes by the name of Chase Fernandez. Chase isn't new to the scene of fishing Bandit tournaments but he is however a new member of the winner's circle. This was Chase's first career win as a Bandit and he sure picked a tough tournament to win. He came in with a 3 fish limit that squashed the scales at 11.47 pounds! Certainly a day to remember for Chase and I am sure he will be adding more throughout his bass fishing tournament career. Good Job Chase on your 1st place finish! Nipping on his heels (literally) with a 3 fish limit that weighed 11.42 lbs was Matt Sullivan of Bismarck. Matt also took big bass honors with a 5.18 lb largemouth. Certainly a tough one to beat for the 2013 big bass of the year award. Great start Matt! Also coming up just a bit shy but certainly a great day on the water was the familiar face of Janine Wetzel. Jainine weighed in 3 bass that also eclipsed the 11 pound mark with 11.37 lbs which was good enough for a 3rd place finish. This certainly was the closest top three finish that we have had in very long time. Another young gun who was in attendance for the tournament was little Hayden Bader. Hayden fished the Junior Division with his grandfather Tony Reinbold along with his mother Amanda Bader. Hayden caught one largemouth bass that tipped the scales at 1.67lbs which was good enough for a 1st place trophy, way to go Hayden!  

Well folks we here at the club house had a great time at one of North Dakota's prestige fisheries. This lake is important to a lot of people not only from this state but as well as other states. Make sure you do your part of ANS prevention as well as to remember the importanace of catch and release. A photograph is worth a thousand words!  

The next stop is Lake Tschida on May 25th and 26th. This is the earlierst of the year that we have fished Lake Tschida in a long time. The last time we were there in May there were a lot of nice fish caught. So stay tuned here to this web site to find out who our next champion will be!      - Paul Reinbold