Fifteen teams made their way through the pea soup thick fog to the cabin sites boat ramp on Lake Audubon on the morning of the 28th. Flat calm and thick fog not only made for a late start but also an idle only launch for the first hour of the tournament. So, like a herd of turtles the competitors were off at a blazing speed of 5 mph navigating the thick fog in search of their favorite honey holes. Within 2 hours of launch the fog burned off, the wind picked up, and the anglers were hard at searching for the largest smallmouth Audubon can offer.

As always Audubon produces, and for those anglers that have homed in on a pattern found some larger size class fish. Cody Arth, who is no stranger to the winner’s circle on Audubon takes first with 18.29 pounds with a 4.26-pound kicker giving him big bass honors for this tournament! In second came team Blomberg with a heavy 17.07-pound bag and in third team Tanner Mallams and John Lancaster with a 16.73-pound limit!

As the tournament awards were being handed out, the group spilled the beans as always and shared what their winning patterns were. The winning pattern was using a dropshot, with a bait color that had white, dropped into weeds at 8-10’ of water. Other techniques used were whopper ploppers, that called them up from all depths, and using a swimbait in very shallow water late in the day. So the moral of the story is, you can catch your fish just about any way our here, you just need to stay consistent and find your fish.

Our next tournament is out last of the season, the Classic. Originally planned to be out of the Little Missouri ramp on Lake Sakakawea, needed to be changed because of prolonged drought and a dry boat ramp at that landing. The club members voted to switch locations to Lake Ashtabula at the West Crossing ramp. The Classic will be held on September 11th and 12th this year, we hope to see you at Ashtabula as this will be a big fish shootout!