August 10, 2008 – Devils Lake, ND – Scott Larson and Chris Reinhart bring in 21.43 pounds giving them a 2-day total of 43.13 pounds to win the MWC Exhibition tournament on Devils Lake. 

“Persistence and patience were the key for us this weekend.  Yesterday, we just stuck it out and everything worked for us.  Today, we got to our spot and there was another boat already there.  It’s a public lake and anyone can fish wherever they want that’s the name of the game.  But it made us change our strategy and find a new spot.” Stated Larson.

“We stayed with-in the area and once again, we were patient.  It was kind of tough early on. We were actually talking about picking up and heading out to troll when a bobber went down and we got a decent fish.   That’s when we decided to stick it out and we picked up one here, one there and that gave us the confidence the fish were still coming through” said Reinhart.

Larson and Reinhart strategy was an old Devils Lake standby.  “We were slip bobbering in 8 to 10 feet of water in the trees with leeches.  We lost A LOT of rigs in the wood.  The wind would blow our bobbers into the timber, it was constant maintenance.” Stated Larson.

The North Dakota Duo will bring home $8,464.00 plus another $1,000 Ranger Cup contingency money for their superb efforts this weekend.

Coming in a close second was the team of Jerad Newgard of Fargo, ND and teammate Luke Pladson of Morehead, MN with a two day total of 10 walleyes weighing 42.96 pounds.

“I’m happy with where we finished.  We brought in over 20 pounds on both days. We just needed one of our fish to be .17 pounds bigger and we would have been right there.  I think we fished great this weekend.  We just didn’t get lucky enough to get that one bigger fish bite”.  Said Newgard.

“This is the first major tournament we have ever fished. We’ve fished other smaller tournaments and not done that well so this is great.  We’re coming home with some money so I’m happy with that.” Said Pladson.

Newgard and Pladson used patience strategy yesterday but today was a little different.  “We sat in our spot all day yesterday but we sat in our spot this morning for about 3 hours and caught a couple nice fish but we decided to move around a bit.  It seemed like every time we would stop we would catch a nice one so we kept going.” Stated Newgard.

The young rookie team will be bringing home a very nice check of $3,800 for their great work this weekend.

Rest of the Best

3rd – Rick Darling–Leeds, ND and Jeff Trana-Devils Lake, ND with 10 fish at 40.73 pounds

4th – Seven Larson-Agusville, ND and Paul Mund-Fargo, ND with 9 fish at 38.34 pounds

5th – Edgar Hoffman-Gillete, WY and Walt Paddock-Douglas WY with 10 fish at 38.09 pounds

Devils Lake is a tremendous and unique fishery.  Many of the anglers spoke of catching over 30 walleye a day not to mention the ubiquitous Northern Pike and plentiful White Bass.

As with most of the western U.S. summer came late and the usual late season deep suspended bite hasn’t come to fruition yet.  Most of the anglers stuck to the flooded timber shorelines throwing slip bobbers with leech tipped hooks.  A technique usually reserved for spring and early summer.  But there are also miles and miles of sunken road beds in Devils Lake and some of the anglers decided to fish these as well.  Most would troll crankbaits over the top trying to follow the contours of the sunken roadway.

For those who have never been, Devils Lake is a “closed basin” lake (one with no river inlet or outlet).  The area’s surface runoff flows through small coulees and lakes and is then collected by Devils Lake.  There it remains until it evaporates or enters the ground water table.  The water has been rising since 1940 so anything in its path has since succumb to the rising water.  Including, houses, barns, satellite dishes and roads to name a few.

The next stop for the MWC is in their Eastern Division August 22-23 in Dunkirk, New York on Lake Erie. 

As always stay tuned to www.liveleaderboard.com for live weights and daily photos of  your favorite walleye tournaments.