MWC-Lake Winnebago / Oshkosh, WI
June 21st-22nd
Day 1 PM

Matt Jacobson and Jim Hughes Take the Lead on Day One of the 2008 Cabela's Master's Walleye Circuit on Lake Winnebago- Sponsored by Mercury.
 
No strangers to the top of the leader board, local team Matt Jacobson of Omro, WI  and his partner, Jim Hughes of Oshkosh put together a 5 fish limit of fish, weighing in at 20.51 pounds.
Only a few weeks ago, they lead on day one of the Merc Nationals, and finished in 2nd place. Then just a short time later they finished in 6th place in the Otter Street Annual Tournament. The one thing all these events have in common is that they are held on the Winnebago system. A system that consists of both lakes and rivers. A system that this team has apparently figured out.
 
"This morning I told you we were hoping to get lucky", Matt said.
 
"Our day progressed well. We saw other people by us start to catch fish and we panicked.
We changed to a couple different techniques and caught a couple fish, and locked in on one pattern, and stayed with it all day.
 
We didn't get a lot of fish, but we caught real nice ones, and that's what counts. (He laughs)
 
 We're real happy with it, and tomorrow, who knows... we may not catch anything the same way, but we got what we got today and that's the best.
 
Pre-fishing this week, I had only caught 2 keepers since Monday, and I had fished everyday.
 
I kind of knew where there were some fish, so I didn't bother them. I kind of kept an eye on them, and just went somewhere else.
 
This west wind really makes a lot of "chocolate" come down the river and screw up the whole area, and that's coming tomorrow, so I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow."
 
In second place is Randy  Seidl of Appleton, WI and partner Joe Knowles of Sherwood, WI with a limit of fish weighing in at 19.23 pounds.
 
Joe Boehnlein of Chilton, WIand partner Mike Meetz of Brillion, WI currently sit in third place with a 5 fish limit weighing in at 19.02 pounds.
 
"Pre-fishing was horrible! You could hardly pull a walleye out of this lake", said Joe....adding,
"We probably caught about three other legal's, and basically caught everything in the morning. I think we put the 5th on in the box at around 10 O'clock this morning."
 
194 teams left the docks this morning with the hopes of catching a limit. Most were successful, but some teams struggled a little, while some other teams were happy to have caught a limit after their less than stellar pre-fishing experience this week.
 
I caught up to my old MWC partner Marge Pelkey to ask her how her and Gary's day went, and if she wanted to talk about how they caught their 5 fish for 13.22 pounds which landed them in 27th place!
 
Juls: So,  Margie, how was your day today? How did it go?
 
Marge: "Our day started out pretty slow. The first fish came unbuttoned right behind the boat...made two more passes... didn’t  pick up another fish. We pulled into our second waypoint...picked up a fish right away...then, we just started trolling. We just  kind of just fell into these fish at another way point we had out there, and they just kept coming!"
 
Juls: Are there a lot of people fishing by you?
 
Marge: "No, the last two hours we were there by ourselves. It was great!"
 
The weather managed to stay nice throughout the day, and the chance of showers and thunderstorms that were predicted never came. It was 84 degrees at weigh in time, with a west wind around 10-20mph, under partly cloudy skies.
 
The Day One Big Fish honors go out to:
Team 102: Randy Mulder and Paul Ferch with a big brute weighing in at 7.71 pounds
Team 154: Joe Boehnlein and Mike Meetz with their big fish of 7.22 pounds
Team 45:   Rick Henriksen and Tom Zollar with a 6.83 pound fish
Team 44:   Brian Sislo and Dan Sislo with a 6.27 pound fish
 
Check in tomorrow afternoon for the final day of the MWC at Lake Winnebago, here on Walleye Central. It's going to be a close one!
 
Weigh in will start at 3:00 PM Central Time.
(A miscommunication occurred today, and the final results were not posted as the weights came in. They are posted now though. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone.)

Stay tuned to www.liveleaderboard.com for live weigh-in results and daily photos!