August 9, 2008 - MWC Devils Lake, ND
August 9, 2008- Devils Lake, ND- Amid rumors of a “slow big fish bite” on Devils Lake MWC anglers proved there are plenty of tournament worthy walleyes waiting to be brought in to the scales. Leading that pack is the young team of Jerad Newgard of Fargo, ND and Luke Pladson of Moorehead, MN with a 5 fish basket weighing 22.78 pounds.
“We parked in one spot all day. We decided to hang out in there the entire time because we just new it was going to turn out. We were confident that the fish were going to move in sometime.” stated Neward.
And move in they did. Neward and Pladson were back at the weigh scales by 1 o’clock today (3 hours early). “This is my 4th or 5th tournament and I’ve never done this good before I’m pretty pumped. Hopefully we can do this good again tomorrow.” said a cautiously excited Pladson.
“We’ve got the same plan tomorrow. Those fish are going to move in sometime we just don’t know if it’s going to be 7-9 or 9-11 or 1-4 all we know is we’re going to be there.” Stated Neward.
Not far behind in second place is the team of Scott Larson of West Fargo, ND and Chris Reinhart of Fargo, ND with a 5 fish limit tipping the scales at 21.70 pounds.
“By 7:30 this morning we had a 23 ½ inch walleye in the live well already. Our goal in any tournament is to try and catch a good fish each hour, with nine hours and needing only 5 we new we were on pace.” Said Larson.
Trying to stay on a good pace can be difficult when you’re fishing flooded timber. “We had a tough time this afternoon. We would either miss the hook-up or if we did hook them we would get wrapped up in the trees and loose em’. We probably had a half dozen or so do that to us. Granted some of them could have been Pike but I know we lost a couple good walleyes as well.” Said Larson.
“We feel we have a pretty good program put together. There were a couple of other boats around us today and they didn’t do as well we did. We’re confident in our skills and know if the fish are there we will get the bites we need and everything will work out. But we need some more leeches. We went through 2 pounds today! What… we have 12 hours until the tournament starts tomorrow? May have to make a long leech run but we’ll do what we have to do! Exclaimed Reinhart.
Rounding out the top 5
3rd – Michael Anderson-Hillboro, ND and Barry Schonteich-Grand Forks, ND with 5 fish at 19.95 pounds.
4th – Rick Darling-Leeds, ND and Jeff Trana-Devils Lake, ND with 5 fish at 19.62 pounds.
5th – Jason Feldner-Minnewauken, ND and Chris Koth-Minnewankan, ND with 5 fish at 18.67 pounds.
With the no cull 7 fish limit in effect. Several teams were done fishing by 11:00 am this morning. It was hard for teams to throw back 20 inch fish waiting for a limit of 23 plus inch fish that would put them in the top 5 money spots. Most teams, after pre-fishing for a week or more put a size limit of keepers around the 20 inch mark. At a no cull tournament, like this one, one wrong decision on what to put in the live well can mean the difference between going home with a check or not.
The anglers strategy will surely change for the anglers that are out of the top 5 money places or, aren’t in the running for the championship, tomorrow. Most will hold out for bigger fish to move them up the leaderboard. The last time the MWC was at Devils lake Carl Adams Jr. and partner Ryan Klein came back from the middle of the pack with over 27 pounds to take top honors.
Weather here in Devils Lake is really playing no factor in the fishing according to the anglers. Sunny skies with winds out of the east at 10-15mph and highs in the lower 80’s make for relatively pleasant walleye fishing. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for much of the same with a little more of breeze possible.
Of the 31 teams, 26 weighed in limits with a total of 142 walleyes caught weighing 430.09 pounds. That’s an average of 3.03 pounds.
MWC anglers will start their final day Sunday at 7:00am CST and weigh-in will begin at 4:00pm. Stay tuned to www.liveleaderboard.com for live weights and daily photos.