Winterfeldt & Herd Win at Soggy Woman Lake
According to those knowledgeable of
walleye behavior, it is said that dark or overcast conditions are
favorable to walleye feeding activity. If that is indeed the case, we
timed it just right! Just minutes before the tournament was set to
start a much-needed rain began to fall in the area, and fell for the
entire tournament, and continued to fall through-out the day until
around 4:00pm that afternoon. Although we did not do quite as well as
we had the past 2 times we held tournaments here (June 2002, September
2004) the bite was still respectable with 57 teams registering
walleyes.
One of three teams to register a 6
fish limit would be 2005 defending
MWT State Champions Bryan
Winterfeldt
of Dassel and Darrin Herd
of Hutchinson. Buoyed by a 6.02 lber, their 6 fish basket would weigh
14.01 lbs and take over the lead with just a few teams left to weigh.
The other two teams with 6 fish limits lacked the kicker fish they
needed to contend for the win. Bryan and Darrin would claim the 1st
place check for $2,500, a pair of 1st place plaques, and an
Aqua Innovations Livewell Keeper for the win.
Winterfeldt and Herd finessed their
fish with live bait rigs. The pair spent most of their day in
Broad-water Bay and Bungey Bay concentrating their efforts around the
sparse weed beds in the 7’ to 20’ range. Using crawlers on plain
hooks, Winterfeldt and Herd would have to sort through “lots of
perch”, but caught fish throughout the day. After locating a weed
bed, they would work up and down the break-lines in and out of the
sparse weeds to find their fish. They were able to upgrade a 15 ˝”er
to a 17” once. Their big fish would come to the boat about 10:30am.
Finishing in second place would be
the father / son team of Richard and Kevin Klimmek of Jordan and
Shakopee. Kevin and his dad would fish well together as they would
land 4 walleyes for 12.28 lbs and collect the 2nd place
check for $1,500, the 2nd place plaques, $500 for the “Big
Fish” of the event and a Beckman net.
Team Klimmek fished Airplane Bar in
the southwest portion of Woman Lake for the entire day. Pulling
chartreuse spinner rigs adorned with night crawlers, the Klimmeks also
found their walleyes relating to the 15’ weedline. At about 11:00am
they would connect with the big one – a 6.29lb, 26” specimen.
Third place would go to Tom Sather of
Minnetonka and Curt Anderson of Crystal with 3 walleyes weighing
9.52lbs. Tom and Curt spent the rainy day on the southern arm of
Center Flat pulling clown colored Tail Dancers on leadcore line
between 100’ – 150’ back while probing the 20’ – 22’ depths. Sather
and Anderson would earn $1,250 plus the 3rd place plaques
for their efforts.
Next up for the
MWT is the State
Championship in mid September on West Battle Lake.
