“We’re going to jig, jig, jig during practice fishing, Spike,” said Chris Burns, my NWT Touring Pro for the 2018 season. He was referring to the change of bodies of water from Red Wing, MN, and the Mississippi River to Lake Winnebago and Oshkosh, WI. Flooding on the River forced the tournament officials to find a new location and the community of Oshkosh stepped up to the plate. Chris arrived on the 4th and spent a day with Chicago friend, Tom Harrison, who keeps his Ranger at Oshkosh to fish Bago and Green Bay. I arrived the afternoon of the 5th after spending the morning in Bellevue, IA at our campground prepping our Keystone Camper to be moved if the River water kept coming up. Campground friend, Randy Martin, said, “Spike, if I move mine, I’ll move yours!” With that assurance plus a new found place to park the camper if necessary I left for Bago. I practice fished with Chris Sunday, the 6th, through the 9th. We had good weather to move around and spent most of our time checking out spots on the many main lake reefs. He used his two Lowrance units to pinpoint areas to pitch jigs. We caught walleyes every spot we fished. We did not run up river during practice and in hindsight, we should have spent at least a day off the main lake. The rules meeting on the 9th highlighted presentations by the DNR, tournament officials, and the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce. My first day partner for the two-day Pro Am (co-anglers are paired with a different pro each day) was Mike Defilbaugh from Ohio. You may recall Mike won the Lake Erie NWT last year and donated all his cash winnings to the Make a Wish Foundation–I was there with tears streaming down my face in appreciation for his kindness to others. We had an AWESOME day pitching jigs to just two reefs we had all to ourselves on the main Lake. My jig training with Burns paid off because I landed three of the five fish we weighed at the end of the day for 15.33 pounds! Day two was as Tom Kemos called, “a TWO rainsuit day”! The rain started at takeoff and never stopped, even through the entire weigh-in! My partner was Dave Van Oss from Appleton. Dave has fished many tournaments on Bago but our day together did not turn out as he had hoped. We weighed two fish for 4.75 pounds. Dave finished 95th, Mike finished in the money at 8th, and I ended in 75th place. Thanks to Chris for allowing me to prefish with him along with both of my pros for the day together. The drive home reminded me of a laundry with wet rain gear spread all over the inside of the red Suburban! I stopped at home to drop off my dirty underwear to start washing while I unloaded all the Bago gear and changed over to Lake Erie gear for our two week trip to Port Clinton. Thanks to Sue for staying up late to keep me clean! Our second NWT event is June 14th & 15th at Bay City, MI on Saginaw Bay. Please use the link here on walleyewisdom.com to go directly to the NWT site for all the results. Plus, remember the NWT does a live stream from the tournament days so you can watch the weigh-in in real time. (PS–the campground did NOT flood and I’m heading over to Bellevue to get the camper ready for the rest of the season this weekend!)
