With Lake Winnebago coming up as Stage Eight of the MLF Bass Pro Tour and my last chance to qualify for the REDCREST Championship, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to do well. I’m studying as much as I can, but what I can do is really limited. By my calculation, I’ll need a ninth-place finish or higher to make the championship.

So, how can I do that with zero experience on the Winnebago system?

I think I can do it by changing my normal practice and fishing approach somewhat. Since this is a new body of water to me, I’m going to look for the obvious stuff and fish it. I’ll use my Garmin electronics and look for things like reefs for smallies and weeds for largemouth. Basically, I’ll look for what would normally be considered community holes, but since we’ve never fished this before, there really are no community holes to me right now.

Now, the other decision: Do I look for smallies or largemouths first? Are the smallies like the big Mille Lacs fish and you have to fish for them, or do you possibly get your teeth kicked in fishing for largemouth bass? I don’t know at this time. So, I think I’ll locate smallies first, since largemouth tend to be easier to locate in northern waters.

No Home-Field Advantage Here

Another terrific thing about Winnebago is there is no favorite. When we fished Lake Chickamauga, we all knew Andy Morgan and Jacob Wheeler would likely do well. There is none of that here: This is a professional tournament in its purest form, in my opinion.

Even though I’ve never fished Lake Winnebago and the other lakes on the schedule for Stage Eight, my confidence is high. I’m fishing good and I love fishing up north. My entire life growing up I’ve spent several weeks per year up north fishing. Of course, this will be different, but still similar. I can’t wait.

Early in the season, I wrote that I enjoyed the MLF Bass Pro Tour format. I must say, no matter how the last tournament shakes out, I’ve been extremely impressed with the MLF Bass Pro Tour this season. I’m excited to see where it goes moving forward, and can’t wait to fish it again next year.