Matt Liebel on Lake Sakakawea

Matt Liebel of Liebel's Guide Service shares his insight on Lake Sakakawea Walleye.

What is Reel Talk Fishing | With No Limits?

I'm Brian Bashore, Professional walleye angler and owner of The Walleye Guys Guide service. I am here to reel you in with captivating stories, expert tips, and interviews with some of the biggest names in the fishing community. So, sit back, relax, and let the drag scream!

Brian Bashore (00:01.006)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in this episode of Real Talk Fishing and thanks for being loyal listeners all along. We are at our 25th episode today. We're heading up north to my favorite place, the best fishery in the country. If you ask me on the Missouri river, lakes at Kakawea in North Dakota. I've been there half a dozen times. I've had a lot of success on this lake. Just love it. The scenery is beautiful.

I've seen moose every time I've been there. The fishing is phenomenal. You can catch them however you want, wherever you want, anytime of the year. Lake Skakua is always going and it has got a load of big fish. So if you like jig fishing, you like pulling lead, bounce or scope and whatever it is, man, this lake is the place to go. It is a beautiful fishery, great people up there. It's just, it's just phenomenal. So we're going to go talk to my good friend and the

local guide service up there who's just been crushing it year after year. Matt Liebel, Liebel's guide service. He's coming up next. So stay tuned. We're going to break down Lake Sakakawea and a little bit more about Matt and his guide service and just guiding in general. We've got two guides, just kind of talking, guiding. And the national walleye tours next stop is up here on Lake Sakakawea. So we're going to get a little insight on that and how we think that might go. So stay tuned for Matt Liebel.

Hey folks, thanks for tuning into this episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits. We are heading to my favorite fishery on this wonderful planet earth up North in North Dakota, the lakes of Kakauia. And we're talking to the mastermind of that fishery himself, Mr. Matt Liebel over here with Liebel's guide service, a good friend, Matt, and the guy knows a little bit about lakes Kakauia. So we're going to pick his brain, see what's happened up there. See how the bites going.

how the guidance been and we might, we might get into some guide stories here because between the two of us sounds like we've got plenty to talk about. So what has happened to my friend? What's going on up in North Dakota?

Matt (00:43.565)
it's going good. It's been, I mean, we're in July now and I finally decided today I'm not bringing minnows with anymore. I dumped the last of them out because we kept water temperatures. We finally like over 65 this morning again and we're staying there. I think we're finally there where we got some water temperatures and can keep some, you know, a little bit consistent fishing. It's been an interesting spring and

Early summer, I guess to say with the water temperatures and getting everything going. Like it's just our water temperatures have been so cold. I don't think I've ever had minnows after the 15th of June in my boat. Just talking fat heads, not creek chubs or anything like that. I had them in the boat yesterday and I didn't bring them today.

Brian Bashore (01:24.558)
Yeah, I don't man I don't

Yeah, it's time for you to get that nasty warm bedding and mud and dirt all over in your boat now.

Matt (01:36.077)
Yeah, finally, finally, I think Saturday, we got the first one on a minnow on a fathead and then it turned to crawlers and it was everything was crawlers after that. So most days it hadn't been crawlers, you know, get a couple here and there on crawlers yet, but it's it's finally starting to go at least a little bit. It's been a weird one.

Brian Bashore (01:54.414)
I kick them out about 50 -55. I'm done. I'm done with the minnows. Usually when I leave Chamberlain and come to Lewis Clark, that's it. No more minnows. I wish because they're a lot cleaner and much easier to use than crawlers. I hate crawlers.

Matt (02:08.493)
So I don't mind crawlers. I've been really trying to start to use the like that Berk or the Northland Eye Candy crawlers. Those work really well and they work for a lot of fish. So it's really nice starting to use those. But even earlier this year, those have been tough. Like they aren't hitting crawlers yet. So it's like I keep hitting or using using fat heads. And it's like, I can't take them out because they just keep, that's what keep putting fish in the boat rather than the crawlers and stuff.

I've kind of my hands like usually I wear sun gloves and my hands are all burnt up now because I hate digging in the in the live well with the sun gloves and then they're wet all day and then my hands are wet and it's been has been cool like it was 48 degrees and overcast and windy on Saturday morning again. So it's been a weird one. So.

Brian Bashore (02:58.99)
Yeah, you don't quite have the eyes like I got and it's a, I mean, I'm just South Dakota, near North Dakota, but yeah, 48 we're, we're well above that. We, I think it was 63 in a camper the other morning, but I'm wearing my sun gloves and I'm dipping them into live well in their dry five minutes later down here. But like I said, we got rid of, got out of middle season a long time ago. I've had people jumping about, like, we got to use minnows. I'm like, nah, I haven't been in here since early May. There won't be until September, most likely, unless it's crick job or something like that. You know, willow cats, but.

Nope, it says crawlers and the eye candy there is a couple baits that never leave I got one rod rigged up with an eye candy grub and another one with the Z man jerk shed That does it those rods. That's what they have on them and never comes off all year long

Matt (03:40.557)
Yeah, the grub, the grub has been really good, really good this year and said any just even the crawler or the jig crawler. I just got a bunch of the leeches. So there we'll see if we can put those to use too. But those are, yeah, those are pretty cool, pretty cool baits. The way you can take and stretch them out. And like last year at the end of the season and mid mid July, late July and August and stuff when they were biting pretty good still. And I mean, I think I put four four crawlers on gulp.

or not gulp, but eye candy, eye candy jig crawlers on there for the four rods the guys had in and we caught a hundred fish that day or, you know, 75 to a hundred fish, whatever it was, we just crushed them and I don't never baited a hook again. It was awesome.

Brian Bashore (04:11.63)
Alright.

Brian Bashore (04:24.593)
Yeah, that's that's why the Z man stuff doesn't come off they both had the last tech technology in it Don't mix them with other baits. If you have to learn that lesson yet, it'll eat him eat him on I'm sure the eye candy it probably does because the Z man because that last tech does that Yeah, but yeah that stuff is awesome I have a I have a Z man a diesel diesel minnow on it's been on there like three or four years and it's got a hundred some redfish, you know on a chatter

Matt (04:30.189)
No.

Matt (04:38.157)
They say the same thing, yeah.

Brian Bashore (04:52.206)
And it's still good. That is, you know, I've been breaking a lot of jigs off and losing them that way, but I'm not losing them any other way. a lot. I mean, I had to go to Shields today, I think about a hundred and some bucks worth of jigs while I'm waiting for my jig order to come in. But I like, I need them tomorrow. And, you know, it's going to show up later this week. And next week I got two or three orders. Cause I was like, that wasn't enough. So I went back two days later and ordered more. And I'm like, I need more running out of tungsten. It is catching fish on a spot, but it's eating up a lot of.

Matt (04:52.589)
Yeah.

Matt (04:59.693)
Yeah, exactly.

Brian Bashore (05:22.094)
lot of jigs and I'm like damn it you know so I'm using a tux and I give the clients the just a you know a round ball jig and a grub on it and yeah it's working good or even a live crawler but hello the things we do all right

Matt (05:35.757)
Yes, that's correct.

Brian Bashore (05:39.342)
And the, the, the, the cost and expense, but when you get on something good like that, that whether it's a particular bait that you don't have to bait all day, that's it. You're just going to catch more fish. I mean, you don't, you're not reaching digging up worms, digging out minnows. It's like, right. You missed it. Keep it out there. It gives us, you know, clients, obviously the confidence and pitching plastics, which most of them don't have.

Matt (05:58.189)
yeah. Yeah, they don't. They're like, we're using what? We're using plastics. Like, don't you got to use live bait to fish walleyes? I mean, like plastics are just as bad as crankbaits. You know, when we talk about crankbait addiction or, you know, you warn them, like, be careful if you get into this, because you're going to end up with a whole lot of stuff and a whole lot of tackle boxes full of stuff. And that's, I mean, plastics are the same way as crankbaits. Like you got to have a few of the color, like at least with plastics, I guess you can buy a pack of five.

or whatever they come in now, rather than buying one at a time. I was just telling them yesterday, one little tiny money badger crankbait, like the smallest one up shallow was catching fish. And the lady picked it out and it was just crushing them. And I'm like, this is how it happens. I only have one of those two, cause of that color. I had a few of the other color, but I was like, this is how it happens right here, because that's the color that's catching them. And now this is why you buy two and three of every color, just so we have it.

Brian Bashore (06:32.846)

Brian Bashore (06:48.078)
so

Brian Bashore (06:52.846)
And I have one of them.

Yep. So that's funny to say it because I had to buy more money badgers today because I had one of the color that was crushed in them and a pike took it. And so I had a switch where I had three of these other ones and I caught some, I'm like, so I had to go to shields a day and I've got some order, but I'm like, I need them tomorrow. So like, there it is. Boom. Yep. Grab a couple, three, four of those and a couple, three, four more of the other ones. And yeah, never eventually you're going to have one and you're going to throw it on that one day. And like always, that's the one that's, you know, working and

Matt (06:57.805)
Justin K.

Matt (07:06.669)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (07:25.934)
You got four lines out and one's catching all of them. It's inevitable.

Matt (07:30.125)
Yep, that's correct.

Brian Bashore (07:34.67)
it's expensive too. Those things are like seven bucks a piece or something. And it's, it's getting costly to do this stuff. So.

Matt (07:40.781)
Yeah.

Matt (07:45.773)
It is and it's kind of well like said going back to the you know at the forward -facing sonar stuff like I mean That's not so much for guiding. I don't have a lot of people asking to do that right now, but You know a few a few wanted want to do it But just back to some of the stuff you hear like them guys talking about just a jig and a crawler just now tungsten jigs are expensive but lead heads aren't too bad and you got a whole bunch of them so you can go back to that and

still catch a lot of fish sometimes too with that, not have to have all the fanciest stuff either.

Brian Bashore (08:21.55)
Yeah, it's hard to be just a jig and a crawler. So when, when the going to get stuff or you just need to catch them fish, put that jig and crawler on and you don't need, I mean, I'll use a forward facing to say, throw it over there, throw it over there, or just work this area and someone to see it. And I'll show them. I'm like, you don't, you don't even need to worry about watching it. Just trust me, there's fish there, throw it and here's the cadence. we're dealing with flooded flooded stuff down here. So we've got dirty water. So it's, you know, we're slowing things down and going to money bound.

badgers and salmon hornets with rattles, something that, you know, that can make a lot of noise, attract those fish to give them a bite and it's working. but still go find the cleanest water you can and you're going to, you're going to do much better.

Matt (09:01.421)
Yeah, we've been, you know, on Sakakawea we have the run out, the river runoff coming in and it's already, it's down, it's dirty even down around Baird End and stuff. I haven't been much further between Baird End and Pouch Point. I've been at Pouch Point and further up into the arm, but I haven't been on that river section between Pouch and Skunk or Skunk and Baird End and stuff, but we still have dirty water over by Newtown. So it's the same type of thing, trying to run some lures that are a little bit louder and

said the Van Hook arm hasn't taken off like it normally does in June. Like it's, it's, you're catching some fish, but it's, you got to work for them each day. It's not, you know, easy fishing. Like everybody's used to, so everybody's looking around like what's going on here. And it's like, well, we got to, we actually have to fish some today and you know, yeah. So, you know, but it's like said, same thing. We got some dirty water. We're jumping back and forth between and wind, wind all the time. So we're jumping over to the river side. So.

Brian Bashore (09:48.206)
It's cold, it's been cold.

Brian Bashore (09:57.39)
Yeah.

Matt (10:00.333)
Last couple days, big southeast winds while fishing the Van Hook arm with clients in a big southeast wind isn't what you would call enjoyable. You know, when the winds are the four footers are running in there. So we run over to the riverside and fished, you know, fished out of the Newtown Marina, the casino area and said it's dirty water, but there's fish there. You just got to get them to bite. So.

Brian Bashore (10:11.758)
No, not at all!

Brian Bashore (10:16.878)
Nope.

Brian Bashore (10:25.71)
Yeah, that's a, like Francis case was kind of like that. There's early in year two, it was people were there and it really just got going. or kind of mid June, early June, maybe, but normally it would have just been on fire on the lower end. I mean, the chairman by up North was, was decent in the spring, but not as good as normal. And guys were fishing league nights and there's a local tournament there every weekend. And they're just like, we can see the fish, but they wouldn't go at all. Everybody's really struggling. Then all of a sudden, I think it was the.

Matt (10:51.341)
But that's exactly what was in.

Brian Bashore (10:53.838)
Yeah, it was the wet stone tournament and that would have been first, second weekend in June. And then all of a sudden like 35 pounds, you know, won it. that's a, there's three guys in that, in the, in a boat there in those tournaments. I'm like, finally when they're like, yeah, they, you know, water finally warmed up. The local biologist says he thinks a lot of the fish didn't spawn. a lot of the females retained their eggs. And so they were just in a funk. I'm not.

Matt (11:16.461)
We've seen that same thing, exact same thing. We've cut up some that still have eggs in it.

Brian Bashore (11:23.342)
Yeah, I mean, there's always a few that, you know, reabsorb into their body. I'm not buying it on that big of fishery down there that that entire 90 miles of Lake was just sucking because of some females didn't spawn. I just, I don't know. I mean, there was whatever, I mean, you're looking for any kind of excuse. Cause guys like, I don't get it. I just can't catch them. I could see them on the graph. They're there. They're already in the trees or where they're supposed to be this time. You know, the water wasn't super cold, but they were just in a funk then lower where I'm at Lewis and Clark.

Matt (11:36.813)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (11:52.91)
was actually super good earlier. Granted, it's 50 miles further south of the water, warmed up real fast. And now it's the same temp that it's been for literally the last month and a half. It's just muddy and dirty now, but now like it's like Francis Cases is going and that's no more a concern. Lake Oahe is going. Sounds like Skakaua is really starting to pick up, but yeah, it's, you know, we got warm early, early ice off in a sense, maybe not for you guys up there.

Matt (12:12.973)
Yeah, it's starting to pick up.

Brian Bashore (12:19.758)
So it looked like everything's going to be a way ahead and most of the country and it is, but it seemed we're in July and it's, I mean, it's 70 today. It's not, it's not warm. I mean, it was cold this morning. Mike, I think it was 60 something in the house. So kind of weird.

Matt (12:33.709)
Yeah, we had the same thing. We had ice off really early. I mean, not crazy early, but earlier than normal. And then it warmed up and like in, it was around May 15th or so there was our fireman's tournament that was up here on the north end of the lake out of Lewis and Clark State Park here. And they, pre -fishing the day before it was a 75, 80 degree day in the middle of May. And it was water temperature started off at

On the surface at like 5657 that morning and then by the end of the day they were in they were in the mid 60s at the surface. Obviously it wasn't below you know below that, but it had warmed up quite a bit at the surface. Well then the tournament got postponed today. We had 40 mile an hour winds. On for Saturday so and no colder so the next morning you know the water temperature Sunday morning takeoff and head down to towards the Newtown area and we got 54 degree water temperatures and.

Brian Bashore (13:19.822)
Of course.

Matt (13:31.853)
Since then we've haven't, I mean, it was said it was a week and a half ago, we were still seeing upper fifties for water temperatures. And that's just, that's just got us all sorts of fish, all sorts of in a funk. We're seeing them. You know, I think if you want to see a forward facing sonar that it's not, you know, people that talk about the forward facing sonar that's cheating this and that, like you can, you can come watch a lot of these fish up here and you can figure out that it's not cheating. Cause you can still, you can see them, but you can,

Brian Bashore (13:57.966)
All right.

Matt (14:01.901)
throw that thing right at them and drop it on their head and they don't care. I mean, they move in, they just sit there and look at it and they're like, nope, sorry. It's so it's, yeah, it's a, it's been a weird year and like everybody's kind of, you know, wondering what's going on. And we just haven't, haven't had consistent weather for three days in a row. Like we had thunderstorms again last night and thunderstorms the other night. Like

Brian Bashore (14:04.75)
They moving they're just they're confused

Brian Bashore (14:24.302)
Yep, that's the...

Matt (14:28.141)
We just need some consistent weather to get those fish to go in. Cause it's funny when you clean them, the ones you're cleaning that stomachs are empty. So like they're, but they just, they're, they're still fat. They're full of fat and all that stuff in good condition. There's plenty of smelt around, but they're not, they're not putting the feed bag on even just them and themselves. So.

Brian Bashore (14:48.686)
Yeah, we haven't even had our mayflies are usually, you know, hatching and I'll see some in the, in the bellies or the mouse as well as you're in the mud digging that larva out. Haven't the fish have been in those spots, but they haven't been any mayflies. I mean, there's been lake flies and there's clearly some little bug hatches, but there's a surprising amount of like, I don't know if they're shiners or what there are that are going. I think the drum had just spawned. Most of the catfish are spawning if not spawned. Yeah. It's just a weird, but you just.

You get to three day weather thing and that's, that's kind of been my rule of thumb. Always three days of stable weather. And that's what it takes to just boom, you know, they're going to, they're going to fire. It may go to crap after that. You're going to get one really good day, but you're probably experiencing the bite windows when you get, when you're getting them, but that's it. They're only feeding for an hour or two versus you can catch them all day.

Matt (15:36.845)
Yep, that's exactly it. And they even, I mean, yesterday was a great example of that. You get into a spot, get, you know, we had nine pretty quickly back and forth and it's like, okay, this now we're finally starting to see what we expect. And then they were done and it was pick off one every little bit. Just sometimes I wonder too, like you go through and you get the fish that are going to bite right away. Like you get two or one or two or three, like we've got quite a few doubles this year.

for the way the bite has been. Like we'll have two fish on at a time and I'm netting two fish in the same net and all that type of stuff with the clients. And it's like, we go forever. Last week, one day we had had one fish and it was, I don't know, it was 10 .30, 11 o 'clock or 10 .30 about it was, and cause we fished till 11 and we had one fish in the boat and we came over a spot, we were trolling crank baits and we got a quad, all four rods went off. We had four of them.

We had one before that. And then we had his limit. We had the one guy's limit and that was all he had. So it was just him. And we went and went down a little farther, got three or four more keepers. We let go and I was like, well, he's like, well, let's fish till 11. He wanted to hit the road early. And, and, I said, okay, we'll run back over that spot again, see if we can get any more. We didn't get a fish off that spot again, turned right back around on it. It's like, they just, it's like you.

We're so used to on Sakakawea when you get them, when you see them there too, it's not like you're only seeing two fish on the graph. You're seeing them down there and you go and get a couple and you're like, all right, let's turn around and go right back through them. You're better off just leaving and going to the next spot and picking two more odds and just pick off one or two spots and jump around all day and you'll catch just as many, I think, as you will if you sit and grind on them.

Brian Bashore (17:09.934)
Right.

Brian Bashore (17:17.55)
Go to the next spot either. Yeah, I don't.

Brian Bashore (17:27.374)
Yeah, well, unfortunately you have a lake that's got a lot of spots, so you can do that.

Matt (17:31.469)
No, yeah, we, you know, and I think we're so spoiled. We have, it's, it's such a good fishery up here and it's in such good shape. You know, I think back, it was COVID, it was 2020 and that year it was a little off. That year, the bite, we had a whole bunch of small fish and guiding wise, it was tough cause we were trying to find, you know, we were catching a bunch of 12 to 13 inches, but to find those, you know, 15 to 19 inches to eat.

was really hard and everybody's like, what's going on? They were so there. And I had a pretty good tournament year that year until the NWT came. But I had a pretty good tournament year that year and I was on some bigger fish that I could stay on. But otherwise the eaters were really tough and it's just weird how it kind of protects itself almost like the lake once in a while just like, yeah, we're not going to give out as much as we use as we're used to. And then us as fishermen sit here and complain like what's going on?

Brian Bashore (18:26.766)
Right.

Matt (18:29.997)
But I mean, the year after that and the last three have been phenomenal, like just crazy, crazy good. And said, you have to, you have to earn your earn your fish a little bit. You're like, everybody's looking around at each other. Like what happened? Did somebody clean all the fish or it's like, no, they're still there. You can see them. Like that's the thing with the, especially with the forward facing sonar stuff now too, like, I mean, you could do it with side imaging and all that stuff, but now with forward facing sonar, everybody can see them even more.

Like it's not hard to put your bait or your transducer down and look around and be like, those are fish. Look at all those fish. They're everywhere. And it's amazing. I mean, that's the biggest thing with forward facing sonar to me is how many fish you don't see go under your boat that, that actually in on the reservoirs here, we've been, you know, we always think about how we can fish right underneath the boat. We fish a heavy bottom bouncer and

Brian Bashore (19:07.566)
Yeah.

Matt (19:24.845)
fish it right underneath the boat in eight feet of water and they don't care and you can catch fish. But it's amazing how many fish actually still scatter, like putting that facing forward and you know, you watch it because you can see a little bit back too. So you should see it's like, all right, it should be coming on the transducer now or they're 20 feet in front of you and then they disappear. And how many actually scatter outside and spook from the boat, even though you're catching them right below the boat.

Brian Bashore (19:52.654)
Yeah, they're not all smart. So their brain's pretty small, but I've been, you know, same thing. I've run two ounce bouncers and four to five foot of water just because of current and going pretty, you know, pulling them at one four, one five and running that and watching the bouncer and watching them. And it's like, it is a nonstop flow of fish right behind it where you can see some on -site image, but not near as many as you see. I mean, once you put that down, I have another spot I've been, I normally wouldn't fish. I drive by with size scan and it's gotta be pretty loaded to stop and fish what I've been driving size scan and go.

Matt (19:56.333)
I'm sorry.

Brian Bashore (20:22.638)
There's a few, but then I put the trolling motor down and scan around, look at what there's way more than a few, you know, that boom, Spalak, throw a bobber or whatever out. And you're like, boom, you're done at eight 30. I'm like, I wouldn't even have fished this until I see a lot more, you know, on side scan. But once I put that down, I can see now I can see those ones in the rocks. I can see it just, you know, the ones that are super, I don't, you just see so much more and you're like, there's a lot of fish. There's a lot more fish in these systems than anybody I think is probably aware of.

Matt (20:49.613)
Yeah, and it's like just crazy. Like some of the spots I've stopped and like you said, stopped and fished, but we normally would just leave them. Like I'd be like, nah, I'm out of here. This is nothing.

Brian Bashore (21:00.846)
Yeah, it's not enough. There's fish, but you know, I want more. Right. Right.

Matt (21:02.413)
Well, not not enough. Not what we're looking. Yeah, that's what we're looking for, you know, and all the time like we're looking for the bite that's going to, you know, put a whole bunch of fish in the boat as guides. That's what we're looking to do to keep on that that hottest bite. And sometimes it's like, you know, we've driven through a lot of areas. And I mean, I had it. We had a big group of we had seven of six or six people. It was on Friday and.

I put the one other guy Wade, he pulled in and he's or he was like, I'm going to go start here. And I'm like, okay. And as I was driving by, I was going to run further south from, from there. And I, the wind was blowing in and I'm like, all right, I'm going to, I better stop and at least look at this flat and see what's happening. And I drove around, I didn't mark very many. I didn't put the forward facing in, but I didn't mark very many. I left and I went to the next spot and he texts me as soon as I pulled into the next spot and started fishing. He goes, got two in the box already.

And I'm like, huh, I didn't see that many fish. And then I bet it was 20 minutes later. He texted me a 28 and a half that they caught. And I was like, my God, we should have stopped and fished. I mean, that was the only big one we got that day. But it's like, you know, I drove, I drove through it and, but it was a big flat too. So I didn't, I just quick checked it. I didn't drive the whole thing. It's a mile long. So I didn't spend the whole.

Time driving it just to look and he started in a little bit different spot and found those fish where they were and yeah.

Brian Bashore (22:29.838)
Nope. You do a lot. The same thing I do. I just run up there, side -amage, take a quick peek, you slow down and come up play and you just go a little ways. You're like, no, you know, cause you know, that's, they're going to be right here and you don't see them when you take off. You're like, I could probably drop in and make a pass and maybe we'll pick them up. And then all of a sudden that pod you're used to is a hundred yards off and you just completely miss it. like it, you know, like we got other guides out and we'd like to, we'll break. It's nice when you have two or three other guides out with you and, and you know,

Matt (22:49.933)
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Brian Bashore (22:57.902)
You can find that by quicker or one of you missed it or he went here, you went there and it's like, no, they're further West or vice versa. Then everybody gets on the fish quick. So the, we, skipped over the whole intro who Matt is, because that's what you guys guys do. We just started talking about guy, guy, efficient stuff and efficient. So there are those of you that don't know Matt, just tell them a little bit about yourself. What.

Matt (23:14.925)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (23:21.87)
You know where you're from, what you're doing. I know you got a new, career change just happening here shortly. and then by legal guide service.

Matt (23:31.661)
So yeah, I'm Matt Liebel. I've lived in Western North Dakota pretty much my entire life. I guess if you consider Botno for one year, that's not really what we would consider Western North Dakota, but I guess it's still in my new territory, which we called Northwest on my new job. But anyways, grew up in Watford City, fish in Lake Sakakawea all the time. My parents have a lake place. It was my grandma and grandpa's lake place down at Deepwater Bay and now they bought it. So they have it and...

Yeah, so we're been fishing anywhere from way up on the West End all the way down to Deepwater Bay. And then I've been over to the East End too now for fishing tournaments and things like that since 2010 was when we first started fishing the Governor's Cup out there. And, and yeah, so I fished pretty much all up and down the lake and seen a lot of different stuff, high water, low water. I mean, two different record highs or record low, you know, in those.

15 year time span. We saw a record high record, low record high. So I've seen a lot of, a lot of stuff change on, on Sakakawea and it's, like I said, I've been, been here a lot. I, now I lived in Williston. I have my wife, Amy and three kids, Mason. He'll be 11 and here in September and Bridget will be seven, or she has seven. She'll be eight in March and then Lincoln, my youngest one, and he's just getting into the fish. He wants to go play with the creek chubs.

Hourly or so he wants to go play with the He's 21 months he'll be to an ear in September and he Yeah, we can consider it my bait checker when you grab them and the guts are no longer in him when he's done playing with them You know Whatever, but yeah, this one's I don't think my daughter goes. I don't think that one's gonna is alive anymore Yeah, I think the guts hanging out of it are a pretty good sign. It's dead and

Brian Bashore (25:01.294)
Well good, he's your bait checker. So good.

Brian Bashore (25:11.79)
Yep.

Yep.

Matt (25:27.789)
Yeah, so he'll he wants to go play with them all the time and go this other day when I had a couple days off and then I started a six day stretch here. I got the day off tomorrow, but and coming up for the fourth. But I know the first day I was back guiding and Lincoln was just mad that I wasn't there. He wanted to go on the boat and play with the fish and so he might he might be my fishing buddy. The other two they they go fishing. They've they'll go with me, but they know they don't.

Brian Bashore (25:28.109)
That's not going to work.

Matt (25:56.461)
They don't love it as much as I do, that's for sure. But so yeah, I was a teacher here in Williston for the past 15 years. I taught eighth grade earth science and seventh grade life science. So I was a science teacher and teach the middle schoolers. And if you can deal with middle schoolers, I think you could handle a lot of guide clients. They can be, you know, said most middle schoolers students are great. I mean, you hear a lot of.

Brian Bashore (26:19.694)
Yeah.

Matt (26:25.933)
just a little education plug, but you hear a lot about kids these days and this and that. Most kids are great. And, you know, I'd say more of the adults expectations have changed or things like that have changed a little bit, but, and do we have kids that are tough? Yeah, we do. But it's, I mean, it relates to the same thing as, you know, most of our guide clients are great, great to deal with. And then you have a few that come in with expectations that are unrealistic or whatever. And then, you know,

Brian Bashore (26:52.494)
Yup.

Matt (26:52.589)
same type of thing. So I mean, if you can deal with middle schoolers, I think you can deal with guiding and handling those people. So I would say it's probably easier, easier, guiding is easier than teaching a bunch of kids, that's for sure.

Brian Bashore (26:58.51)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good correlation I had about a lot of kids.

Brian Bashore (27:10.83)
Yeah, I had a boatload of kids the last two days and man do they ask a lot of questions. So, you know, I was getting some stuff at Shills day and the guy was.

Matt (27:15.341)
yeah, I had the same girl she used to eat.

Matt (27:23.981)
I had this girl, she was eight the last three days and we got her a 25 and a half incher today. That was pretty cool for her to reel in that. But she was asking all sorts of questions. She wanted to try the jig wrap and I'm like, it's tiring. You're gonna have to really work at it. And she worked at it for about three minutes and she's like, you were right. It was really hard. Yeah, that's not an easy, that's not an easy buddy to get going. I had it on, I had her.

Brian Bashore (27:24.846)
Go ahead.

Brian Bashore (27:42.446)
Yep.

Matt (27:52.973)
On forward facing sonar, I was watching it, you know, and I was like, I just, she had a couple chase, but she didn't get him to hit it. I thought I was really hoping she was going to get one on one of those J grabs, but, but yeah, they're great. So said I've been, taught for 15 years, actually in, in 2011, 2011, my partner, my tournament partner and I, Tori Tori Hill, and we won the North Dakota governor's cup. And then I took that, that money.

that I want and put that into my, and started my guide service. So I started my guide service in the summer of 2012. So I've been guiding from 2012 until now, 2024. So I think this will be my 13th summer guiding. And the last, a lot of summers have been very busy doing that. So we've been started out just myself and built up. Now I have four other guides.

that I use pretty regularly. And I have a few others that obviously I can call in and we've, we've, we've had, you know, seven, eight, nine boats going at a time. Some days, when we got some big groups and things like that. So we've, we've been said, and the guides I've been able to bring on have been, have been excellent and, they, they know how to catch fish too. And we, we've done a, I feel like we've done a real good job of getting kids or getting people on fish and figuring out like Sakakawea and, and, you know, it's just a.

said it's just an awesome fishery and there's, you know, the big fish potential isn't maybe what we look at of Oahe and Fort Peck. But I think part of that is we haven't unlocked it yet either. We haven't unlocked it as much. And some of that stuff, like there's still a lot of secrets out there and we haven't figured them all out. And I think some of the forward -facing sonar is gonna show some more of those. I don't know if I'm gonna be the one to figure it out.

It's hard to go figure new things out when you're guiding. That's the, I think a lot of people that think about tournaments and stuff, they're like, well, you know, guiding is not tournament fishing. It's a completely different game. And it's like, you know, to try it, like I'm this forward facing sonar and listening to him talk about, I was listening to the Northland podcast this morning. It was one of Tom Wynn's interview. I think I've listened to, I just searched Tom Wynn on

Matt (30:16.173)
Apple podcasts and start trying to, you know, listen to everything that he talks about to pick up something different. That dude just catches them. But talk, he's talking about how he let one sit, you know, he just lets the bait sit there. And I saw them doing this at when they were here for the, the aim shootout in late May or early June there, I saw him just let that bait sit there and just hold his rod still. And I'm like, what is he doing? Like, he's just sitting there holding it.

Brian Bashore (30:19.278)
Right. Yeah.

He's good.

Matt (30:45.613)
And then he caught a big one. I'm like, what the heck is going on? And then I listened to that one. He explained it a little bit. And I'm like, I can't do that on a, you can't do that on a guide trip. You can't go and sit and just throw that out a fish and let that sit there and just be like, so like trying to, I can pick off fish with a jig and wrap and spot them out there and cast to it and pick them off. But like, not like that, not like they talk about. So it's, it's like I said, guiding and

and tournament fishing are two completely different things. And it's a hard switch and everybody's like, well, you know where all the fish are and this and that. It's like, yeah, but that's not it. Like, yeah, not the tournament fish. I can go catch you a whole bunch of eaters and said, go try and find a big one here and there, but it's a whole different ball game. So, but yeah, we've got a complete run. So hopefully it continues.

Brian Bashore (31:24.622)
That's tournament fish.

Brian Bashore (31:32.526)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (31:38.062)
And guys.

Brian Bashore (31:42.958)
You guys just don't, guys don't get the time. You know, what are you doing your day off? It's like, well, fishing, you know, I got to stay on, on that bite, you know, unless you got a tournament coming up, maybe we'll go try to find some of those big fish. If you have any time, you know, downtime, but like you said, you just sort of a six day run. And when you start it, you know, guiding means five, six AM you're up doing whatever you got to do. Sometimes there's, you know, you got to driveaways to wherever you're going, picking your clients up.

Getting them fishing all day, cleaning fish, getting back, getting ready for the next day. Now you're you're 10, 12 hours into your day. You're like, I'm not going back out to go play around for a couple of three hours until sunset. I'm wiped out. You know, I'm living in a camper so I can do that if I have a half day, but it's like, no, I'm good. I'll just go, you know, we'll go out tomorrow and do whatever, but you're on a much bigger fishery than I have. But so you have a lot more water to cover, but you just.

Matt (32:16.813)
Yeah.

Matt (32:22.701)
No

Brian Bashore (32:36.014)
It's right. There's so different from tournament fishing to guide fishing. We have two different goals, five big fish and a lot of fish and a lot of action.

Matt (32:43.021)
Yep, and it's like today, you know, even today's, today's guide trip I had, we went looking for big fish because they had been here for a few days. They had their possession limit. They weren't going to keep anymore. They couldn't legally keep any more anyways. So we're like, well, let's go look for a picture fish. Let's go look for some guide, do some big fish and, and, see what we can find. And it was, you know, the action was a lot slower and I was like, it's going to be slower. Like we're not going to catch as many.

you don't just pull up onto a spot and you're going to have a bunch of 23 plus inch fish sitting there. Like you do, you know, like you go pull up on any other spot and you have those eater fish. They're just not as many of them. And that's just the way it is. So, and they, I mean, the clients knew that they were, they knew where they were prepared. And it's like, this is, this is how it goes. But you said with, you know, I'm up usually alarm goes off around 4 30, 4 30 in the morning, depending on what time I'm meeting them.

Brian Bashore (33:16.462)
Right.

Matt (33:39.117)
anywhere between four and five in the morning, I'm up and, and most days I'm back, you know, between five and six 30 at night. So it's a, yeah, it's 12, 12, 13 hours every day. And yeah, you just do that day after day and it's, it's a lot. And then, you know, the next day, like you said, you get a day off, it's like, do you want to go fishing? And I mean, I, I'll go fishing anytime. Yeah, I want to go fishing. I want to go try things and

Brian Bashore (34:04.11)
You want to.

Matt (34:08.749)
Figure things, new things out too. At the same time, you got wife and kids and family and stuff too. So we got to, you got to keep those, those things too. So we've got to play with them, take them out. So then you take them out and it's like, well, you're back to guiding again. You can't, can't go search for the big fish grind on that without with them. So it's like, we're back to, back to the same thing. So it's not, it's, it's not as easy as everybody thinks it is to keep on, on the big fish necessarily every, you know, all the time.

Brian Bashore (34:24.27)
Right.

Matt (34:38.765)
out here, but there's a couple spots. I think we know a couple spots that always have some big fish too. So they're not, they're no secret.

Brian Bashore (34:40.686)
Nope.

Brian Bashore (34:46.766)
Yep. Yeah. You talk about that fishery and you know, Oahu has obviously put down some big fish and has put down some big fish now and it Green Bay does Lake Erie does. Sakakawe has got a good population of big fish, but it is the third large reservoir right behind Oahu. yeah. Five, how many miles of shoreline? I'm getting it confused with Francis Casey. I think that's 507.

Matt (35:02.893)
Yeah, it's very... Yep.

Matt (35:08.973)
1700 or something like that. It's, it's, it's, it's more coastline or more shoreline than the coastline of California, whatever that is. I know that it's, I think it's 1700 miles of shoreline or something like that. It's.

Brian Bashore (35:14.606)
sounds about right.

Brian Bashore (35:18.766)
nephoria yep yep

Brian Bashore (35:25.262)
The lake itself is 130 long or something. 120.

Matt (35:29.997)
Yeah, depends on how they measure it or where they consider the start. You know, and they had the NWT here in 2017. We were making runs from Garrison up to Lunds Landing Tobacco Gardens. That was 110 miles. You can add, you know, to the dam from Garrison, five, six miles. And then you can add, you know, up to Lewis and Clark State Park, another 10. So, you know, you're looking at 100 and

Brian Bashore (35:55.694)
in.

Matt (35:58.925)
26 miles there. I mean you can consider it the reservoir a little further up and Then the other part I could hear a lot of them say 180 miles long they must count the little Missouri arm as part of that length In there that would that would be where they get because there's no way it's 180 miles I mean it'd be about 180 miles from From the dam to the state line, but by the time you get up to Williston. It's it's a river. It's not it's a river river not a

Brian Bashore (36:12.494)
Yeah, that's big.

Brian Bashore (36:23.502)
Yeah.

Matt (36:27.629)
not a reservoir anymore.

Brian Bashore (36:30.414)
Yeah. A little muddy river up there. It's, it's a huge place and big fish potential and just a lot of fish, but it's like any place that Evan flows. It's gone through its years of floods and washing all the bait. I mean, it used to be great. And then it kind of was under the radar for a while. Then I don't know when it was about 12 or 13, maybe it kind of started back up and started being on everybody's radar again. Like, Hey, this place is putting out some big fish.

Matt (36:49.581)
Yep.

Matt (36:55.341)
Yep. So it was, yeah, like the, the eighties were really a lot of big fish in the eighties. and then kind of didn't see as many big fish. We had high water years in the nineties, 97, we set record highs and really good fishing, still then, and then from 97 to 2007, we had rec or we had declining water and record lows and started to see the fish get real skinny. I had a 30 incher.

that weighed under eight pounds. It was like 7 .8 pounds or something. We caught it in a tournament, which was good, but, you know, but it wasn't an AIM tournament. AIM wasn't around yet, but it still was the big fish of the tournament. So, but we caught a lot of skinny fish and that was in 2007. That one was, and we caught a lot of skinny fish then in seven, but then the winters of nine, 10 and 11 were really, really heavy winters. And we had a lot of

Brian Bashore (37:28.878)
Alright, if it's an aim tournament, great!

Brian Bashore (37:35.374)
Yeah. You know.

Matt (37:51.853)
lot of runoff and that flooded, you know, they, we worry about water levels, but the big thing is that the, like the biologists talk about is you need some low water years to get some of that vegetation growing up. And then when that floods, it's such good habitat for those, for those fish to spawn and the young of the year to grow and hide and that type of stuff. So when that, when that flooded, when it went from record lows and seven to record highs again in 2011, that

displaced a lot of fish and into a lot of trees and flooded vegetation and it was an absolute struggle to get them out of there. And that's why I kind of dropped off. Fishing was tough. Fishing was really tough. But like we said, we won the governor's cup. We found out how to get inside the trees and fish the four to six feet of water inside the trees. And it was kind of sketchy getting through there and some of that stuff with the boat. But when you figured it out, they were in there and that's where you could get them. But it was.

It was weird that you think you could slipbobber them like devils like in the trees and it couldn't figure that out completely, but it was kind of a tougher little time there. But then all those years of that flooded vegetation was just great for reproduction of everything. And now we're reaping all those benefits still and we've had good water levels and it's still now, as I said, it's still really, really good. Water levels are looking good. I didn't see the forecast.

Usually they come out on the first of the month. I didn't see it. I looked at it here just a little while ago. I didn't see the new forecast yet, but should be good.

Brian Bashore (39:25.55)
Yeah, they're yeah. Hopefully they're good. Those high water years are pretty important for the fisheries. in the trees, the Harlan County reservoir in South central Nebraska, it goes through that a lot as a reservoir because they're irrigating Republican rivers, dumping in that water is there, you know, sending it down to Kansas, and Nebraska fight over that all the time. But the high water years, same deal. Everybody's like, it's fishing. Torrible. It's not horrible. You just can't get to the fish. Once people figured that out and that same thing, I'd.

tied for like ninth in the governor's cup down there and went in to like eight feet of water and tied to the tree and dropped a giant crick job straight over the boat. And you just put 20 plus pound test on and you, you got them and you just had to get them, get them up out of there, you know, immediately. And it was the same deal. Once people figured out that you, you just got to pull into the, just got to push, you know, whatever, go into those trees or go into that one to four foot of water and to go the weeds, whatever they're in there feeding. If you can get there and get there and just.

Matt (40:20.429)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (40:21.614)
You know, you're not, you can't, you know, trolling. I used to troll through some of it after a few years of ice pulling some trees. It got a little bit better. I'm at a little trick. I do a lot would take the front hook off the crank bait so you could pull through those trees and it wouldn't get snagged up near as bad. yeah, I mean, you're, if you're going to troll through trees, you're just going to lose some baits, but ideally, I mean, literally just take a rope and tie to a tree. And, you know, I'm a reason to one ounce jig head to keep the giant crick job, you know, from swimming around too much. Cause it was going to wrap you around.

Matt (40:48.717)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (40:50.958)
Tree limb and as soon as you you got something you could there was no waiting It was just get it and horse it up and using like a nine foot broomstick handled rod almost just to get it get them up and out of there immediately sound like you're doing the same thing up there and After a while that I those trees kind of fade away and then you get a low gear those willows grow back up I mean Mother Nature will work it all out. she always does

Matt (41:13.677)
Yep. And that's, yeah, she does. And that's exactly it. We, again, the fluctuating water level, you know, when you get water rising, you know, it changes everything and those fish move up into those places and you got to figure out how to get them. And sometimes it's pretty dang tough to get them out of there, you know, or to figure out how to get them out of there and that type of stuff too. So you said the lake mother nature protects yourself. Yeah. No, they can be out there.

Brian Bashore (41:35.246)
And I don't care how hot it is.

Yeah, I don't care how hot it is. If it's high water, they're going to be in that one to three foot of new, fresh, highly oxygenated weed growth water. That's where the bait is. It's going to be a hundred degrees out. That's where they're going.

Matt (41:45.357)
yeah.

Yep, 100 degrees flat column, you can catch them in there for sure.

Brian Bashore (41:54.702)
Yep. They're shallow all the time. And if they're shallow, they're there for one reason, I always say, and it's because there's food, you know, they're, they're not very smart and they're kind of like a buck and a rut when there's food around it. One thing on their mind, right? That's all they do is eat, swim around and reproduce once a year. So it's pretty simple.

Matt (42:07.725)
Yeah.

Matt (42:12.173)
Yeah, that's correct.

Brian Bashore (42:16.046)
We like to overcomplicate it. So it's a kākui, obviously this is a huge, phenomenal place. The guiding is going good. You're busy. People can find you over at leavalsguideservice .com.

Matt (42:27.981)
Yep, yeah, we're on leavelsguideservice .com. We are on Facebook, just Leavels Guide Service, Instagram, Leavels Guide. Haven't got the old TikTok yet. Maybe, maybe sometime. I don't know.

Brian Bashore (42:40.174)
Hopefully it's gone. Yeah. I ain't dipping into that world neither. I just don't think it's going to be around long.

Matt (42:45.709)
I haven't gotten to that world yet either. So my wife keeps sending me TikTok videos and I can't see them. And it's like, you got to log in. I'm like, well, I haven't downloaded the app and logged in yet. So you're going to send me other videos or something.

Brian Bashore (42:48.654)
You know, there's...

Brian Bashore (42:57.55)
Yeah, just sometimes there's so much out there. We got enough things and we got, you know, you and I, we got websites to deal with. We got YouTube's and podcasts and I'm like, it, it just consumes you and we got fishing to do so. I don't have time to be playing on the phone. It's that simple. Right. It's that simple. I know the sponsors might like you out there to do some things, but you're like, is that really my demographic? I don't know. Somewhat. So I mean, there's some new anglers coming up. They're going to be on there, but you know.

Matt (43:06.829)
Yep.

Matt (43:12.621)
That's correct. That's correct.

Brian Bashore (43:26.35)
Our generation of most of our clients are on Facebook and you know, a lot of business comes through there, but we'll put some, we'll drop those, those links below to Matt's stuff. guidance good. We talked about Matt, you got aim tournaments. You've been run working up there. You've been doing pretty good on those. I think you're sitting at the, in the top tier there, aren't you on team of the year for that North Dakota aim circuit.

Matt (43:45.389)
Yeah, we're in second right now for the team of the year. We had a rough one, the first one down in Bismarck on the river. Just didn't come across any big fish. Also didn't have a good path up north. I should have spent more time getting the path up north a little further, but that's the tricky part of that river is navigating and fishing on short time too is just trying to get a path to where you can. And usually we

we're able to find some bigger fish down south where I can navigate a little bit better and I know it a little bit better, but we didn't find any. So we had to, and I mean, it didn't help with the way aim points are calculated off based on weight when a guy goes and catches 51 pounds, you know, that sucks. I mean, we knew it was going to happen. We knew somebody was going to catch them big. I mean, we knew it was going to be 40 plus something and it could be over 50 and.

Brian Bashore (44:34.638)
Yeah.

Matt (44:42.573)
You know, we just, we didn't find it. We were happy to get the 20 we had and call it a day, you know, and just that didn't work out for points. But then we had, yeah, we had a second at Audubon and we had a third here on out of Garrison. And so we're sitting in a, in a good spot with our, with our, you know, our kind of our bread and butter area coming out of partial on, on August 11th. So we're hopeful for that. Although last year we had started off the year with a win on Audubon and

We're sitting real good and had a good tournament out in Devil's Lake and cashed a check out there and we're sitting good for team of the year points and whatnot. And we sucked on our two, on our home body of water, the championship and then the partial tournament, we sucked at. So, you know, that it happens sometimes. So.

Brian Bashore (45:30.254)
Fishing those memories, they'll getcha.

Matt (45:33.965)
Yeah, it will. And I don't know, like I said, even the Big Ten at the end of the year, last year at the end of the year, we just hit a rut, just couldn't figure it out. I don't know what was going on. I said pre -fishing for the Big Ten. I had a good day pre -fishing before and thought everything was going to be good and it wasn't. And yeah, that's just how it goes sometimes. And I said, you got to learn from those and move on. And hopefully this year we can.

I'm excited to get out to Devil's Lake for our AIM Championship in September. We watched what you guys did last year out on the NWT guys did last year in September out of there. Not saying we're gonna go pull a Hoyer and pull 40 pounds out of there in a day, but gosh, it sure looks like a lot of fun to use that forward facing sonar and go chase them around.

Brian Bashore (46:26.606)
Yeah, I committed to it when I went there and, and, I wouldn't say necessarily caught them by using it, but it, I mean, that was, I pulled some lead and caught some decent fish, but kind of got it figured out. And yeah, there was, yeah, it's a game changer. I mean, those are the biggest bags, tournament bags. I've seen come out of that place in a long time. And I think I even had a 26 or 28 on second day, the old pal bag and, I was running the bird so I couldn't see the fish in the weeds as much in one spot.

or it was next to me. I was the only one that caught them out of the weeds. And I talked to him and, and Tom and they're like, no, like we can see the fish in the weeds. I'm like, I just see weeds. So I'm just casting over there and they're coming up out of it and hitting it. They're seeing the fish, but I'm like, there's like, you got them. He's like, we didn't. So, but then we, you know, it's, but they also weren't there very long, you know, and I'm like, well, they obviously could see that maybe there was only a half a dozen fish and I got a couple and they're like, well, that guy's got them. I'm out of here.

Matt (47:15.565)
Yeah.

Matt (47:25.997)
Yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (47:27.31)
There's fish deep, there's fish shallow. You can slip bobber. I mean, Devil's Lake is so fun. It's kind of like Skakwita. That's why I like it so much. It's a fishery where you can do whatever you want to do. I mean, something's going to be better than something else, but do what your strength is.

Matt (47:34.925)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Matt (47:43.661)
Yeah, you can usually find them, you know, you can catch the tournament winning fish in your pattern that you want to, like you just got to figure them out and do it. And that, you know, skakui is the same way you control cranks, you can cast, you know, you can cast pitch jigs, you can cast jig and wraps, you can slip bobber, all those things. You can do it all. You know, you just got to figure out what's the best and most efficient way to get it done. That's the key.

Brian Bashore (48:11.566)
Yeah. And then, you know, Van Hook's basically like a giant lake cause it's so big and the little Missouri's a whole nother beast of its own. You can never leave the area. I mean, you could just guide the little Missouri arm period or Van Hook. I mean, they're, those are massive. which is great. You know, that you got with your clients, you've got a boatload of kids and you spoke, you know, talk about taking your kids out and we don't moderation for those that are, that are new and you got new kids and you want to go fishing.

Matt (48:22.381)
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. You could. Yeah. So there's like.

Brian Bashore (48:39.566)
And dad is going to be out there all day for eight to 10 hours. Don't take your kids out there for eight to 10 hours. You're going to burn them out. They never want to go fishing with you again. Okay. Unless they're like, maybe you or I, as we were little that we were, you couldn't get me out of the boat if I ever had a chance to get in a boat. but I did that probably to my kids. Yeah. Two hours, you know.

Matt (48:45.741)
I don't know.

Yeah.

Matt (48:55.181)
Yeah, that's exactly what my dad said. I wouldn't get out, never asked to go in. But yeah, it's it's funny, you know, taking kids guiding to its its two hours in and there are we are we going to go in yet? Are we done yet? And the parents are like, No, we want to keep fishing. And I'm of course, I'm like, I want to keep fishing to even it can be you can be catching catching them like crazy. And they're like, you're gonna go in yet? And it's like, wow.

Brian Bashore (49:02.126)
Yep. So.

Brian Bashore (49:16.846)
All right.

Brian Bashore (49:20.654)
Yep.

Matt (49:24.141)
What? Why are we? But yeah, it's just the way they are. And like I said, I, my dad said I was the only one that never asked growing up. I never asked when we're going to go in or can we quit or whatever? I never said those words. They didn't come out of my mouth, but it's just like, let's be out here. Let's go. Let's do it. But

Brian Bashore (49:42.83)
You don't want to put that thought in their mind even you're like, I'm we're believe me out here all night. I'll sleep in this thing. I don't care. Drop the anchor and go good. I'll have a fish all night. You can't, you can't have enough snacks in the boat with kids. And I always, if they have little kids, I tell them like, let's just do a half day. And if the other half isn't booked, we can play it by ear. But because most likely after about two to two to three hours, your kids get up, you know, you're going to want to go in.

Matt (49:49.453)
Yeah. But...

Yep. Yeah. The one girl, she took a couple hour nap yesterday on the bow of the boat. We were trolling. She just went up there and took a nap. But the other thing, like, I don't know, it's where we talk about taking kids and you know, that's part of it. I wonder too on, you know, when you get, where's the, where's a lot of times you take your kids fishing the first time you take them fishing bluegills, panfish where you can catch a hundred, a hundred in an hour, you know, just drop it in, catch one, drop it in, catch one, drop it in, catch one.

Then they think that's all you got to do is just catching, not fishing. And then you take them out, even fishing walleyes and the wallow bites good and you catch one every five minutes. They're like, when are we going to catch another one? When are we going to catch another one? When are we going to catch another one? But patience, that's the thing that comes with time. That comes with time.

Brian Bashore (50:39.662)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (50:46.158)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (50:54.99)
But it's, it's all part of the experience. So that's, you know, kids are going to learn that I had a, I had two groups yesterday, both had kids morning group, afternoon group, and then another group day before kids. And it was so, and little kids like they can't cast and do stuff, but I had one little older one and she vertical jig. And I went up on the scope and there's a big school white bass. I'm like, yeah, we got, we got action. I said, I'll pitch it and catch one. And then this handed him the rod.

And the little kids watching the screen and digging it in real amendment, like said after a while. Okay. I need to, you know, we need a break, you know, whatever cases that they were swapping off with him and his sister and they were catching them having a ball. Then in the older one, it's like, you want to come up here and it's grandpa's and she's like, Nope. She was locked in on that rod and she was going to catch one her own way, you know, and she finally did. It was like an 18 and small. I look back and I was like, you got one biting you and I could see it loading up and she starts reeling and then it fly it and she's

Matt (51:47.885)
Mm.

Brian Bashore (51:49.486)
She's vertical jigging like six foot of water. So it's right underneath the boat, but flies up and almost jumps over the corner and it's all over. And finally it spits the hook. I mean, at the second time it jumped him is like right in her face. I'm like, that's, that's good. That's a catch. It's you're letting it go anyway. It was a big, small mouth, but she was a static, like, you know, I've been waiting two hours, you know, and I finally got one, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I mean, you got it. You got it your way. You know, you could have came up here and caught all these white bass you wanted, of course.

Matt (52:08.813)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (52:16.334)
You know, we were there catching some walleye in the back of the boat too, with her grandpa out of the weeds, but that was it. And it made her whole day. She was good. She did it her way. She defeated, you know, the whole, the whole goal and made it. And it was fun. And, you know, and same the second day with the kid again, it was like, I don't want to fish today, but, but dad sure is like one or two. Even though mom took a nap and put the rod in rod holder, she caught the most fish and the biggest fish.

Matt (52:39.789)
Isn't funny how that happens, happens a fair amount of times.

Brian Bashore (52:40.718)
We just, yeah, we just kind of holler, wake her up and always tell the husband, I'm like, the wife's got to catch more, you know, she's going to get the big fish. She's got to get the most fish. Just accept it. It's just, it's just how it works. Cause they don't, they're not ripping it out of their mouth. They're just slow to take it out, taking it and just keeping pressure on it. I'm like, just watch and learn. Cause it's going to happen at 90 % of the time it happens.

Matt (52:51.981)
Yeah.

Yeah, it does. It does a lot. We had a group group the other day and I had two of them that, or one girl, she is going to be a, I think she's a freshman. So it's going to be, it's going to be a freshman in high school this year. And, yeah, she had never fished before at all. And, and then her grandpa was in the front and her grandma was in the back and the grandpa struggled and, the grandma and her just, just constant.

one after the other after the other and it's like.

He's like, I don't know, I can't seem to get bit. And he kept putting both his rods in the rod holder. He was running two rods up in the front. He's the first one of the fish. He'd set them both in their rod holder. I'm like, just hang on to it. Just hang on to one and you'll catch them. Cause they, you know, the bite, it's been kind of a finicky bite. You can't just set them in the rod holder and they'll load up and, and hook them. You got to kind of drop it back a little bit to them and, and, and feed them. Cause they just haven't, they haven't turned it on like they normally do. So it's just, you got it. You got to be.

Brian Bashore (53:48.782)
Yup.

Matt (54:04.076)
hanging onto it and feel them and then set it. But it's just, it's funny because they, you know, I coached, I do a lot of coaching too. And like coaching middle school boys basketball versus middle school girls basketball. It's, it's kind of crazy how the difference is there like in listening middle school boys know everything about what they need to do to be in the NBA. And you don't have

Brian Bashore (54:07.374)
That's amazing.

Brian Bashore (54:32.334)
Right.

Matt (54:33.261)
Matter you don't have you can tell them whatever you want and they're gonna do it their way and then the middle school girls a lot of times you can you can coach them and sometimes they're too literal like you like go stand on that on the block and then they stand on the block and That's what they do. It's it's funny. It's the same way you see it fishing too You see the same thing happen like some of them know it and some of them or think they know it

Brian Bashore (54:48.11)
And they don't move.

Matt (54:59.597)
Those that don't listen, they generally do the best a lot of times on the guide trips, the ones that listen the best.

Brian Bashore (55:05.774)
Yep. Yep. I had that even that happened yesterday with the husband told the wife, Hey, maybe you should just listen to the guide. He might, might know, you know, what, what's going on here. And you get that with plenty of the guys that are about to know everything. I'm like, well then, you know, I get it. You're out here today to figure out stuff and then you're going to stay the next two or three days in your own boat and go do your thing, which is perfectly fine. And then getting those kids out there is, is part of it and it's fun. And it, like you said, you've got some videos on your Facebook page of some of those.

Matt (55:13.357)
Hahaha.

Brian Bashore (55:33.742)
You know, those kids reeling in some big lakes of kakao walleyes and the smiles and that excitement from it. It could be a big drum, I mean, or snagging a six foot paddle fish, right? It doesn't, they don't care. Those are all experiences you've got to remember. And they're just, it's a fish is a fish to us. We want walleye and we get clients that want walleye. but you get the kids and they don't, they don't really care what it is.

Matt (55:51.405)
Yeah.

Matt (55:54.893)
Yeah, I'd won the one that's going to be a sixth grader on Saturday morning. He hooked into it. Well, he got the 28. He got the 28 on Friday, the 28 and a half. And then he was with the other guy and we switched boats that day. So I had him and I'm like, well, let's go get you one bigger than that measly little 28 and a half. And we got out there and like he got a little one, a dink right away. And then he hooked one and like, it was big. And I was like, ooh, this is, this could, this could be it. Like it's.

Brian Bashore (56:15.726)
Hahaha.

Matt (56:24.333)
giving him the run like I'm like this this could be it comes up and it was a big old carp and it was not not the big walleye and it was funny he was so mad he was so mad that it was a carp I'm like what it gave me a great fight like yeah it wasn't the wasn't the walleye but and his mom was in the boat with me and he's she's like hey you're fine you're fine it's it was a big carp like you still got to fight it that was the fun part like you know I know but I wanted it to be a walleye well

Yeah, so did everybody else, but it's still the tug. The tug is the drug, man. That's weird. Yeah, and then you mentioned.

Brian Bashore (56:59.886)
Yeah. Well, he was spoiled. He had a couple yard. He had a big wall. I said that we once more wall. I had that little kids your day. Like, they don't, they don't care what they're catching, but all of a sudden after 20 wide bass, he's like, I want to wallow. I want to wallow. You know, I got them all. I, you know, and grandpa caught one back there. You know, it was vertical Jake. I'm like, all right, well, right. The night I'm going to throw these fish over here then. Cause those are probably wall and not the white bass. I just wanted to get you worn out. Good for the ride home with grandpa quick. So

Matt (57:25.581)
Yeah, yeah. Funny that kid would we saw he really wanted to catch a paddlefish. You mentioned the paddlefish. He really wanted to catch one. He was he was playing with the forward facing sonar and he saw one. We saw one on the forward facing sonar and he cast that jig rap out there. He wanted to get it so bad. His cast wasn't close at all, but he. It wasn't he wasn't going to get him by.

Brian Bashore (57:33.646)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (57:49.934)
you

Matt (57:53.229)
Yeah, he really wanted to get a paddlefish. So maybe we'll, he's not too far out west here in Montana. So I'm gonna tell him, maybe talk to his mom. Maybe we'll get him out here for the actual paddlefish season and do some of that. But the snagging season.

Brian Bashore (58:07.054)
Yeah, those things are stuff man. They are. Yeah, they are strong. They are a strong, strong fish. We ended up, we had accidentally we'll hook into a couple of your, you know, on a crank bait, pulling a lead or something. And you know it right away. It's like, that's a carp that I'm like, Nope, that's a paddle fish. We're not, we're going to have to go get it. It's not, we're not.

Matt (58:23.021)
We had one yesterday, we were trawling and it started out 60 feet a line and it went zzzz

Brian Bashore (58:38.702)
Yep.

Matt (58:53.357)
It was, I still think it was 150 pounds. It was so big. It was so big. And that's like the biggest one I've ever seen. I mean, the state record in their snagging season is 131. And I think it was 150. It was, and I know that when we were trolling in six, eight feet of water, and by the time we got all the other rods reeled out, it had 350 feet of line out. And it was, it was, the chase was on.

Brian Bashore (58:58.478)
see you soon.

Brian Bashore (59:18.286)
It about fooled ya.

Matt (59:22.733)
Yeah, and it was driving around chasing it and it was like, we might ended up going Facebook live on it when I had it on and it was, yeah, it was pretty neat to just see that, that big of a fish. We were trying, we got it on hooked and we were trying to get it right beside the boat to lay it down there, at least in the water and take a fishing rod and lay next to it to see how long it was. But I wish I could have got some good measurements on that fish or a weight on that one. Cause that thing was.

That thing was unbelievable. And the video doesn't do it justice even without seeing it in person. It was so big. But those are, yeah, we get a few, not all the time, but we do run into a few of them. But it's, you know, you can see them on the side imaging and all that stuff too. And now with forward -facing sonar, it's surprising how many there really are that just swim around in the lake out there all the time. Like, you know, they run up the river and it's fun. yeah.

Brian Bashore (59:52.75)
This is Megan.

Brian Bashore (01:00:07.438)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:00:13.902)
They, they'll fly out like, like, yeah. They fly out like dolphins, man. That was, I mean, full up, maybe started to do the same thing. They're huge fish and they fly, you know, four or five feet out of the water. Sometimes I mean, it's massive. you mentioned, yeah.

Matt (01:00:20.749)
No.

Matt (01:00:29.645)
I wish I knew why, like I really don't understand why, but the client started saying, why do they do that? I said, just because I'll see one of them. there's paddlefish jump. I said, just just watch over there. You'll see one. If you just watch over there today when you're just when we're fishing, you'll see one jump for sure. And.

Brian Bashore (01:00:46.51)
Yeah. I mean, you just get a bunch of oxygen. Are you taking a big swipe at everything on the surface? And you know, they're obviously going for the plankton, but I don't know. Are you just playing around? You just whatever. I want to see what the guides are doing today. Where's Matt? There he is. They all they come back down. You mentioned a Bismarck in the spring. Awesome place. You know, there's a couple of guides down there, obviously. How those fish. So a lot of these are why fish people that go up Bismarck area, Missouri river.

Matt (01:00:54.893)
Yeah.

Matt (01:01:00.141)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:01:16.078)
and spawn and that's just a phenomenal place to go. I've never been able to go there. April, April is usually is when that's kind of going. North of Bismarck, South of Bismarck or is this throughout the whole area? I mean, is there like a 50 mile stretch that just loads up with them?

Matt (01:01:23.885)
Yep, April and then into May, yeah.

Matt (01:01:33.069)
Yeah, so they, I mean, like I said, I don't get down there too much. but yeah, they'll, they'll load up, you know, anywhere like kind of time them, but there'll be some big ones. I know lately, the last few years, north of Bismarck, they're getting some big ones and, right in the town, right in town too. They'll say they'll get them, big ones in there and then south down towards Hazelton and all that stuff. So they just kind of, I, you know, you kind of have to time it right. And those, those

guys down in Bismarck that can fish there all the time. They kind of know where they're at. It's no different than up here. Like when the bite starts on Sakakawea, you know, you catch them up here way up west and then you just follow them as they head back down the lake, back towards Newtown and then down south in Newtown and then back to catch them when they're starting to head up into the arm or further down the lake. You know, people that are on them at those times, they kind of know where that big fish line is.

And you just kind of have to find that line. But there's, yeah, there's a lot of fish up and down that river. And it, well, it changes every year too. When you get ice jams and stuff like that, it changes everything. And so the spots change too. So it's tricky to, you know, some of the spots stay the same, but a lot of them change and the path changes. So that's a little bit of a tricky one there. If you're a river rat, you got a nice polished scag on your boat and all that stuff.

Brian Bashore (01:02:57.006)
Yeah, yeah, that's a little that's the closest area to the shoots of Lewis and Clark that I fished that's somewhat similar where it changes every year the current moves what little tiny channel that is you're running super skinny water you're in between sandbars little areas you're You know your best bet is to get on plane and fly But if you're on plane to fly do you go too far left sometimes now you're I mean I've done it where the boats sitting like this and you're You're done your boats barely in the water. you're gonna wait for

Matt (01:03:16.045)
Yeah.

Matt (01:03:20.653)
Now you're really stuck.

Brian Bashore (01:03:26.19)
Couple guys to push it a boat to pull and hopefully that'll that'll get you out or you know, big wind or something comes. But usually when you're, when you're both sitting tilted, yeah, you're, you're screwed. I've got no, I've done that once. And I was on a, I had a trail. I just took my outfit for a second and I slid over this little bit and went, crap. I have two options immediately stop, which means you're going to go BAM. I went with plan B, which was floored and start trimming up and try to just.

Matt (01:03:36.461)
That's not good, no.

I'm watching.

Brian Bashore (01:03:55.054)
plow and that it didn't matter. That was stuck either way.

Matt (01:03:58.893)
Yeah.

Yeah, I've only bumped it a couple times down there running around down there in Bismarck, but we don't have near as bad of sandbars up here on the river up by Williston. It's pretty navigable for a lot of the stuff. Some of the Yellowstone's tricky, but I had a moose tag a couple of years ago, so I hunted down on the river down here and had a little boat running the backwaters and stuff like that. And I was just like, well, they're just going to send it.

get out and push the little boat out. We got stuck lots of times hunting moose down here, but that was fun. That was fun, but yeah, that's... Yeah, that river is fun. I mean, it's not for the faint of heart though, especially if you're running around in a big fancy boat. Like you gotta be, you're a little nervous running those things around. So.

Brian Bashore (01:04:37.23)
Yeah, panned out for you too. You got a good one, I believe.

Brian Bashore (01:04:49.486)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. It just isn't worth it. You need to get there early and spend some time making new trails and going upstream. I always say go upstream and just kind of poke your nose and find it and then save that trail and put it in a new solid line color and you'll be good to go. But you got to remember where all those little nubs are. Follow the right one. So, before we wrap this up. Yep. Yep.

Matt (01:04:58.445)
I'm in.

Matt (01:05:10.765)
I know. Yeah, I tried to get one up. Go ahead.

Brian Bashore (01:05:16.142)
Exactly. Before we wrap up, we got big tournament coming to your neck, the woods here pretty soon into the month, first dog August, first, second, I think national wildlife tour. I'll be up there. I think the 23rd we're coming up to fish the Dakota wildlife classic. Then you got the NWT and then you got the casino cup the day after. And then you got like four more tournaments. I think, don't you just boom, boom, boom, back to back.

Matt (01:05:38.189)
Yeah, so the weekend after that, like the 10th, August 10th is the EMS one that goes out of Van Hook and then AIM on the 11th out of Partial Bay. So all in that same area. Also, you throw the like in the August 10th, there's a Women on Water out of White Earth Bay, but you can't go south the bridge. So that keeps that one big island called Shell, that secret island called Shell.

that everybody knows has the extension. but that thing's going to take, that thing's going to take some pressure here in late, you know, the DWC doesn't go there, but the NWT can, the casino can, the EMS can, the aim can, there's going to be, let's see one, two NWT's EMS, you know, four, five tournament days in a matter of eight days, nine days. Cause it was a Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Brian Bashore (01:06:07.822)
Right, yeah, big secret. Hundreds of boats on it every day. Right.

Matt (01:06:36.333)
Cause that's the NWT Thursday, Friday, casino Saturday, and then the following Saturday, Sunday. So it's like 10 days, five tournament days and 10 days and throw all the pre -fishing in there and stuff that, that section of the lake's gonna have a little bit of pressure. And I think there's going to be, especially towards the end of it, you're going to have to have something different. We're going to have to have some new spots or, you know, or something, whether it's, you know,

Brian Bashore (01:06:57.934)
Some new spots, yeah, you're definitely gonna.

Matt (01:07:05.005)
So, you know, it could be something down to like four pound test type of deal that are and long, long cast type of thing or something with the forward facing sonar. Because I mean, and to be T guys, they get it for, you know, you guys are going to get it fresh. I still haven't decided if I'm going to put my name in that one or not, because I'm supposed to start my new job that week. I told him I'd start in August and well, that's August 1st. So we'll see to talk with my new boss about that one. But.

Brian Bashore (01:07:33.358)
a feeling you're gonna you're gonna make it happen so it's

Matt (01:07:36.109)
I, it's, it's hard to say certainly, or hard to say no to that one for sure. but, yeah, so it's going to be interesting because the NWTL have kind of the first run in that section on for tournament wise compared to, you know, the last tournament was the Van Hook Classic, which was three weeks ago already. So that some of the tournament pressure won't be on it, but that, like I said, Shell in that area.

Brian Bashore (01:07:45.07)
Mo.

Matt (01:08:03.693)
pouch, the van hook, that gets a bunch of pressure all summer. So it's going to, it's going to be interesting. And, you know, there's going to be the NWT, there's going to be guys that catch some real big fish close to garrison. Cause there's big fish out there too. I mean, we just had our tournament out there at two 30, 37 pounds to win out there. And those fish don't leave. They're not leaving to go up to the arm area. So there's still big fish down there. I think that the.

Brian Bashore (01:08:17.646)
Yeah, there he is.

Matt (01:08:33.005)
the key or the question is going to be, and I don't know the NWT, is it, do they have to be alive? Because North Dakota Game and Fish doesn't give catch and release permits in the months of July, August. In July and August, they don't, I know that. So your fish won't need to be alive. Then it's a different game because you could end up having some real deep fish.

Brian Bashore (01:08:48.142)
then it'll be a.

Matt (01:09:00.205)
out on that end. And obviously we know the other game that's going to be as you don't have any fish to play with. So what are you going to keep? And that's where I, you know, worry about with the, with the East end, because some years now we've had colder water this year, so it might not get to that point. Last year, the fish were governor's cup and stuff in, in, and the DWC, a lot of guys were fishing 40 plus, 40 plus feet to get those fish. And, you know, you got a lot of mortality when you're bringing fish up from that depth and

You can catch a big one and that one might not, you fight it for a while, it takes a while to get that change. It might not have its belly up, but you get a 12 inch or 18 inch on a jig wrap down that deep and you rip it right to the surface because you know it's not what you want anyways. Hopefully guys are a little bit more conservation minded on that stuff, but it's going to be tough. I don't know. But there's going to be guys that find them close.

I mean, there's not going to be guys that need to go the 50, 60 miles to the arm.

Brian Bashore (01:10:08.558)
Yeah, it's a, so what we aim championship obviously it was like almost 40 pound bags a day, different format. history wise, the last couple of NW2 we've had there, it's taken mid upper forties after a two day total, but different. We only have five fish. We don't have one to play with 48 with a northward point. And then do we want it?

Matt (01:10:21.965)
Yeah, I think it was 48 last time.

Yeah, I think it was 48 when Northrop won and Dewey I think was like 44, 45. And like I said, that one was, that one was interesting or tough. Those weights would have been way bigger had we been closer, you know, not having to run 80 miles or shoot Dewey was, Dewey was 90 plus miles away. I went 110. You were a little closer. He went 68.

Brian Bashore (01:10:40.974)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:10:50.03)
I went 68. Yeah, I was close. Right. Yep. I think.

Matt (01:10:53.357)
you had to be a little farther than that. You had to be. Well, it's eight. You weren't. I think it was it's got to be about 74, something like that. Either way, I know it's 80. It's 80 to the bridge. You were.

Brian Bashore (01:10:57.902)
I wasn't, I didn't need -

Brian Bashore (01:11:03.214)
I wasn't past the bridge, so you know where I was at. Yeah. is it? Okay. That was probably, I thought it was, I thought my thing said 68, but it could have been, I made certain cuts though to make it, you know, as minimal as possible.

Matt (01:11:13.037)
Yeah.

yeah, you're certainly absolutely cutting, cutting as tight as you can, cutting across a four foot corner there on the, at times to save a, save a quarter mile if you can.

Brian Bashore (01:11:24.334)
Yup.

Brian Bashore (01:11:28.942)
But I think we're gonna have bigger, bigger bags this time around. Obviously Scopens, everything's coming in bigger and just there's a lot of big fish there.

Matt (01:11:34.669)
Yeah, and I mean we're seeing you know those fish that you know we still have that really good year class though you know not you know it's not huge but there's a lot the bigger fish the tournament weights are up generally overall so I think you're like you said you're gonna see some weights I don't know I don't know I've said the live scopers they're gonna they're gonna get them you know it took 40 40 a day for the aim one to win

that one, but again, that's a different format that what they're going to keep, that's going to be the big question. What are they going to keep? And, you know, are they, I don't know, with five fish, you know, nothing to play with. A 23 incher is a tough decision at the beginning of the day. You know, a 20, a fat 23 incher that weighs four, four and a half pounds. That could be, that's a real, real hard decision. And, you know,

The guys that are in the top 10 of the, you know, in the point standings and stuff, they don't have to worry about it as much as the guys who are closer to that top 40 cut. You know, they're going to have some tougher decisions to make. The other guys who are the locals, the locals that are jumping in, they don't care. They're going to swing. All right, they're going to swing for it, some of those guys. And so they're going to swing and go. So it'll be interesting to see.

Brian Bashore (01:12:53.998)
Yep, I'm swinging.

Matt (01:13:00.653)
They said somebody's going to get 30 in a day. Like you're going to get 30. Somebody's going to get a 30 pound bag. cause they're going to catch them in the right order and, and they're going to get a 30 pound bag. Can they get 30 and 25? I don't know. That's, I don't know. It just, the live scope guys are going to be, yeah, the, the scopers, you know, the forward facing guys, they're going to need to, I don't know. It's just going to be interesting to see how.

Brian Bashore (01:13:05.086)
yeah, yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:13:21.422)
what you're going to need.

Matt (01:13:30.509)
how well they do. Like I said, I'm not going to claim to be a forward -facing sonar expert at all, because I'm not. And I use it, I have it in the water all the time, but I'm not what those guys are, that's for sure. I just haven't had the time to sit and pick it apart like they have and that type of thing. So hopefully, we'll see what will happen. But I think it'll, I would say probably.

I don't think it'll be 60 to win, but it would be between 50 and 55 would be my guess probably.

Brian Bashore (01:14:04.462)
55 yeah, I mean a 22 pound 25 pound bag was usually pretty darn good I know I've had some 22s and I put you in the top five, you know, and I think announce you're gonna need 25 like so 25 to 30 it's and You get lucky enough to come in the right order that that's really what you need But that's what practice and pre fission is all about so you determine what? Maybe a 23 is gonna be huge for you because that's all you you kind of practice was your big fish But obviously if you're on some big ones, you're gonna

It's going to help make your decision. And like you said, the snipers, as we call the locals and all in got nothing to lose going for the win makes decisions easier. If you guys like me that are sitting at 50th or whatever, and we need a top five or to win it to even make the championship kind of in the same boat, not fishing for a check fishing, you know, to make the big, big, big wave. yeah, they got to be big fish, but it all boils down to practice. You don't ask everybody that question.

Prior to Green Bay, then he asked about Green Bay and they're like, I just hope to catch a fish. You know, at this point, I mean, that was horrible. I don't foresee that happen at Skakui at pretty much good all time, but like, no, that won't be the issue.

Matt (01:15:10.349)
no.

Matt (01:15:14.765)
No, that won't be the issue. It'll be the question of what to keep. And look at the previous year's casino cups. It takes, you know, that casino tournament. We won it a couple of years ago. It was six fish, though, you could weigh. I think they're at five now. Are they at six? I don't remember. So six, you know, it's been anywhere between like 29 and 33 pounds that win that one day.

Brian Bashore (01:15:34.03)
Nah, I think it's still six.

Matt (01:15:43.405)
thing with six. So, you know, that was, you know, before the real forward facing sonar stuff. So, you know, it could, it could be around that 50 range that tip, you know, cause that's the same timeframe, but I don't know. It'll be said. I'm interested to see what, what some of those guys do and how they figure out some of those fish. And I don't know, there's, there's a suspended bite out chasing Schmelz and stuff in areas and

You know, I don't know if that's a forward facing sonar opportunity or not. I haven't, I haven't explored it. but you know what I've seen and what I've seen with that suspended bite is I'll get it to go one day and the next day they are gone. Like they are absolutely not there. The smell does move somewhere else. And, and there was one year in the DWC that tournament. I mean me and.

Brian Bashore (01:16:15.246)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:16:26.83)
Yeah.

Matt (01:16:37.741)
Me and my brother were fishing and I almost didn't go the last day of pre -fishing because I was so confident. Like we were crushing them. And, and my, my other tournament partner, Tori and my other friend, Josh, that I fished with some two, and two best friends, they were fishing together. So we were, you know, kind of working together for that one. And we were so confident going in and it wasn't all a suspended bite, but we had done some suspended too in the, in the pre -fish and we were just catching them all over the place. And we're like,

We're going to, I mean, we're going to be in the top 10, both of us for sure. Like we, we were so confident in it. And, but my brother hadn't prefished with me at all that week. He had to work. And then he, he was coming back for the one day before the tournament. And he's like, dude, you can't just send me all these big fish pictures all week and then not go show me it before the tournament. So I'm like, all right, so we'll, we'll go and we'll go and do that. We'll, you know, we'll go out and we left the boat ramp at five in the morning in the dark.

Brian Bashore (01:17:27.662)
Not go.

Matt (01:17:37.453)
And I was like, we're going out here and I don't want anybody seeing us. So we're going to go. And so we went out there and both Tori and Josh and we went out there and they started on one end. We started on the other and we were, we were trolling cranks and we were working towards each other. And, and they call at me about seven o 'clock and they're like, have you caught any yet? I said, Nope, not a one. He goes, us either. We're like, And those fish were gone. Like.

Brian Bashore (01:17:38.158)
deal.

Matt (01:18:06.445)
I was planning to be off the water at nine o 'clock in the morning the day before the tournament. And I didn't, I loaded the boat at three 30 and we had the rules meeting at five. Like it's like, I gotta, gotta get to town and get to the rules meeting and get that taken care of. So I was like, man, we did end up finding some fish and that day, but it was, I dunno, every time I've had some real good suspended bites on some of that smelting stuff, but I, I can't ever put it two days in a row. And so, you know,

Somebody might be able to figure that out, but it changes too. So it'll be interesting to see.

Brian Bashore (01:18:40.302)
It's tough. It's going to be a lot of boat traffic. It's going to get moving and it's a river so nothing stays in the same place too long.

Matt (01:18:51.021)
You know, there's you say a lot of boat traffic in certain areas. There's going to be a lot of boat traffic, but there's also, you can find a lot of areas that you could fish by yourself and do that. But it's such a huge body of water to cover, to find those other areas that aren't as aren't as popular and that, you know, people to have the time to do that. You know, even the you guys coming out, NWT guys that come out practice for six days or whatever, you know, some of the guys do.

six, seven, eight days, however long they come out, some of those guys, like they can't cover it all, even with a bunch of them. Like, so it's, that's where it comes down to is can you pick it off and, you know, I have a few other areas too that I wonder about and that I know I can get some big fish off of, but again, can it compete with the areas that everybody knows? And those are some of the, you know, some of the questions that you have to.

Brian Bashore (01:19:26.926)
No, not even close. Right. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:19:45.454)
Yep. Yep.

The challenges with the big water and a place we haven't, we've only been to twice. So not a lot of people have a ton of experience. So the locals always have the upper hands on rivers in general, like yourself. I mean, you got an upper hand on it because you know, the body of water and maybe don't get a whole lot of practicing, but you know what few places hold big fish that doesn't have a lot of boat traffic. And I said, it's too much for a few guys or even, you know, four or five, six days of practice.

Matt (01:19:49.325)
answer the pre -fish.

Brian Bashore (01:20:16.974)
You just, you can't cover it all. You got to commit to a few areas or unless you have a large team, you can break down sections. That's really the only way. you know, and if you catch a big one here, your other big one might be 70 miles away and how are you going to, how are you going to manage that throughout the day? If your point, you know, spot a and B, that's kind of the problem. I always had in the green Bay is you get two good spots, but they're 40, 50 miles apart. And it's like, sometimes it's the reason.

You know, the realization of the green bay is okay. One's one day and the other one's the next day. Cause I can't get them in the same spot two days in a row. So, it's cock we is a little different, but yeah, you gotta pay attention to the wind and so many things. Obviously it's big reservoirs. The wind's going to dictate how far you're going and how much time you're going to get a fish. So big time.

Matt (01:21:00.333)
Yeah, like I said, we've had a real windy year so far and it can certainly happen anytime. It's not, you know, to say we don't have big winds in July or August isn't true. We have some big winds those days too and that'll change stuff too. And like they don't, the big winds, you know, the waves stack up and so it's not easy running. It's not like you can run the troughs or, you know, big Northwest and

Brian Bashore (01:21:11.918)
No.

Matt (01:21:29.997)
It's a long ways from that corner at the little Missouri arm to Garrison. That's a long 40 miles. And that's a long, long boat ride with the big Southeast or a big Northwest, which are our two winds and they're going to be, those are some big waves that get out there. So I, you know, that'll be the, I don't know. I don't know if people will make those trips and that that's the big question, you know, how hard is the wind going to blow and that kind of stuff too. So.

Brian Bashore (01:21:50.574)
print.

Brian Bashore (01:21:58.99)
How bad do you want it? You know, it's a, it's what it comes down to. All right. We've been going at it for a long time. We could talk for another hour. We could tell all sorts of guide stories that we talked about before we even got on here. So give out the PSA on quit, give the guide some room out there. We don't own the water, but please give us a little space sometimes. That's all. That's all we ask. So, before we leave everybody got a little, little tip or nuggets, leave these folks with to help them on their England journey.

Matt (01:22:11.341)
Yeah, that's true.

Matt (01:22:19.565)
Yeah.

Matt (01:22:28.237)
Big thing is just, you know, our biggest thing, especially like this year's fish the day. I get a lot of people, a lot of messages asking what depth I'm catching them in. That's the probably the most common question that I get is what depth do you catch them in? How deep are they? And I, you know, I've had that question a lot this year and it's one day I'll catch them in six and eight, six to eight feet. And the next day I'm catching them in 26. And I mean, I've caught fish out to 35.

I generally try not to go out that deep. I try to stay under 30, just for ease of fishing and all that stuff. But I mean, they, they kind of said they have fins, they move and trust, trust, trust, trust, trust your electronics and, and use those things because we spend so much money on them. Like use that thing to, you know, entrust it and get to learn it. And if you don't know how to use it, you know, I know Corey Heiser does some

different, Lawrence electronics classes. And there's people different. Johnny candles does some, I don't know if he does any on the water stuff, but he has some classroom stuff he does with his hummingbirds and, but there's YouTube videos and things like that. But, you know, you gotta learn to trust those electronics and, and the best, best thing is just to get out there and use it. And if you need to go and pull into a community hole where people are catching them, I'll do it. Then, then you can learn and you know what they're looking at. And then you can start to figure that out.

just fish the day because fishing memories is generally not great. Like, yeah, they can be there, but you know, just you can't go pull onto that spot. I watched a lot of boats pull into the same spot every time to start the day. And they fish for a couple hour, an hour and give that spot an hour and they don't catch anything. They leave. It's like, why'd you give that spot an hour? There was nothing there. So that'd probably be my business. Scan it and move on.

Brian Bashore (01:24:20.782)
All right, scan it and move on.

Matt (01:24:24.621)
And don't get married to a spot and just fish the day because those reservoir fish are here today, gone tomorrow, and they're notorious for that. Even in the Van Hook arm, they do it. And so that would be my biggest, probably my biggest takeaway that I see is just trust those electronics and fish the day rather than going off memories or what somebody told you yesterday.

I still ask other guides and we talk about where we caught them yesterday to kind of give us an idea, but I've pulled into many spots and they're not there, so I don't even fish it.

Brian Bashore (01:25:03.694)
Yep, couldn't have said it better myself. Fish the day. I get the same question and I'll look at them and say two to 20. You know, they're depending on how you want to fish and then whatever, but they're everywhere, especially this time of year. you got some moving, moving deep and you got some shallow. Right.

Matt (01:25:16.301)
Yeah, and I don't want people thinking that we're being like A -holes with that answer, but that's yes, like that's that's legit what it is. Like it's not, you know, said I could go over to the riverside and catch them up shallow and I, you know, eight to 12. And then today I was down the Van Hook side and I caught him in 20 to 26. Like it's, you know, it just depends on where you are and what structure you're fishing. And there's lots of variables. So use the use the tools that you have, which was with the electronic.

Brian Bashore (01:25:43.918)
All right, and I'll be like, well, hi.

Look, trust your electronics been beating on that dead horse for a long time. And you know, the, it gets the same question. Where'd you get, how are you catching me cranking? I'm like, yeah, I cranked for an hour and caught some, and I flip bobbered or I jigged and I pulled bounce. I mean, look at the boat. It's a disaster because every one of these things was used today and every one of them worked in all sorts of different depths. You know why they all work because electronics that there's fish there. So fish them, but fish today. the wind picked up now. Maybe it's too windy to do what I want to do. Now I have to troll. So, but that's.

You heard it heard from the master himself, Matt Liebel, Leibels guide service up at the lakes of Coquia. We'll put some links to Matt's guide service below. Check them out on Facebook, head over to his website. give Matt a call, get on lakes Coquia. You won't be disappointed. I can promise you that that place is awesome. It's guide service is awesome. They do a great job. it is my favorite lake for a lot of reasons, mainly cause it's.

Won a lot of money there. So I'm gonna keep coming back So who knows there's three tournaments in just like ten days I might ruin my whole streak and just be like I'm never going back. That's not I'm always gonna go back to Coquit and I can't wait to get back up there that first week in October for the Big Ten my favorite tournament of the year because it is with Matt and Chris and a bunch of other just great guys And staying over there with George the best host there is and Jeff runs a phenomenal tournament. It's just very smooth very fun

It's I think everybody just enjoys it and a good payout. So we need to fill that filled up So check that out to big 10 at Lake Skakua a big 10 tournament first week in October October like 6 7th I think this year something like that. It's always the first Friday's Friday Saturday Saturday Sunday, I guess Friday Saturday for Friday Saturday

Matt (01:27:21.741)
Yeah, six seven through fourth fifth something like that. Yeah, it's it's right in there

Friday, Saturday, the first year they had it at two daily, it was Saturday, Sunday, but then they moved it to Friday, Saturday, the last ones. I gotta get that one figured out. That one's kicked my butt a couple times. I need to, that's close. I don't even have to go very far. It's 20 miles from my house. Like that, I should be able to figure that one out a little better.

Brian Bashore (01:27:35.15)
back Friday. That's right, it's usually get home. Yeah, listen to football.

Brian Bashore (01:27:46.99)
No, yo It's consistency it's what I've always always told buck does not a lot of big fish But it's just being consistent that 12 to 15 pounds a day You can have a 20 pound day, but every time that happens those guys catch zero the next day You know lord knows I remember the first time there we had snow on the ground this couple years ago is Two most beautiful October days was like 70 65 and flat calm both days, which just made

For a blast, but every time I've been caught, just caught fish, got a lot of fish, good fish, a lot more, not great weather days and good weather days. but it's North Dakota in October. I mean, that's what you're going to get, right? It's the Dakotas. It's going to be windy. So, all righty. Well, thank you, Matt. I know we've been on here a while and, you got to, you got a day off tomorrow. So good for you. I'm heading back today was my day off. I'm still.

Matt (01:28:28.877)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:28:41.646)
Just finished up drying my basement out from all the flooded stuff and putting it back together day and getting ready for a garage sale over the fourth to unload some of this fishing and hunting gear I got piling up after moving a bunch stuff from the wet carpet. I'm like we got we got we got it down We got to eliminate some of this stuff and get rid of it. No water damages up carpet. Thankfully but

Matt (01:28:44.973)
more yack.

Matt (01:29:03.245)
Well, that's good, because I just got done with the two -year redoing our basement because that flooded. I'm happy to be done with that, but the bills don't end on that. That's the unfortunate part. Still got a paper to name.

Brian Bashore (01:29:12.654)
Did it sucks? Yup. Yeah. My basement fully finished when I built this house like eight years ago and it was this sump pump failed and we got, I mean, we got two falls got hit with 18 inches of rain. And when you're sump pump don't work, even though it's never took a drop of water in it until that time. And of course, when it never has to get used, it doesn't work, but it is what it is. So, but looking forward to seeing you soon. It'll be up there. Like I said, on the 23rd, I'm going to cram in some tournament fishing and hope you get on the NWT. If not, you'll.

Matt (01:29:24.909)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:29:41.87)
probably get a day to come jump in and jump in with me and we'll go do some fishing or something. So we'll put these nitros to the test out there. So thanks again and thank you all for tuning in to this episode of Real Talk Fishing and stay safe and we'll see you on the water.