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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 (00:02)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in this episode of Real Talk Fishin' with No Limits. Once again, joined by our special guest and co -host Mr. Drake Hurd and John Bala. We are gonna bring you back around to the Sakakwea Tournament, touch on the NWT Championship that's upcoming here in Lake Huron, and discuss our fantasy picks and how good one of us is doing and how not so good the other two are doing at this right now.
So first off, congrats to Mr. Drake. He made the championship. He qualified in that top 40. Drake, good job. Are you sitting like 15th 20th somewhere in there?
Drake Herd (00:39)
Come on, give me a little credit here. I'm like in 13th or something like that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (00:42)
13th, my bad, sorry. You know, I haven't looked for little while. So, congrats on making it. So with that note, Drake is in the tournament and at the time of this recording, we're still at, just a quick disclaimer, we can't provide any information to Drake on the fishery as that would be off limits or whatever. During this period from Zocacquia until Friday, right the 31st, whatever it is.
Drake Herd (01:06)
Friday. Yep. Yep.
Brian Bashore (01:08)
Nobody is receiving any information on the fishery. You can't fish the place. Basically everything is off -limits. So we'll do our best to keep any inside scoop, which I have absolutely none to provide anyway. I'm sure John knows a thing or two. So we don't want to mess Drake up. However, by the time this airs, it's public information for all of you to watch and pick up any nuggets if there is any. I don't know what there is, but all I can tell you about Lake Huron is it's one of the windiest Great Lakes.
Drake Herd (01:20)
Yep. Yep.
Brian Bashore (01:37)
But outside of YouTube or anything out there, I really don't know a whole hell of a lot about it. But, no. How you guys doing? What's happening over there?
Drake Herd (01:45)
I'm enjoying it. I'm just kind of getting packed up slowly. I do about like 15 minutes, 20 minutes every night and like, all right, that's good. And the boys are getting a little disappointed at me that we had don't do more and this and that. So we're kind of getting ready for that. got school coming up. So we're getting school pictures, haircuts and everything. And so I've been busy doing that. That's what I'm doing. What about you Bala?
John Balla (02:09)
Had a great time at Sakaka. We have fish pre -fishing out there for the first time ever. What a fishery. What an amazing place to be Fish everywhere love the Missouri River That was cool. So that was interesting and I think the week later Dean Arnullis and I mean was two weeks after Dean and signed up to fish that battle on the bay on Green Bay, but we got We had a blown out. They had a small craft warning so I have to cancel it on Sunday. So
Drake Herd (02:32)
I am.
John Balla (02:38)
We did a little fishing on Friday and Saturday before that. then last weekend for the first time, I got invited to go kind of slip float the Fox River out of Burlington, Wisconsin. It runs into the chain of lakes. We just wailed on the smallmouth and the white bass. And I even caught a walleye. guy, he said he's drifted there nine times, never caught a walleye. And I caught one on a Vision 110 jerkbait. So it was great. It was great. Yeah. I think I caught like 35 smallies up to like 19 inches. It was just fun.
Drake Herd (02:51)
yeah?
Just gotta put a walleye guy there.
Brian Bashore (03:03)
Exactly.
No fun.
Drake Herd (03:09)
Yeah, good, good.
John Balla (03:09)
Yeah, Yeah, just get ready for this. I'm actually going to be out for work towards Michigan next week, so Drake, you probably see me at the Wayans on Wednesday and Thursday at least, so that'll be fun to kind of see what's going on out there and see what's happening with with all my friends that are in it. 41 guys, I think they had a 41st ad because I think correctly if I'm wrong, Brian, but that Coeing the one a tournament and he fished all four, so then they added to the next. So I think Mike Zell was the one that got in. He was.
He was the one on the bubble. So he was fortunate to be in. So 41 guides is going to be a great tournament. Saginaw Bay is awesome. The wind is going to play a factor. But yeah, it's there's a lot of fish, Great Lakes, clear water, that kind of stuff.
Brian Bashore (03:56)
Sakaka, that was your first time there, John? Yeah, you want to go back, I'm sure.
John Balla (03:58)
It was.
I do. That was amazing. Just to do what I like to do, rod in hand. We did some trolling, you know, I was fishing them shallow, was fishing them medium, I was fishing them deep. It just, you you're seeing a lot of fish on your live scope, you're seeing a lot of fish on 2D, the structure's great. Just the area itself is fantastic. Just gorgeous. Just like everything else along the whole Missouri River. I love it. yeah.
Brian Bashore (04:15)
Mm
There's a lot of places to fish. There's a lot of bays. I'm sure Drake went back into almost all of them. You can't even hardly cover all thousand of them. But that was a problem there. You caught them in three foot. You caught them in, you know, 50 -60 feet. know, unstructured, non -unstructured, suspended away from points and flats. I mean, they were one end the lake from the other. I did notice the fish on the east end seemed to be considerably heavier, which it was pretty much one down there. However, there was some pretty big bags that came up, you know.
Drake Herd (04:32)
-hmm. -hmm. Hi, everyone. Yep. Yep.
Brian Bashore (04:56)
on that upper and the band hook area as well.
Drake Herd (04:59)
Yeah, I'll agree. I checked so many bays, it was unbelievable. We kind of got onto the Bay Byte and I don't know how many, every single one. mean, was just one after another. I will say we found some stuff on satellite imagery of some certain things that we would like, whether it be a creek channel or some rock fingers that we could see on the imagery.
Brian Bashore (05:23)
Yeah.
Drake Herd (05:25)
and then we would go check those and those would have the fish. Like it was just one of those things where it was like, all right, those ones have the fish. So then we could really start eliminating some of them, but then you'd go into the next one just to check it just cause and there'd still be some in there. So, you know, that really helped us. And I will say me and Eric, honestly, were the only two to take a left the first day out of the whole hundred and twenty some that we had, me and Eric were the only two that took a left.
I saw him for about 30 seconds that day and then I never saw him again. And I didn't see another recreational boat. Like it was, it was kind of crazy. Like it was, I'm like racing back there because I didn't want anyone to get back there and I didn't see another boat the rest of the day. It was just one of those things where it was like, all right, this could work out. So, I don't know. It was just one of those things.
Brian Bashore (06:15)
Yeah, it's a lake that everybody overlooks fishing. Well, you've seen it couple boats immediately went back behind the takeoff, right? And one of those happened to be the leader at day one. it a lot of times you get so excited to go out. You launch your boat and you take off and it went and it's just even Randy and I said, we stayed right right there and use that boat ramp on their side. And as we pulled in and out in the evening, they're like, dude, there's a ton of fish right here at this dock right at the takeoff. Did I fish it? Nope. I just looked at them and went, yep, there sure is a lot of fish there.
Drake Herd (06:38)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things where there's it's such a healthy fishery, like Paula said, like you could do it however you wanted, like however you wanted to catch them type of thing. It was crazy. Some guys were thrown out deep for glide baits. Other guys were throwing jigs and plastics, jigs and crawlers. And like they all did well. You know, it was this who could find the bigger fish. I will say like we caught a ton of fish, I would say.
Like that three 13 to like five two. Like those were our fish. So like we were hoping for like 22 to 25 a day was gonna be good. 20 to 25. And those guys were on just a little bit bigger where they were on like five and six pounders. You know, they were just on a little bit bigger. And we kind of knew that, but we figured we would have enough to at least keep us dangerous. You know, I don't know. That was just us.
Brian Bashore (07:35)
Yep, nope, I was catching those same ones and was hoping for that 20 -ish pounds. The problem was I didn't expect 30 -40 people to have 20 -plus pound bags. That was like, whoa, all right, everybody, but they were everywhere. It seemed like you had to throw in a lot of fish to get one to bite, but when it bit, it bit.
Drake Herd (07:53)
Yeah. Yeah. And that was, I don't know. And I went out West too. Like I caught a ton of fish up there and even honestly the second day. it was weird. Like pre -fishing, like we couldn't get a bite before 11 o 'clock. Like it didn't matter what we did, what we tried, but you could go like you'd check some bays in the morning and you can go back to those bays at 11 o 'clock and the fish would be there. So like the second day of the tournament, I'm like, well, I'm going to run all the way up to the band hook.
try to get one or two on one of these little humps that I know no one's fishing. And that's what I did the second day. So I ran all the way up there, took me an hour and five minutes. I ended up getting two and I probably shouldn't have kept the one. was like on the bubble, it like a four one and it was still early in the morning and I'm like, I don't know what the heck, I'll throw it in. So then we fished for a while. I drove all the way back down, got down at like,
I don't know, got gas, got down at like 11 .30, tried one bay, wasn't biting, went to the next bay, made three casts and I was done. So I was done at like 12 .15 and I'm like, well, it's just one of those things, you know, but it's a fishery that it can just turn on so fast and then shut off just as fast too. with zero give there, you know, it was one of those things where it's like, well, I better throw this in, you know.
Brian Bashore (09:11)
Yeah, you gotta keep moving and just keep jumping around till you find those ones that are willing to eat and I did not do near enough of that. I did the going up west was or up river, whatever you want to call it. I did that day one too because I could catch them faster. All right, maybe it's the numbers. We'll just go through those three to five even though all my bigger ones came from down on the lower end of the lake and should have stayed there. So and they came that day on day two when I stayed there because there was no point in
going up when you're that far out of it. Get yourself a little extra more fishing time and just target some big ones.
Drake Herd (09:42)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Did you guys mainly go out west, John, or were you guys kind of all over too?
John Balla (09:52)
Mainly out West. Yep. In fact, I did spend a minute East. You know.
Drake Herd (09:59)
Yeah, yeah. And that's even like pre -fishing. We were trying to be so secretive, like for a lot of the stuff, but like we just, by the end of it, we're like, we're not seeing anyone like, is this good or bad? You know, like we don't, we don't know, you know, going into the tournament, but it ended up working all right. know, Eric stumbled a little bit and same with Kevin, like they did all right, but it was like, we could have done a little better, but we were all three of us honestly happy about it in the end.
Brian Bashore (10:25)
It's such a big place. didn't even see people throughout the week. They're like, where's that guy? didn't see this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy the entire week. And then a tournament there, they were fishing right next to you or whatever the case was. But it's just so big. And if you kind of focused on the East end one day and all those people were on West end the day, you weren't probably going to see them unless you really wanted to put some miles and fuel in.
John Balla (10:44)
How did you guys each individually approach practice? What were you guys thinking? Were you like, only going to fish this section and learn it, or am I going to fish as much as I can from a close and van hook or out west or something? What was your strategy going in and did it change when you started looking at the forecast of the weather and everything for the tournament?
Drake Herd (11:07)
I will say I wanted to catch them honestly in Douglas and Garrison Bay. Like I didn't want to go very far. If I could, you know, there's always fish that are close, but they were always less numbers. And like you said, there, you could get them out West. You could get them faster, I think. But if I could stay close and just had more time, like that's what I was looking for. And then I would say like the third or fourth day, I think we all kind of went out West just to kind of see what we could find.
And that's when we started debating like what we were doing and I will say like the same fish that I caught out West were you know that three fourteen to five pounds so I'm like well I can get these stay closer have longer time and I feel like the giant giant one like a 29 to 30 incher I would get down on the east end you know if I ever got that bite so that was kind of my thinking anyways I don't know what were you thinking Brian?
Brian Bashore (12:05)
So I went a few days earlier to fish that tournament to kind of help dial that in and that Tom Winder and I were fishing right next to each other and he won that with a know mid 20 pound bag and and I'd caught even after that whole week all my best fish in that same spot. So that helped us go okay because then we went up and hit west and went cookie cutters in a sense you know three four pounders but they came fast but I've just had you know good luck up there with big fish.
Drake Herd (12:10)
yeah, right.
Brian Bashore (12:35)
I saw big fish. I saw some you know, and there was some big bags that that came out of there
mean, a few, probably half the top tens at least were up there. So potential there, but yeah, I I was convinced that the big, big ones were probably East and I spent half my day there on day one and all my day on day two. It was just a lot slower, but it was a scoping game and I was committed to it from the get go. I don't think I ever put the trolling rods, even ever came out of the truck. So nothing, I think I pretty much had two rods in my hand the entire week and it was a jigging, jigging crawler on suspended fish for me.
John Balla (13:11)
Did the weights meet your expectations? I 56 .8 won it. Yeah, right on. Did you guys throw any fish back that you wish you would have kept?
Drake Herd (13:24)
no. No, yeah. no, I threw that one in the second day. That was like a four one. That's the only one that I'm kind of regretting a little bit. I, I don't know. It just, it's so tough. Like fishing the East end, like at 11 o 'clock we didn't have a fish. And I told my co -anger when we were going out, I'm like, just stay with me. Like we will get them.
Brian Bashore (13:25)
I threw fish back but none of them mattered because I didn't bring any fish in anyway so none of mattered.
Drake Herd (13:54)
It just, it's gonna take us some time. And literally, I think the first one we got at 11 .30 was like a 26 and a half incher. And I'm like, see, they're gonna start biting, you know? Well, then it went a little while and I kept checking some bays and they were there, but they just weren't biting. And finally I got to one bay, it was like 1 .30 and I had to be in in two hours. We only had one fish, but I'm like, we'll get them. Well, then I got like a 3 .14 or 3 .15, like in back to back cast and I threw both those in. We're into three.
And then literally the next two casts was like a 5 '2 and a 5 '4 and I was done and I was just under 20 pounds. So I was a little disappointed in maybe those two and then maybe that one the second day. like, I mean, I still got to check so I can't be that complaining. But like, I feel like by two o 'clock the first day I was done and 12, 15 the second day. So I should have been maybe a little more patient, but you just don't know, you know? So I don't know.
Brian Bashore (14:50)
I to worry about it. just didn't catch him. made my choice. Made the choices simple, but having a sixth or seventh fish would have been nice, but then it would have been a whole different ball game for everybody.
Drake Herd (14:51)
That's... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep. Yeah.
John Balla (15:01)
Well, you needed the win, right? I mean you had to so...
Drake Herd (15:03)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's where, I don't know. Like I said, I don't have any complaints. I got a check out of the deal and I, those were the only couple that I maybe was, but like whatever worked out in the end, you know.
John Balla (15:17)
Yeah, mean 37 pounds was the last check. 25th place, 3704. 10 3 .7s, right?
Brian Bashore (15:27)
Yeah, that kind of surprised me that I went, I don't it really go down fast, but it seemed like with so many 20 plus pound bags a day, one, I'm like, we did the math. I'm like, you're to need 40. I mean, going into the second day, I'm like, I need 30 fricking pound bag. So I'm just going to stay close and do this.
Drake Herd (15:42)
I'm gonna be interested to see what Bala says here, because Kevin McCoy got pissed about this, but I'll let you talk first.
John Balla (15:47)
Well, there was 35 guys with over 20 pounds on day one, but it never doubles. never, ever doubles. almost, it comes to the weight. Yeah, but like I said, I think in our last thing, I said, it's going to get squeezed down towards 20, 30th place because the size fish is just about that, like Drake was saying, and that low end was three and a half, three and three quarters. There's a lot of them. And you now if you, like you thought 35 guys doubled,
Brian Bashore (15:55)
No, yeah, always double minus 15 percent or something I think is
John Balla (16:18)
would be 35th place would be 40 pounds, well 35th place turned out to be 35 pounds. So it dropped 15 pounds, it dropped 5 pounds basically. It went from 20 pounds a day to 17 and a half pounds a day to make 35th place. And you know, mean 19 pounds a day and you would have cashed the last check like Drake did. He 38, 39.
Drake Herd (16:36)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where, Kevin was, what did Kevin have the first day? you have it in front of you by chance or no? He had.
John Balla (16:44)
Yep, yeah. Kevin Head.
Where is he?
Eric... Eric had...
Drake Herd (17:00)
Eric was down a little bit.
John Balla (17:02)
15, 12, and Kevin, sorry Kevin had a pretty good, he had 23, 14 the first day.
Brian Bashore (17:03)
15.
Drake Herd (17:08)
Yeah. So he was thinking, you know, like when he was going into it, he's like, I need to get to like 17, 18, 19 pounds is what he was thinking. And in the end, it's like he didn't even have to come anywhere near that. You know, it just one of those things.
John Balla (17:21)
No, no, there's no way because day one 35 guy it's rare that you get day one day two matching day one. It's like almost rare unless there's some sort of weather event that could. It's guys, but it always tried the number of limits on day two. And the guys that caught a limit on day one always goes down. I mean, how many guys caught a limit 33 limits 33 guys got five fish for two days in a row 33. That's it.
Drake Herd (17:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (17:35)
Right.
Drake Herd (17:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (17:51)
on Lake Sequoia where there's fish everywhere, Only 33. So yeah, in hindsight, he needed 24, he needed 13 pounds and seven ounces. And he got 15.
Drake Herd (17:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, he had, yeah, yeah. So he just, that's why, so I think the second day he threw one back that would have got him, but he would have got above me then. So I would have maybe got the last check, but whatever. He was pretty bummed out. He goes, I kept thinking I needed more and it just didn't happen. And he's like, you know, it really messes with the guy.
John Balla (18:28)
He weighed four for 12 -15, basically 30 pounds. So he had three quarter pounders. Another three and a quarter, he's up at 40 pounds and he's in, yeah, he sits right above you. You moved to 24th, he moves to 23rd.
Drake Herd (18:30)
Yep. Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (18:41)
And that's why the number of limits was so small because everybody's throwing fish back because that was the game.
Drake Herd (18:44)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I was just, yeah, but I don't know. He was pretty bummed about that one, but he's just like, it is what it is, you know? How do you know? So.
John Balla (18:54)
Yeah, I when you start day one and 14th and then you don't cash a check, that's a tough one to swallow for anybody.
Drake Herd (18:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Brian Bashore (19:04)
Was he won out of the money or what?
John Balla (19:06)
He was too out of the money. Hunter was 26 and Kevin was 27th. No, Drake got 20. He was 23rd. was 23rd. Mackey 24th. Josh Jones 25th. That was the last check.
Drake Herd (19:06)
too, right?
Brian Bashore (19:12)
You get the last check, Drake?
Drake Herd (19:14)
No.
Brian Bashore (19:17)
yeah, that's right.
that's right. Jones got it. Big guy in a little boat. Good for him. That's cool.
Drake Herd (19:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was.
John Balla (19:24)
I I can go over little bit of Sakaka with you, Brian, if you want.
Brian Bashore (19:28)
Go ahead.
Drake Herd (19:29)
One more thing, so Josh Jones, saw, I shouldn't say this, so I saw him the first day. I will say that. And yeah, he got his fifth one as I was coming in there and he's like, I got them all. Well, I went in there and I'm like, that's when I got my first one was back and I'm like, you forgot this one, you know? So it was pretty sad, but I think a lot of guys were super happy for him for battling all year long to get his first check.
Brian Bashore (19:38)
yeah, I know where he was at too.
John Balla (19:51)
Hahaha
Brian Bashore (19:55)
yeah.
Drake Herd (19:58)
That was awesome. So it was pretty exciting. Yeah.
John Balla (19:59)
That's super cool. 126 anglers, which is crazy because only 61 were full time. that means 65 guys were non -touring pros, which is very impressive for when you go out to the Dakotas. If that doesn't tell the powers it be to put a couple of tournaments out there, then I don't know what will.
Brian Bashore (20:24)
They always show out. mean, Skakui is a little further out and being the fourth event, but I mean, South Dakota Tournaments are always, eh, they're not 115 to 120, something like that guess. But compared to where we've been, like you said, apparently it's a place you might need to go. Everybody loves the Missouri River.
Drake Herd (20:31)
Yeah, north.
John Balla (20:40)
45 anglers were from North Dakota. That's 36 % of the field.
Drake Herd (20:45)
Wow, see that's way more than any, like all the other terms it was Minnesota and Wisconsin, right? For the most part? Huh.
John Balla (20:50)
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty crazy. There were 64 limits on day one, 47 limits on day two, and out of those, 33 of them caught a limit both days. Speaking of limits, there was 34 possible fish you could have weighed in all year in the four derbies this year, and only one angler got it.
Will caught 34 of a possible 34 is the only angler to do it. Brian, as you know, you've done that before. in a year where they had limited one man limits on a few of the derbies, it's pretty, I'm surprised actually. I'm surprised more people didn't catch 34 out of 34.
Brian Bashore (21:34)
Yeah, we needed less fish, but the whole decision -making process of what to keep is what played into so much of that.
John Balla (21:39)
Exactly, you know Dewey gel one, of course. That's the second time he's won on Sakaka wea He won it in 2017. That's his fourth and WT victory. So that puts him behind Sprague and Hoyer New Spomb was in second Dylan New Spomb in second, you know, he's got one victory under his belt He's sitting second angle of the air behind Nitti Local down touring pro Justin skipper. I think he was our day one. Yeah, he's our day one lead
30 pounds, yeah, 30 pounds, four ounces on day one and finished with 24 on day two and finished at third. Winning technique, forward -facing snowmine arm, glide baits and I think jigs and plastics, he said. That's the 16th time jigs were used and 11th time glide baits were used to win tournaments. Pretty interesting.
Drake Herd (22:38)
It's gonna be interesting to see, like so many of us are throwing now light jigs and crawlers, jigs and plastics. mean, a lot of guys are still throwing glide baits, but it's interesting to see over the next couple years if that turns back to glide baits or if people start slowing down and just sticking with the jig and crawler or jigging the fluke or whatever it might be.
John Balla (23:03)
Yeah, I mean, part of that could be Drake is where we're fishing, right? If it's open water, it seems to be the jigging crawler. But if you're finding fish on structure, you might be triggering them with some shiver mid jigging rat. You know what I mean? So.
Brian Bashore (23:16)
That's exactly what I caught him with glide baits when I was on rocks. If I was suspended, jig and crawler. And Jake Coggy, I believe, was right in front of me one day. I caught one and bam, he caught... he was throwing back like a three or four pounders right in front of me. Same thing. Big crawler. And he was a little deeper than everybody. And I'm like, yep, we're not doing the wrong thing. We're just not on the right spot. We're very close to it anyway.
John Balla (23:21)
Right. Right.
Drake Herd (23:30)
You know? Yeah.
Yeah. And I struggle like suspended fish. I struggle to get them to bite glide baits. Like they'll chase it and like it's crazy. It's like, is this thing not eating it? And they just don't, you know, it was just one of those things, but like Green Bay, for example, I could literally, if they would start chasing it, I'd just free spool it and watch them. They would swim down 20 feet to the bottom and they would just eat it then.
Well, I can't get every fish to do that. So that's why it's interesting, because I think that jig and crawler or jig and fluke is going to change a lot.
Brian Bashore (24:12)
So the weird thing we noticed out there was like in that tournament before, it seemed like at two o 'clock in the afternoon the fish all came super high. Which was like weird. It's super sunny, there's boat traffic, it's calm, and now they all came up and then I caught them suspended. Then there was days where you had to do that. Let it fall to the bottom and I would literally let that jig crawler sit there for 15 -20 seconds and not even move it. And then tick, they'd pick it up and you'd get them. And the next day, nope, all of them came 10 feet off the bottom.
But once they, if they were chasing it down, you'd let them chase it and then just let it sit. And just hold your boat there and just let it sit.
Drake Herd (24:45)
How deep a water are you? I'm just curious how deep a water.
Brian Bashore (24:50)
20 to 30.
John Balla (24:53)
Do you guys notice any difference using a whole crawler versus a part of a crawler?
Drake Herd (24:57)
So this is going to be interesting.
Brian Bashore (24:59)
I used part of a crawler at least two probably two thirds of crawl the whole time, but
Drake Herd (25:04)
I couldn't get them to eat a full crawler if my life depended on it, to be honest with you. I tried. I'm like, what in the hell is going on here? Why won't they bite a full crawler? And then I would just make it a half one and you could throw back at the same fish and it would turn on and just crunch it. And I'm like, well, that's the dumbest thing ever.
Brian Bashore (25:18)
Yeah, I hardly use a full crawler anymore at all. I catch so many fish on... I mean I've got two 28 .5s that'll lose Clark this year both on that much worm on an 1 ounce jig and even just pinching off a little bit like a 2 thirds there to target you know you get a little more of that scent and stuff but it's gonna bleed out you know or all it's gonna thin out you're just gonna have crawler skin on there soon but hopefully you get bit quick but but there's I don't know I'll dead stick a full crawler sometimes.
Drake Herd (25:42)
What is your, sorry. What is your take, Bala? Yeah.
John Balla (25:46)
I've heard it, you know, the majority of the recommendations that I received is full crawler. But again, I haven't been as successful on full crawlers as have with a piece.
Drake Herd (25:59)
So if you guys, if Papenfuss was down in the corner here, he would be constantly swearing because he uses a full crawler every single time. And I'm just like, I don't know, dude. I don't know.
John Balla (26:06)
I know.
I know, I know, so
Brian Bashore (26:10)
I think if you're floating it, I mean as long as it's a fresh new crawler, it's got a little... if I move a dead stick, if I'm out of spot, I'll just throw it in a rod holder and drop it down and reel it up three feet off the bottom. Boom. Long shank hook and a full crawler.
John Balla (26:23)
So my take on it now actually Drake is the lightest jig you can possibly go with that full crawler works better than a heavier jig with a full crawler. That's my take on it. I think it does something completely different. I think monofilament might play a part if there's a monofilament leader as opposed to fluorocarbon leader. Fluorocarbon leaders, they sink faster. That mono tends to make that jig work a little bit different. I learned that big time when you use mono on the Missouri River.
you get more bites on a jig. That's just me. and that's, I've received that recommendation from a lot of really, really good guides on the entire system. So I've always done it and it seems to work.
Drake Herd (27:07)
I don't even want to talk about it because because what I do do it there's something to it just try it I'm telling you but
Brian Bashore (27:09)
don't ever use a modifier later.
I can't. I got too many zebra mussels. I set the hook twice every day and broke jig each time just because they're near structure.
Drake Herd (27:17)
I know, but still.
So, and I will say we're going longer rods. We're going seven, six, eight, two, eight, three, like as long as possible so that we can whip, like we'll go down to a 16th, a 32nd ounce jig, like so I can chuck that crawler as far as I can possibly chuck it. And I gotta do it in wind and try to hopefully, why is down there near the fish? Yeah.
Brian Bashore (27:41)
After five minutes for it to fall.
Drake Herd (27:46)
It's we're finding that you're going lighter and lighter versus, you know, at Erie. Honestly, I was using a three a sounds like it didn't. mean, that might be a little different because it's Erie, but it's like we go as light as possible. It's it's one of those things we just don't talk about, you know, but it's we're going to long rods, light line, like super finesse. Like I feel like I'm like those little Japanese like guys using those plastics, you know, that are super slow, but they get them to bite.
John Balla (28:13)
with the things hanging all over it. The dice, well I have personally seen it with the same jig, same everything. When I'm using mono outfishing fluorocarbon, I've seen it happen way too many times. It's not because I'm better at all, is zero. I'm not better than them. It's just, it's the performance of the jig and how that mono makes it react when you pull. It's got a little bit more of an arc versus a direct line and it just tends to make it
Drake Herd (28:14)
With the tentacles, yeah. Like, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (28:44)
Whatever better and I don't know so maybe in my head I'm convincing myself that those lighter jigs with monofilament and a long whole entire piece of crawler is Doing something that's super enticing
Drake Herd (28:57)
Yep. Give me one second before we're pause for a break. Hey, can you say hi? your heart's just racing. She doesn't know what to do. Here. Yep.
Brian Bashore (29:01)
Hahaha
Well, I definitely recommend the mono early in spring to slow everything down. know, especially with buoyant baits. Just whatever you can do to slow the presentation down. It catches way more fish. But summertime, I'm a fluorocarbon guy. But not to say you shouldn't have unrigged up. Especially on a glide bait. You know, know Linder's loved the mono on it and I've talked to James plenty. I'm like, I don't... you guys keep telling me about all the fish you lose. I don't lose many fish on a jig and wrap.
Drake Herd (29:24)
Yeah, it's funny.
Brian Bashore (29:36)
hardly ever. Maybe it's because I rip extra hard and they're hooked so good they're not coming off. I don't know but I don't. I go braid to floral.
Drake Herd (29:45)
We are getting into a whole new animal here, but I use eight to 10 pound floral, 100 % from the hallway or on the reel. There's something to how those baits swim or something, and it's not necessarily about losing fish or not losing fish. There's something about how it swims, and there's times where it'll out kick everyone's butt when it comes down to that. But it's all, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
John Balla (30:09)
Alright, yeah, we went down a rabbit hole there. let's Let's finish.
Brian Bashore (30:10)
Yep, nope, we should've...
I think Sabredin says he's got a mono of fluoro and a braid all on his deck of his boat for glide baits. Good idea. Throw them all out there and tell him, but you better have them all ready for tournament day too because it's going to be different. Whatever work you practice, use the opposite to come tournament day because that's how it rolls.
Drake Herd (30:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's just, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
John Balla (30:30)
So top tens for Anglers that have fished 26 or more events, Dylan Nussbaum at his sixth, Sprengel at a fourth place, and that's MWT leading 14th top 10, which is crazy. Schneider in sixth for his third top 10, Shimoda for his fifth, and Ken Anderson in sixth. Of note, of guys that have fished less than 26 events, Dewey, he finished first for his 10th top 10 in only 22 events.
Drake Herd (30:42)
Wow.
We're gonna roll stuff. Yeah.
John Balla (31:00)
which is crazy. And Tom Wynn finished in eighth for his sixth top 10 in only 18 events. So one out of every three for him, but Dewey's almost at 50%, which is nuts. I already went into the limits in the money. This will be great. This will be mentioned in one of the members of the panel today. Drake Hurd is 13th check. Sprangle, that is 29th, which is leading the tour, which is crazy.
Drake Herd (31:10)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (31:20)
me so let's drink.
Drake Herd (31:22)
you
Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (31:28)
New Spomb has seven checks in a row. So he just tied the late David Anderson and Eric McCoy for the most in NWT history. So he's got a chance because 20 out of 41 guys cast a check at the championship. He's got a chance to break the record. Tom Higgins has six in a row, seven of his last eight and 11 in the 18 events. Pap and Foose also has five in a row, seven of his last nine events, which is crazy in only two years.
Drake Herd (31:42)
yeah.
Yeah, Eric didn't want to talk about that one at all. Like, we didn't even bring it up really, but you could tell it was in the back of his head going into this one. You know, it's just one of those things. So I think he took some pretty good pride in that one. Yeah.
John Balla (32:08)
Yeah.
It's a great streak. hasn't been done that. I I think Bloster's done six twice, but he's never tied seven with Anderson. 68 % of checks went to Touring Pros, which is great. yeah, 74 % of money. 68 % of checks, 74 % of money. Eight anglers moved up on day two to cast a check. So Kevin was one that dropped out, but there was eight guys that actually moved up.
Drake Herd (32:18)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (32:37)
And I had to make a correction because Eric actually sent me a message. He had actually cashed 11 in the first 18 events as a pro, not 10. I said, dude, I'm sorry. Sometimes I miss one. So yeah.
Drake Herd (32:44)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. Whenever you can correct ball, make sure you do, because it's not very often.
Brian Bashore (32:46)
boy Eric, wait, calm down.
John Balla (32:56)
Right? Exactly.
Brian Bashore (32:57)
Well, he's got to get that upstated in his spreadsheet, so he's got to it.
Drake Herd (32:59)
Yeah.
John Balla (33:00)
So we'll talk about Angler of the Year in a little bit, I'm guessing, Brian, right? So Ironman, I mentioned in this recap, the championship will be the 52nd event in MWT history. And when it's finished, only six Anglers will have fished all events since 2013. Kent Anderson, Mark Kortz, Jacob Bell, Dusty Minkie, Chase Parsons, and Jason Chakurik. And Corey would have been the seventh to qualify for the championship.
Drake Herd (33:23)
Yeah.
John Balla (33:28)
That's pretty amazing. think 52 tournaments, six guys, it's, it says something for their loyalty and their dedication to the sport and taking time off and, so pretty cool. and there's only three guys that have fished over 30 events that have never had a triple digit finish. Jason Shakurit, the lowest he's ever finished was 94th. Kavaya is the lowest was 84th and Dylan Nussbaum, lowest was 85th.
Drake Herd (33:39)
Yeah, 100%.
See they were floating with it but...
John Balla (34:02)
So the other thing, mean the rest of this we kind of went over a little bit. We went over the bags. Dan Harper moved up the most on day two. He rose 40 places from 91st to 51st from day one to day two. Justin Skipper had the event's biggest bag on day one at 30 pounds, four ounces. So the average fish was 3 .67 pounds. So weighing a two day limit of 10 fish for 36 .7, you'd finish in 28th place.
If you did that every tournament, you just caught the limit of the average tournament weight fish, you'd be in 10th place in AOI right now.
Brian Bashore (34:40)
Would you have cash checks? No? No on Tkakwea, probably yes on Green Bay.
John Balla (34:42)
yes. Yeah.
I think it was two out of the four I think you would have. Yep. Yep. So.
Drake Herd (34:52)
No.
Brian Bashore (34:55)
Because you can never cash a check and almost be in that 10 to 15 range on AOI.
John Balla (35:01)
Yeah, but it can't just be a limit. It's got to be limit of the average for that.
Brian Bashore (35:05)
Yeah, you're like just out of the money each one, Barry.
John Balla (35:09)
Well, there was a year where you'd finish first in AOI. It's very rare that you finish out of the top 10. Honestly, which is crazy to think about.
Drake Herd (35:11)
first yeah
Now. Now. Now. Now.
John Balla (35:23)
So that's kind of all I got for that one.
Brian Bashore (35:23)
The game's changing.
Competition's getting fierce boys, it's games changing.
Drake Herd (35:32)
Even so me and Shakur, sorry, one other side, so we had to film for Lose and Strike King and some of this stuff last week. And we were just talking like the year I won Angler the year I took it 87th or whatever it was, he took a 60 something the one year he won it. And he goes, you can't do that anymore and still have a chance at it. Like it's just, you got to have literally eight solid days and 11 at the end in order to do it. And it's crazy to think like that.
Brian Bashore (35:51)
No.
John Balla (36:04)
Yeah, but believe it not, Bloster I think still has the most points ever for a ball. That was four tournaments. But last year, Hoyer had pretty good points for a five tournament AOI. it does get harder. Up until I think four years ago, no AOI winner had ever finished in the top 10 in the championship. Now I think the last three have finished in the top 10 in the championship.
Drake Herd (36:19)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (36:31)
It is getting better. You've got to stay within basically the top 20, 25 in every tournament to win it. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (36:39)
So let's dive into that. We got the AOI. The championship is right around the corner at Lake Huron. And we got Hunter still leading. I think it's with Eric dropping, Dylan moved up, Papenfoose, Tom went. Yeah, you got four, maybe five, but four, because you only got 40 spots. So you can't, know, obviously people can only drop so much. You can only make up so much ground. Four, I think at least, top four are all in contention for it.
Drake Herd (36:51)
It's like four of them that are still in it.
John Balla (37:05)
So statistically, there's six in it. It's underneath Dylan Nussbaum, Tom Winn, Eric McCoy, Will Pappenfoose, and John Hoyer. Now, John Hoyer is exactly 40 points out of it. So everybody above him would have the zero. I'm just saying, statistically, it could come down to a one -day derby because of the win. But you can't come out.
Brian Bashore (37:09)
Six cap.
Eric's still up there. Okay.
Drake Herd (37:21)
Yeah, right Yeah, right. Yep.
Brian Bashore (37:23)
Hey, anything can happen! Anything can happen!
There's four guys' boats that automatically just magically don't seem to work come day one and I don't... How the hell that happened, but...
Drake Herd (37:35)
Yeah
John Balla (37:36)
You
But no one I think has ever come outside of 20 points in the last day. And think Drake was the one that, well, from third point of the fourth, he came back.
Drake Herd (37:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, was, I don't know, I don't think it was 20, I think it was like 18 or 19, 17, 18, 19 something.
John Balla (37:55)
Yeah, it was the average. Here it was. It was actually you were you were down 12 going into the championship. I know you're down 16 going in the championship.
Drake Herd (38:06)
How? Okay. Yep. Chase. Yep.
Brian Bashore (38:08)
battling corpse right?
John Balla (38:11)
Yep. and, Tom Keenan was 20 points down when he ended up winning at Devil's Lake. He was 20 points going into the championship. that's the most ever. Kemos was 19 down when he won it, going into the championship. But those were all four event championship AOI turn years. Since it went to five, Drake has actually had the highest jump from being down 16 points and winning the AOI. Dwayne.
Jelm was 12 points down in 2022 and he finished second in the championship. Yeah. And Hoyer last year, he was six points ahead and he finished first. So he won. So he had, after actually Hoyer last year had 753 points after four events. Right now, 180 had 765 after four events. So he could, he could break the record.
Drake Herd (38:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, that was to Kevin, I remember that.
crazy.
John Balla (39:08)
But you know, if history tells anything, right? 16, 19, 20 back, whatever. mean, know, Will Papenfus is 19 points behind. So you're right. I would agree with you, Brian. There's really five guys in my head that have a realistic shot. It's Niddy, Nusbaum, Nguyen, McCoy, and Papenfus. It's going to come down to those guys. Now, obviously Hunter is control of his own destiny. If he makes the top 10,
Brian Bashore (39:35)
Alright.
John Balla (39:38)
He's got a chance to lock it up. He's got seven and eight point lead on Dylan and Tom Wynn. But if the top three make the top 10, that'll be an exciting final day. Super exciting final day.
Drake Herd (39:39)
done.
Yeah, 100%.
Brian Bashore (39:50)
There's a real good chance that could happen.
John Balla (39:54)
Right? So yeah, good stuff. mean, you know, three guys that are four guys that are really within 14 points and it will within 19. That's with 41 both field. I think they're all thinking they've got a shot. So pretty cool. Five guys with a chance.
Drake Herd (39:54)
Yeah
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Brian Bashore (40:13)
So it's good.
John Balla (40:16)
Now, in my mind, I would think the person that has probably some of the most experience there is probably Nussbaum because he's the closest. I don't know if Nnedi and Papenfuss have ever been there. Eric may have been there. I don't know.
Drake Herd (40:36)
No. He was in it at Devil's Lake last year, but then when Hoyer had a good day the first day, then it was over, kind of, for the most part. Like they both ended up in the top 10, but Hoyer needed to stumble a little bit at Devil's.
Brian Bashore (40:41)
you
John Balla (40:51)
No, mean experience on Saginaw. In my opinion out of the top five, who would have, I'm just guessing here, who would have experienced that? Yeah?
Drake Herd (40:54)
gotcha.
Brian Bashore (41:00)
I don't think it matters. I think the less experienced might be the better.
John Balla (41:05)
Okay.
Drake Herd (41:05)
Yes and no. Yes and no, but I think Newspom was there. Eric was there with his dad as a coangler because I think he fished with Schneider or something. I know Will and Hunter haven't been there. Tom Howin hasn't been there.
John Balla (41:22)
I'm thinking of killing them.
Brian Bashore (41:22)
That was Saginaw though. I mean, I don't even look at this as the same fishery. I mean, there was Saginaw Bay and then what is this town called? Oskonada or something? Oskoto? Okay. It's not, it's just above Charity Island, I think, which I fished there. And obviously the tournament king and some of those guys went way up there in Alpine area, but I don't, I don't know if guys are gonna fish south, north, whatever. Who knows? We can only speculate and guess so much. don't, let's know.
Drake Herd (41:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
John Balla (41:32)
Ascona.
Drake Herd (41:32)
Oscar, no.
Brian Bashore (41:52)
insider information there because I have no clue but I'm not looking. If I was going there I don't know. I guess I have absolutely no clue. There's not a lot of information out there in what it was but I could say that I remember fishing Saginaw Bay and it was a hell of a fishery and I would like to go back but it was the least amount of pre -fishing I ever got in a tournament because of wind.
John Balla (42:10)
Well, geographically speaking, Oscoda is above Augerey and it's south of Alpena. So that's kind of how it's laid out.
Brian Bashore (42:15)
Okay.
Is that where the Michigan Walleye Trail goes out of a lot? That area?
John Balla (42:23)
Yes, Alpina or Escoda, yes exactly. They had a turn, I think it was out of Alpina recently. I don't know where guys went, or I can't say.
Drake Herd (42:40)
No, you're fine. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (42:40)
The boundary is pretty big. I think it's up to the Sioux Locks and then up to the Mackinac Bridge and over here, I mean, you got Lake Huron and it's a big, big body of water which is some of the cleanest. It is not some. It is the most gin -clear water I've ever seen out there by that charity island. But clean water. Big fish. 20 plus feet. Yeah.
Drake Herd (42:47)
Yeah, it's crazy big.
Yeah, it's crazy. You can see like 30 some feet. Yeah. Like I was like looking over and I'm like, dad, how deep is it? He's like, I don't know. 28, 29. And I'm like, it's super clear. Like it's beautiful.
Brian Bashore (43:09)
would not be afraid to just dip a glass of water in that thing and take a drink. That stuff is crystal clear.
Drake Herd (43:13)
Yeah.
John Balla (43:15)
So Drake, your entire team made it, correct?
Drake Herd (43:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Stacey didn't, Stacey Forsberg, but the other three did, yeah. And my dad, so I got him a Coen leather fishwear.
John Balla (43:25)
What about...
Brian Bashore (43:26)
and your dad so you get a coagulator to fish with.
John Balla (43:29)
So guys, well was gonna ask you, did you get some co -anglers that also qualify that you guys can fish with?
Drake Herd (43:34)
Yeah, so Bryce, who travels with Stacey, is gonna fish with Kevin, or with Eric, and then Kevin is going to bring Karen, his wife. She came out to Sakakawea and hung out with us, so she's gonna end up actually going to Michigan, too. She has a bunch of friends or relatives and stuff out there. So that's who Kevin's gonna fish with. Good bet, or otherwise, if you ask him, you never know on the day or whatever. But yeah, so we have some.
There's a few other co anglers that have reached out that we said, you know, you're more than welcome to jump in. just, our concern was this basically we want someone to be with every, you know, we got to make sure like there's someone with everyone. So there's at least two guys in the boat. Just so for safety reasons, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I think.
Brian Bashore (44:17)
This safety, you're out of big body of water.
John Balla (44:21)
Well, remind everyone what the rules are then for this so the listeners know what you're talking about.
Drake Herd (44:27)
Yeah, so basically you can only, I can only have someone in my boat if I lived with them or if they made the championship as a coangler or a pro technically, like I could fish with Eric. But so if you're coangler that you traveled with all year, didn't make it, you didn't really have anyone to fish with. So my dad ended up making it and so I get to fish with him. So this is one of the rules they made up this year.
know, could better. Otherwise, I I think it's a good rule. We're just, you know, the safety is the biggest thing on a Great Lake. You'd like to have two people in a boat, you know, so I think it'll be good and we'll see what happens. You know, I'm pretty excited that my dad got to go along because there had been a long drive by myself. I can tell you that. My wife, I would let come. So.
Yeah, so basically we can get there. We'll leave Thursday at some point. It's like 12 and a half hours for me. Get over there Thursday night and then basically at sunrise on Friday, we can start fishing. So we get Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then basically like a half day or not even on on Tuesday, kind of a media day or whatever that we have to do. And yeah, then tournament is Wednesday, Thursday and.
Brian Bashore (45:21)
Thanks.
Drake Herd (45:46)
knock on wood a Friday and figure out the top 10. So it's something cool to be at. I mean, there's only 40 guys left and you got to beat, you know, 39 of them. So, or 40 this year, I guess you got to beat 40 because we have 41, but it'll be interesting to see. I mean, we couldn't get any information basically from the end of Sakakawea all the way up until, I mean, even
during the tournament, can't really get any information from it, but then we can start fishing and do our own thing. So it's going to be interesting to see weights and just, I don't know, where fish are caught. We keep going to all these locations and I think we're teaching a lot of people about their fishery and what it's actually capable of when we get there. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian Bashore (46:35)
Because scoping doesn't work at Sakakawea. I can't believe how many times I was told that before I got there. It took me five minutes to scope up a fish. I was like, man, works pretty good.
Drake Herd (46:42)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, there was times where I was running my trolling motor into the mud basically, and in like a foot or two of water, and I can still see the fish in front of me. So I'm like, I'm still casting at these fish, you know. So it's one of those things that I think we're opening up a lot of people's eyes to what this is actually capable of, you know. So it'll be interesting.
Brian Bashore (46:53)
Yep.
Drake Herd (47:06)
I don't know, I'm excited.
Brian Bashore (47:10)
The championships are always they have a little bit of different feel. The community really comes out. They're just all the hoopla. Last year some of that thunder was kind of stolen due to some other things going on, but this year has been a good clean season. Kind of drama -free would be a proper word to say probably in a sense. Hopefully that shows out on the championship. You guys catch big bags, lots of fish. You get a coal so that that'll make
Drake Herd (47:24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yes. I put my call tags in. I was so excited for that. I'm like, yes, I can actually catch some fish.
Brian Bashore (47:39)
Everybody much happier. All right.
brings a lot of the fun back to it and you get to fish all day.
Drake Herd (47:49)
Yeah. Yep. So that'll be exciting to do. and yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll be like the bass guys and just move in on new Spalm or whoever's leading it after day one and protect Eric so that he can try to win angler of the year. don't know. I'll see what happens, you know?
Brian Bashore (48:00)
All right.
John Balla (48:08)
You
Brian Bashore (48:08)
It happens. Hold your spot. Play a little defense for the next day if someone's moving into where you're catching them. It's a big body of water but I imagine it who knows that sometimes those big bodies can fish small. But you know that area John. I believe Bruce Deschanel told me once that's the windiest of all the Great Lakes. Not just the way it lays.
Drake Herd (48:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (48:26)
Yeah, I mean it's shallow in the lower bay right from the charities down So yeah, that gets pretty wet that that gets riled up pretty quickly Up north of there, I mean it's it's it's a lot of big water. It's a big open water from from there up so
Brian Bashore (48:45)
There's no babies or coves or nothing. There's no, there's nowhere to get out of anything.
John Balla (48:49)
So, yeah, I guess I'm trying to be careful about what I, you know.
Drake Herd (48:53)
No, know. I mean, you got like Thunder Bay is a big one and stuff, like there's not a ton of area, you know, it's somewhat flat, you know.
Brian Bashore (48:56)
Thunder Bay.
John Balla (49:02)
No,
Brian Bashore (49:02)
not, doesn't even like big points that come out to tuck down. mean it's just, it's just open.
John Balla (49:05)
No, there's a few islands and such along that shoreline. There's the Thumb of Michigan. But this time of year, you're generally getting south winds, right? I mean, it's August, so September, you're getting south winds. So yeah, it can get pretty dicey out there, and there's really nowhere to hide.
Brian Bashore (49:09)
All right.
That's better than North probably.
John Balla (49:27)
Yeah, well right, because if you're going to make the runs, I mean it's open, you can go wherever you want. So I mean, some guys could go 100, 150 miles if they wanted, I'm guessing, if the conditions were right. So yeah, a lot of fish. I think the upper end size isn't really what you would expect the Great Lakes to be in terms of a bunch of sevens, eights, and nines, and tens.
But because if you look at some of the averages on what's been winning tournaments, you don't really see that you see it. You might see a big fish like that. But I mean, if you go back and some of the Michigan Walleye Tour events, I don't know if they had a fish besides maybe Detroit River with over a big fish over 10. So I don't know. Yeah. So I don't can we talk weights?
Drake Herd (50:18)
Yeah, we can talk weights. I'm going to talk weights because yeah, yeah. And that's just it. So like the MWC was out there too, this spring or whatever, you know, and you saw some that were in that 25 to, I don't know, 30, I think, you know, they canceled the second day because of wind. But I think that's, I think that's what a lot of us are honestly going to shoot for. I don't know. You know, it's one of those things where I think that's where a lot of the guys are going to shoot for. And if we get higher than that, great. If we don't.
Brian Bashore (50:19)
Well, if they're there, think these guys will find them, so...
Drake Herd (50:48)
Great, I don't know, we'll see. I'm kind of interested to see what your statistics say over the averages, you know?
John Balla (50:55)
Wow, that was a little snarky, Drake.
Drake Herd (50:57)
Yeah, no, no, I'm just always intrigued because it's, I mean, it's interesting the more and more you dive into it. It's like this is what the stats are.
Brian Bashore (51:04)
I mean, how long was that? Three? When were we in Saginaw Bay? 2018?
John Balla (51:06)
Thank
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (51:14)
17 or I think it was 18, but whatever four five six years ago, but I Ever something I got some nice fish. I wouldn't be surprised to see a five pound average which is 25 pounds And that seemed like that was on the it's up and coming and rebounding So gosh, I would think that your class of those were gonna be those eight and nines now, but
Drake Herd (51:24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
John Balla (51:31)
Yeah, second I obey was 2018.
Drake Herd (51:37)
And that's where, I don't know, like me and Kevin have been talking, like we caught like in the Bay, a lot of like three to four pounders, you know, to get those fives were kind of the upper end of it. So it's going to be interesting to see if, if obviously forward -facing sooner is going to play into it. But if we can actually find, you know, those seven to 10 pounders and get 10 of them or 15 of them really is what you need. You know, I just, I don't know. would be.
Brian Bashore (52:02)
Yeah, I think I had one eight pounder out there at practice and it was.
Drake Herd (52:05)
Yeah. Great. Yeah, Jack.
John Balla (52:08)
Yeah, so.
Brian Bashore (52:09)
It was not in the bank. If I could say that, I don't know.
Drake Herd (52:12)
Yeah, yeah, nah, nah, yeah.
John Balla (52:15)
So 2018, you guys remember what Brett King won it with? How many pounds?
Drake Herd (52:21)
John Balla (52:22)
$49 .83.
Drake Herd (52:25)
Five balls.
John Balla (52:26)
Which falls in line with what my prediction is, think 25 a day. That's 75 pounds. I think it's actually gonna be somewhere between 74 and 70. Yeah, it'll be somewhere 25 a day maybe.
Brian Bashore (52:31)
Okay.
I remember these predictions last year at doubles and I think that got beat by 30 pounds. So we were a little off on the championship. A lot of 8, 9, 10 pounders.
John Balla (52:44)
They did, but Devils also has...
Drake Herd (52:49)
Yeah, yeah, we expose that.
Brian Bashore (52:51)
Mm
John Balla (52:51)
You know, and I think 20th place was 32 pounds back in 18.
Drake Herd (52:58)
So 32 is 16 a day.
John Balla (53:00)
16 a day. Yep.
Brian Bashore (53:04)
Yeah, I think I might have 20 something. Yeah, think. Yeah, a lot of lot of three and five pounders, maybe not so many five lot of three and fives.
Drake Herd (53:08)
I struggled there, I know that. Yeah.
John Balla (53:13)
Drake you had 11 .67 and 16 .73 for 35th place. Brian you had 12 .92 and 13 .97 for 44th. You both caught limits.
Drake Herd (53:23)
Yeah, I just remember catching plenty of fish. It was just a matter of getting the big ones or not.
John Balla (53:28)
Yeah, so and I think Michigan Wallet Tour, think 50 something pounds won that one after two days also recently.
Brian Bashore (53:36)
I'm sure there's plenty of big fish. It's just such a big amount of water to go cover and find them. But I don't think forward facing sonar has been there to expose it. Michigan Walleye Trill, I'm sure there's plenty of guys doing it on there, but every time this group of 40 guys show up, it's a whole new can of worms basically.
Drake Herd (53:43)
I think it's gonna...
Yeah, right.
John Balla (53:54)
Do you think it's gonna be more than 25 a day, Brian?
Brian Bashore (53:57)
I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going to let my say 30 bearing men manageable weather. Yeah.
John Balla (54:01)
90 pounds.
90 pounds.
Drake Herd (54:05)
Yeah, it, I -
Brian Bashore (54:06)
I think guys will run north even if they have to, way up in there where they can get those 7, 8, 9 pounders.
Drake Herd (54:13)
I, it's all going to be weather dependent, I think. I, I think guys are going to run all over, but I, I just, I don't know if we can run, it'll be bigger weights. And I think it could be that low eighties. If we can't, like, I think it's going to be less than like slow seventies, probably, you know, just one of those things, you know, but.
Brian Bashore (54:18)
Very much so.
don't know. John says 25, I should probably agree with him, because I know zero about this place. I know nothing about this place.
Drake Herd (54:41)
I know, I've been...
John Balla (54:46)
Well, I just think it's hard to get conditions the right way. mean, could be 30 leading at day one, then it could be 55 leading it after two days, but then they catch 20 pounds later. So 75 to 77, I think 75 is a concern. I I'm still in that mid 70s range. I mean, I don't think it'll be lower than 75. So I don't think, but I don't know if it'll be over 80. I don't know. It's a tough, challenging place.
Drake Herd (54:46)
And honestly...
Brian Bashore (54:54)
Right.
Drake Herd (55:00)
Yeah.
John Balla (55:16)
It is.
Drake Herd (55:16)
Yeah. Well, and if you look at the weather, like Sunday and Monday do not look very favorable to like run around even and fish. like, and with the limited practice, which I'm, I'm in favor of by a hundred percent, like I love that we're doing this limited practice, but we, it's going to be interesting to see how fast we can try to break it down.
John Balla (55:38)
Yeah, mean, when did Schaeffer win this one?
Brian Bashore (55:42)
Yeah, was smaller networks, lack of information, shorter practice for some. Some of this is a normal practice time. But yeah, it's such a weather dependent situation up there. It won't surprise me at all to see 30 pounds a day come in, but it won't surprise me at all to see 20, 25 pounds a day to come in.
Drake Herd (55:48)
Yep. Yep.
John Balla (56:04)
When did Shae...
Brian Bashore (56:05)
I guess I'll have to tune in and see.
John Balla (56:08)
2020. I'm trying to look at the what would the weights were when they ran down from the Sioux in 2020.
Brian Bashore (56:21)
Okay, yeah, yeah, a of the Sousa Marie weights are people that ran way down into there
Drake Herd (56:22)
Yeah, him and chemo.
John Balla (56:26)
There it is. Yeah, I mean, he won it with 45 pounds.
Drake Herd (56:35)
Yeah, so 22 a day, 22 and a half.
John Balla (56:37)
Yep. Yep.
Drake Herd (56:39)
But then again, they had limited time too. Like they're going 120 miles, whatever that was, you know? So.
John Balla (56:47)
Yep.
Brian Bashore (56:49)
Yeah, at least you're being starting off right into kind of the almost the middle layer pretty close to so
Drake Herd (56:53)
Alright. Yep. Yep. Yeah, and that's right. think guys are gonna run north, guys are gonna run south, and people are gonna fish their fish and we'll see what happens, you know?
Brian Bashore (57:03)
is anybody, you're see anybody trolling.
Drake Herd (57:07)
I would assume so there's gonna be, there's gotta be. It's a great lake, there's always some guys trolling. I told Kevin if he's on 50 pounds a day and he can do it in under two hours, I'll think about trolling. If he's not on it, other than that don't wanna hear it.
Brian Bashore (57:21)
haha
Yeah, well if you got a limited amount of time, just a good way to cover some water quick. But then again, you can crank your your cracking up to 10 and fly around pretty darn fast too.
Drake Herd (57:28)
Yeah.
Yeah. And Eric said, if Kevin can catch 40 pounds and under a half an hour trolling, then he'll think about consider trolling. but what do you do? So yeah, it's about all I know. know it'll be fun. I'm sure the city will come out to it and it's usually in this a little bit different setting. And I think people will be really excited about it because it's got a little prestige there.
Brian Bashore (57:42)
Yeah.
Alright.
Yeah. And these championships get a good, good crowd, good turnout. And we'll see where, where's the 20 green Bay. That's where the championship 2025. So Marinette, they've always done a great, great job. Just sounds kind of like how Dunkirk did with a lot of media, front page of newspaper every day. They met somebody at the boat docks, you know, boat ramps every day, did interviews. Hopefully you get that up there and you get all sorts of love and the media day. I was half considering coming up and.
trying to do a podcast but I guide trips booked those days now so I'm not though it didn't have to take a lot yeah yeah yeah well if somebody wants to pay for it you know I'm game I can probably get one of my other guides to pick it up but I went ahead and booked some trips over those days and I'll watch I'll sit back and watch assuming their live stream works hopefully and we'll just go from there you guys ready to want to go over this fantasy stuff I don't want to talk much more about her on and get
Drake Herd (58:33)
Yep, yep. Could be a big deal and fly in.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. Perfect.
Brian Bashore (58:59)
say something we're not supposed to. I can't say anything I'm not supposed to say because I don't I literally know nothing. Fish more and just worry less Drake. That's all I got to say is just fish more and worry less. So here's where we're sitting after three events, four events. We missed the first one. So John is out of astounding lead and has sealed the deal on this fantasy fishing picks with 430 points that Drake and I cannot catch him with only 41 points on the table.
I'm sitting second with 542 and Drake is in third with 572. We all had Eric, we all had Dewey. That helped our picks but then Drake and I each had a guy in the lower realm like myself. But yeah, John's lowest pick was Eric with 35th place. So he had 90 points in that event while Drake and I had 100. Drake had 197, I had 176. So that did it for us right there. One person.
Drake Herd (59:55)
How much?
John Balla (59:56)
So wait a minute, you guys, if you're 100 points back, are we gonna pick this one? Well, what if I take 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and then you guys get top tens?
Drake Herd (1:00:02)
Yeah, we're still gonna pick this one.
yeah.
Brian Bashore (1:00:11)
I guess there is. We have more than one person. So, alright, there's a chance. We have about as good a chance as Hoyer does right now is winning AOI, buddy, but there is a chance. You're saying there's a chance, right?
John Balla (1:00:15)
Yeah
Yeah, I just yet there's still a chance I mean you never know
Drake Herd (1:00:20)
Ha ha
Brian Bashore (1:00:28)
Well, I'll pick John then and then if he goes and puts something on everybody's gas tank, there we go. We got it.
John Balla (1:00:32)
No, no.
Drake Herd (1:00:34)
Well, wait, time, I think for the last one we can't pick the same guy. How about that?
John Balla (1:00:41)
so we take turns?
Drake Herd (1:00:43)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, because I got to have some sort of chance in this thing. You know what I mean? Like.
Brian Bashore (1:00:43)
this is like Survivor fantasy all of sudden, huh?
John Balla (1:00:48)
Yeah, I think that's fair. We'll just we'll just go. We'll each take its first turn and.
Brian Bashore (1:00:56)
So John gets last pick just like any draft and Drake gets first pick because he's in the bottom of barrel right now. Alright.
John Balla (1:00:58)
Yeah. Yeah. He'll get he'll get to go first twice. Yeah.
Brian Bashore (1:01:06)
Yep. Hang on, I gotta start a new sheet.
Alright Drake.
Drake Herd (1:01:16)
I'll go air.
I should probably, you guys can just yell at me if we already called someone that was picked.
Brian Bashore (1:01:28)
I got Tom.
John Balla (1:01:33)
news bomb.
Brian Bashore (1:01:36)
So the final pick of the first round is Nussbaum to John.
Drake Herd (1:01:43)
See, this is gonna get more intense now. We can't have the same guy. I got a chance here now.
Brian Bashore (1:01:46)
Yep. Now it goes, now it goes back to John for the first pick.
John Balla (1:01:49)
No, you get the context because you're second. Yeah.
Drake Herd (1:01:51)
Yeah, you do. You do. Yep.
Brian Bashore (1:01:53)
we're gonna go down that way? Got it. man, I haven't even thought of my next pick. Eric Tom, Nussbaum. Let me look at my... I don't have my draft sheet sitting out. I wasn't prepared. I got CJ Stroud. Now we got that draft sheet sitting out. Let me go with...
I'll take Hunter
John Balla (1:02:26)
is... oof.
Brian Bashore (1:02:28)
I already wrote it, I want to see if I'm right.
John Balla (1:02:30)
I'm gonna take Hoyer.
Brian Bashore (1:02:32)
I am not right.
Drake Herd (1:02:34)
Wait, so we got Hunter, Eric, Tom, Dylan. Hoyer, Dylan. I'm just writing this down, because I am going to forget.
Brian Bashore (1:02:43)
I'll send you a screenshot of it.
Drake Herd (1:02:46)
Yeah, I'll Will.
Brian Bashore (1:02:48)
That's who I thought John was going to pick.
Okay, John's pick.
John Balla (1:03:00)
Hmm.
Brian Bashore (1:03:00)
How many guys we pick? I don't remember. Four or five? One, two, three, four, five. Okay.
Drake Herd (1:03:05)
So it's going to be 15.
Brian Bashore (1:03:07)
Huh, I'm gonna have pull up the website because I can't think of 15 names right now.
Drake Herd (1:03:11)
Thank you.
John Balla (1:03:13)
boy. So I picked Hoyer because he's really, really good on the Great Lakes. He caught him in the weeds on Lake Erie. And Dewey's also on his team. And Dewey just, but you know what? Max Wilson.
He's just good on the Great Lakes scoping.
Drake Herd (1:03:42)
It's my turn then next, right? Yeah, I go next? I'll go Dewey then. If you're not gonna pick them, I'll go.
John Balla (1:03:44)
Yes.
Drake Herd (1:03:51)
I'm just hoping I got one more that I really want and then I'm gonna take a gamble.
Brian Bashore (1:03:56)
Huh.
Drake Herd (1:04:00)
I should pull this up.
Brian Bashore (1:04:03)
Yeah, I just had to pull up the Angler of the Year sheet because I was running out of names. Mercy.
Drake Herd (1:04:14)
See, this makes it more difficult.
Brian Bashore (1:04:14)
much more difficult.
I'm gonna go... Shakerik.
John Balla (1:04:28)
Good pick.
Drake Herd (1:04:29)
Yeah, I'll give you that one.
John Balla (1:04:32)
He's got the best championship record at anyone.
Brian Bashore (1:04:35)
Exactly.
Drake Herd (1:04:37)
He does seem to like come out like, alright, just won this one, had an okay year, and then he just whips that out.
John Balla (1:04:43)
So I went first, so it's back to Drake going first.
Drake Herd (1:04:49)
it is. then I do get, I'm gonna go this Austin Tamasak or Tomasak. He's in 12th place from right there, like some area right there. And he's been looking forward to this event the whole year. So I'm gonna pick him. I know he's been looking for this one.
John Balla (1:05:06)
Smart.
Brian Bashore (1:05:11)
I don't even know who that is. Yeah, I see him.
Drake Herd (1:05:13)
He's in 12th, one above me.
John Balla (1:05:13)
He's the only Michigan angler in the field.
Drake Herd (1:05:18)
It field, yep. And he from day one this whole year, he said, that's the only spot I want to be, Drake. That's where I want to be. And I know he's jacked to be there. So, and he won, he won the Michigan one out there this year, wherever they were out of Alpina or wherever they went out of this year.
Brian Bashore (1:05:18)
Yep, that's probably a good pick.
John Balla (1:05:20)
Yep.
Brian Bashore (1:05:28)
Yeah, I guess.
John Balla (1:05:38)
cool.
I'll let you go again. Sure.
Brian Bashore (1:05:49)
We get two more. Okay.
How about...
Son of a gun. There's serious stuff over here now.
so many names. I'm gonna take a guy by the name of Draker.
Drake Herd (1:06:15)
what? Does that mean I can't take myself? What a son of a bitch.
Brian Bashore (1:06:18)
sure does.
John Balla (1:06:22)
Wow.
Drake Herd (1:06:25)
God, that's gonna screw me now.
Brian Bashore (1:06:28)
I know, I'm playing a little defense. I can't bet on myself because I sucked it in and made it, so I got to bet on you, buddy.
Drake Herd (1:06:33)
I know.
John Balla (1:06:38)
Deaf about.
Drake Herd (1:06:42)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (1:06:42)
who I was flipping coin with but Drake's got a good supporting cast with him.
John Balla (1:06:47)
So.
So now Brian goes first and I go second and Draco's last for their final pick.
Brian Bashore (1:06:57)
Yeah, fit.
I'm gonna go with Kevin.
Drake Herd (1:07:05)
God, what the?
Brian Bashore (1:07:08)
You took her. I'm taking the rest.
Drake Herd (1:07:09)
I know, but I can't see
Brian Bashore (1:07:16)
another track record.
John Balla (1:07:18)
Oof.
I'm going Dean.
Brian Bashore (1:07:26)
I was leaning Dean when I Drake as well as Deffenball.
Drake Herd (1:07:27)
I dunno.
John Balla (1:07:37)
Last pick, Drake.
Drake Herd (1:07:38)
I know, I'm debating, I'm honestly debating.
Brian Bashore (1:07:40)
I'm at it Drake's got a full team there so he's got a bell to break down the water a little better. So Eric, Drake, and Kevin all have a good good shot. But so does Chase, Kemos, Tom.
Drake Herd (1:07:51)
Yeah, so I'm thinking like Kemos or...
Brian Bashore (1:07:56)
Then you got all the warrior guys are in it, which Defa -Bot and Kent and Snyder.
Drake Herd (1:07:58)
I know, Kent. Yeah.
I'm debating between Keith, Kemos...
Brian Bashore (1:08:11)
You want to make a trade?
Drake Herd (1:08:13)
I was gonna pick myself. I was gonna pick myself. Now this is all confusing.
algo... agokimos... agokimos...
John Balla (1:08:23)
I got two.
I got two other guys that I liked that we did pick, like Ryan Dempsey on the Great Lake. And I think for whatever reason, Justin Schneider is going to be fishing pretty free. He's basically saying he's not going to fish next year.
Brian Bashore (1:08:34)
Mm -hmm.
Drake Herd (1:08:34)
Yeah, I know all the Wisconsin.
Yeah, me and him had a pretty good conversation last night, just a heart to heart, and I think he's going all in on this, so it will be an interesting one for sure.
John Balla (1:08:54)
I just think he'd be... Yep.
Brian Bashore (1:08:56)
He's out next year, huh?
John Balla (1:09:00)
Yep, think Dempsey's, mean, you know, think Keith Kavaya's is, he's got tons of history there.
Brian Bashore (1:09:07)
He has got a little experience up there.
John Balla (1:09:09)
And you know, give or middle time, it's August.
Drake Herd (1:09:09)
and on.
That's why I'm hoping Kemos comes together, because he ran all the way from Sault Ste. Marie down here. So hopefully he can find those fish wherever the hell he was. yeah, I mean, and anyone, any one of these guys on this whole list could do it, you know.
Brian Bashore (1:09:17)
Yep.
John Balla (1:09:20)
Yeah.
of course, absolutely. That's what makes it a good championship. But there's going to be one of the four or five, top four or five guys that we picked, or one or two of them probably going to be in the top 10. Hunter, Dylan, Tom Winn, Eric Winn, Will, probably two or three of those guys will be in the top 10. I don't know if all five will be, but two or three of them probably will be. So it's going to come down. This is a great way to do it. So this could be anybody's deal now.
Drake Herd (1:09:32)
So.
Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (1:09:58)
Locked up by any means. I mean, this is gonna be a fun way to do it. Should we do, do we need to pick a tie break? Like a weight as a tie breaker? Whoever's closest to the weight as a tie breaker in case we have a tie?
Brian Bashore (1:10:11)
Good idea.
John Balla (1:10:12)
I'm gonna go three day total weight.
Brian Bashore (1:10:13)
three day total weight.
John Balla (1:10:20)
Well, I should get to go last now that I have to go. Hey, I gave up. I gave up. First pick.
Brian Bashore (1:10:24)
I agree, think Greg goes first. Yep, fair enough,
Drake Herd (1:10:26)
What?
I'll go 77 .7 pounds. Seven ounces. 77, yep, yep.
John Balla (1:10:38)
7707, okay.
Brian.
Brian Bashore (1:10:43)
$1, $1.
John Balla (1:10:52)
80 pounds even.
Drake Herd (1:10:54)
I should have checked the weather.
John Balla (1:10:57)
I'm gonna go 75 14.
Drake Herd (1:11:04)
This is where I get sandwiched if it's lower than you guys do and if it's higher than it It's fine. It's fine. I'm just gonna I'm gonna beat you guys fair and square. Yep. I'm gonna beat you guys fair and square and then I'm not gonna have to worry about it
Brian Bashore (1:11:08)
Yep, that's why I picked the higher one. I didn't think anyone would go with you. I everything above, I'm good.
John Balla (1:11:13)
It's only a tiebreaker. It's only a tiebreaker.
Brian Bashore (1:11:16)
It's a light tie breaker, true.
John Balla (1:11:21)
But I like that Thomas I pick I mean Michigan only the field obviously he's going to have some history and knowledge there and before the off before the off limits period I'm sure he got downloaded all kinds of stuff so. Because he probably knew he was in the champions already he finished up so high so he knew he was in.
Brian Bashore (1:11:23)
Yeah, friends.
Drake Herd (1:11:33)
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and he, I mean, he's just a down to earth, good young kid. So you hope that he can pull something off here in the hometown, kid. Obviously I'd like to beat him, but like it's, it'd be a great story. Cause he's been battling all year to try to get there. So.
John Balla (1:11:53)
Yeah, exactly.
Brian Bashore (1:11:54)
Same thing what old Craig Schleman did when he went to Dunkirk. That's it. I'm in. Because you're going to finish up here. He squeezed in, I think, on that one too, didn't he?
Drake Herd (1:11:57)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep, yep, so it'll be good. We'll see what happens.
Brian Bashore (1:12:08)
It is. righty. Any closing thoughts, gentlemen? We wish Drake the best of luck and I wish him real good luck. I picked you to win.
Drake Herd (1:12:17)
Maybe I'll just tank it just to screw with our fantasy fishing.
Brian Bashore (1:12:21)
just be like after that's your interview. I like I didn't want to be short of beat me in the damn fantasy pic so I had to just bail on the second day.
John Balla (1:12:24)
ever.
Drake Herd (1:12:28)
Yeah, good. Good, good.
Brian Bashore (1:12:32)
You know, giving up my whatever check so I can win, what'd we bet, like a dollar or something? don't remember what it was,
Drake Herd (1:12:37)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John Balla (1:12:38)
I don't remember either. We'll have to go back and watch. Drake, good luck and good safe travels. All you guys getting out there. I'll see you guys at the weigh -ins probably next Wednesday and Thursday.
Brian Bashore (1:12:40)
Right.
Drake Herd (1:12:48)
Perfect, sounds good. Talk to you guys later.
Brian Bashore (1:12:50)
They're gonna wanna know, we're gonna have a recap of the championship. One more of these, we'll recap it and call out who won. Who was the winner of the Fantasy Fish and Picks in the Walleye World this year? And who knows how this might pan out next year. Maybe it'll have its own website and app or something. I don't even know. Maybe we'll play some real money. We'll see. See if it's in that works. I don't know. Stay tuned and find out.
Drake Herd (1:12:54)
Alright.
Brian Bashore (1:13:13)
Alright folks, like I said, good luck to Drake at the championship and all the anglers who made it. Congrats guys and thanks for tuning into this episode of Real Talk Fishing. Stay safe and we'll see you on the water.