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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 (00:00.174)
Hey folks, we're back at it again here with another episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits and we are in Red Wing back with Theodore, otherwise known as Ted Takasaki, Hall of Famer, and Randy Hummel. Our other partner Sam couldn't make it this tournament. But a little recap of Erie, how fun that was.
And what's up coming here for the Red Wing event starting tomorrow. We just got in from the rules meeting and call for dinner. Where'd you guys go? We had Chinese food. Again. Is there a night? All right. It's easy. It is easy. I love me some orange chicken. Fried rice. So, Erie, let's start over there. Erie.
Obviously, you're eating goes plan for any of us. Definitely not. First day was a struggle. I think a lot of our big fish kind of moved out. Sure, they just kept the migration going, going east and we couldn't find them. So I had a real, real struggle. I mean, everyone else is seemed like everyone else is catching fish. They weren't the right fish, but I was struggling to even catch just any fish. And.
So I ended up with only four fish day one. That is a struggle. Especially on Erie. That's bad. That did the best with 25 pounds. Yeah, the first day. Yeah. I had 23 and we had like 18 and you had 450. I don't even know what it was. It didn't matter, but it answered the question that yeah, you can apparently jig those fish at Erie. You can. You can. And I would have never guessed that.
Now you know, everybody knows that. The question was, can this be one jig it? Yep, it can be. So that'll be obviously the new way of fun way of catching them. But the trawlers did good guys that went east over by Lorraine and Brian Buddy and going to guys fish with a bunch of those guys, locals. There's a good pot of fish over there and we didn't really look back far east. You got on them a little bit, but the weather was going to suck.
Brian Bashore (02:19.886)
Lorraine, we looked at the forecast and we're just like, my equipment is starting to get a little beat up. So I don't want to beat up on it anymore. So we just kind of rule out Lorraine right away and stayed a little closer. I would say after day two was probably the right move to keep our equipment in shape. I heard a lot of stories of guys that ran east coast. They made it back, but.
I don't know if they're all those boats are here at this tournament. The anglers are but it's rough. You've been on this a long time. That was rough. It's probably not the roughest but if you're going to go 30 or 40 miles and it's way too much for me. Yeah. I like to stay close. I like to get maximum amount of fishing and I've never been known for long long runs and.
I didn't go that far in this one either. Actually, I was really pretty close to where we launched from. I don't know what happened the second day. I had relatively clear water both days and the fish either moved on or I was marking them and I couldn't get any better the second day.
I know exactly what happened to my boat. I didn't get a fish by the shell. But I'm not even going to go down that hole because it just pisses me off. My day two, I went back to where I started just because that's what we had going and we caught one fish. And as soon as the wind came up, I was, you know, I had such a bad first day that I'm all.
we're gonna get just get out of the wind. So as soon as the wind came out, I ran by a monument. We fished in small waves all day long and I ended up catching better weight than I did the first day. My plan was to head that way too. I just went the wrong direction and got into the nastiest stuff on the whole lake. So that's we're good. That's just gonna call it a day. I'm like, so I might.
Brian Bashore (04:18.254)
boats like your tractor in a sense and I gotta have it for work and I can't be broken in pieces when you got a guy today after you get home so. Yeah I think some guys are just crazy. I said some guys are crazy. Well we're all crazy a little bit to do this and chase this dream but it's passion driven and we're crazy. I suppose.
Not too much. He used to be a little bit crazy. Maybe younger. Yeah, the younger Teddy was a little crazy. So we're out here at Red Wing. We're outside on this pretty sweet little crib that Teddy found us. The wilderness driveway to get in.
It sucks for back in boats and stuff. It feels like a quarter mile is probably not. Might be an eighth mile. But it's really tight and it's a real sharp drop on the one side. Yeah, you got no room to screw up. So get really good at backing up. Back in the boat trailer. That's been a challenge all week for me. I thought I could back up a boat. Try backing a boat up when you got no room on either side. You can't see your mirrors because the trees got raised and they're not.
Now they're laying it over and your truck's huge so it's just you and your kids. So I'm trying to get out and try to guide you. It's like a 10 minute back up trip. So yeah, but other than that, the place is great. All the cows are all in the house. We had a pretty good week. Weather's considerably better than Erie, but it's missing the rivers so it doesn't get too rough out there. It blew pretty good today. Yesterday was supposed to be horrible. I mean it was last night. We had tornadoes and thunderstorms, but the water was good.
us today pretty well. I'd say I got I got more confidence this tournament than I do Erie. I mean here we had good fish going but I know that you really need to be on a bunch of big fish it seems like on Erie. Here I feel like we got the fish figured out. It all boils down to what over you end up catching and keeping and at what time. So...
Brian Bashore (06:28.942)
I don't mean a lot of it is just going to blow down to luck, but I think I'm pretty confident that we got them figured out. We'll catch them. And obviously getting like three 19s would be awesome. And I got two 19s one day pretty quick. But tournaments, you go to these spots that you practice in and all of a sudden you're there longer, you got another rod in the water, sometimes you're way better than you thought, which is what we all hope. Or sometimes you get there and you find other people.
know you're going to find a new spot. That's probably the challenge is that you know you think you might have a spot yourself but there's usually somebody else's spot. Those fish are small. Yeah everybody's pretty good at this level you think you've got something nobody else does but there's I mean there's a lot of system there's fish everywhere so we should be pretty spread out. Everybody's got their own little thing going but still summer spots are not necessarily community holes by all means.
10 people are going to be jumping all over trying to find that one over. So you get one over over 20 inches, which they over, you get four fish in your live. Well, once you put the fourth fish in your box, you're done for the day. It could be some scales open 11 could be some early weigh -ins could be fishing till three or later. But if you're locking down to pull four, like we all are, you got to contend with that and play the game of winning. What is the bars or is there a barge and I might have to come back.
one o 'clock to allow time to get in and then you got another at least a five minute no wait to get to check in. Five, ten, I have to time that morning. But yeah, it's tricky. So 23, you know, what do you keep? Four pounder, five pounder. Obviously you get like a seven, eight, nine pounder. There's no question, no matter when it comes, it's going in the box. That's going to separate you big time. The weights are going to be super tight.
I think 26 pounds.
Brian Bashore (08:49.902)
That's the perfect bag. Yeah, someone's going to do it two days or they're going to hit. You know, someone's I think someone will probably run into like a real big fish catch. Eleven, twelve pound fish that are in here and then have perfect slots and they have a 17 pound bag and then the next day they might have a 13 pound bag and win or vice versa.
13 pound bag first day, 17 pound bag on the second day of learning. I hear about these 10 but I haven't seen one. We haven't found any real real big fish. I mean, dad's got a pretty good over his first day of practice. They're far lengthwise but you really gotta weigh these fish because they're not...
We're not having a length tournament. By weight, maybe you have an 18 -inch that weighs more than a 19 and a half or a 23 that weighs more than a 25. Yeah, most of them are pretty skinny. Yeah, it seemed like both those today and yesterday, they were definitely getting fatter, but we also fished a few different spots. So it couldn't be that they're fatter in those spots or they're just getting fatter. Water temps are upper 60s. This is like perfect condition. This should be feeding -trendy, but it's been off. Even the local guys were like, it's just...
something weird in the system while it's dropping, which I think would make it a little better in a sense, pushing fish out of the sluice. I've always found lowering water levels typically make fish skitterish and chase them out of certain spots they would like to be in. So I've always felt that when the water's falling, it's tough for fishing. But river -wise, it's pushing them out of the sluice and backwater.
I've got something to say. Either agrees or disagrees, I don't know what that is. But a lot of these fish have already moved down to Lake Pepton. I mean, they're in the lake. You can kind of see the water level change there, but I don't know, it's a ton. But I can tell the difference on the baits that I use up in the river versus down in the lake. Clarity, current, what have you.
Brian Bashore (10:55.598)
There's fish everywhere. Scopers have been doing plenty of it and you can catch fish and scope it, but there's 50, 60 fish on your screen every time you turn it on. It's trying to decide what is what is a challenge. And I've seen a lot of those guys not doing it, but it's still handy because you can look in an area. There's monkeys in this thing. I don't think there's any monkeys in Minnesota.
I know them anyway. It sounds like we're in a pretty gory zoo. Anywho, so what takes on it, what's your goal in a bag to get? What are you shooting for? 10, 12? I mean, I want 20 pounds, but that's not going to happen. Well, I just, you know, I'm going to keep, my slots are going to be around two pounds. Just keep two pounders. And as far as a big one goes, it's just going to have to, the time of day.
We got to catch one first. It might be a low 20 incher. We've been running into some mid 20s. I feel like we definitely could probably come in with a mid 20 incher, three perfect slots. I really. Which is probably 11, 12 pounds. I think that's realistic if you get that over, even if it's got to be pushing four pounds.
I don't think I'm going to be as picky on the slots as you know, like I said, around two pounds because it all depends on what your over is going to be. I mean, that's it. That's the tournament is what over an 18 inch or it could be a soccer even over two pounds. Even if there's any even some 17 inches that are pushing, you know, like a 17 and a half bat.
I might throw it in just because I just don't want to take a chance of not having my own. The 20 incher isn't even 3 pounds. Or 21, 19 and a half or 2, 5, 2, 8. Which through those, that's an extra half pound, that could be 10 spots. It's going to be tight. It's going to be real tight. But it doesn't matter unless you catch them. I think they'll be easily over half the field in women's gold days.
Brian Bashore (13:14.158)
won't or will. Yeah, I think everybody could catch a limit, but it's what do you keep? Yeah, I think a lot of people are gonna throw back. Yeah, because you're gonna have I mean, they're good chance I come in with three fish if you just keep your slots and you keep a big fish spot open. There's probably a good chance you end up with just three. You know, time you got to run back. Backer lock through three. I'm figuring keep my first four. You'll keep a low low 20 inch.
I might, it's four total so you get three in one over. So, but you can keep four, I mean, four 19 and a halfs might get you just under 10 pounds. Which I don't know. We'll see. Might cash a check with that or you're not going to win with it. Yeah, cash a check with unders it's going to be, you'd have to get solid eight, 19 inches. So I'm not going to rely on 19 inches.
Brian Bashore (14:13.23)
techniques we're going to learn. What are we doing? Well, we're pulling bottom bouncers with lane hooks and a leech and a bead. So that really seemed to be for some reason the larger fish are targeting that and anytime we kind of change it up get more colorful bigger and stuff like that then we're catching little fish and trash fish. So I mean it's pretty simple.
River fishing is so keep it simple. It complicates a hell of a lot of this with the bazillion lures and electronics and stuff we got when it's really just anchor up and throw a creek job and night car out the back boat and wait cat fishing. Works. moving. Yeah we're rigging. Moving. I'm pitching some jigs that's working well. Some Z -Man jerk shads, plastics, eye candy grubs. But rigging leeches is...
The willow cats haven't panned out. No, no, but the lead core, pulling, pulling, cranks the lead, that worked well today, not the last couple days, but a few others, we've all caught them. You cranking the lead at all? Not much, and then do a very little. Well, it's been rigging fool all week, we're in it. Pretty much.
Did you notice going to a plain hook helped versus a bunch of other stuff? I did pretty good today with just the hook.
So we got about as easy as it gets one to three ounce bottom bouncer but I'll deep yard and various speeds because you hit some curbs and spots and I don't know I'm running like a four to five foot lead, a leader on it probably and a gold red or orange bead green green bead and a number two.
Brian Bashore (16:08.014)
too hooked for the leech rigged on them or even a big sucker chub that you get about anywhere bait shop around here. They like those too. I've had some good bites and fish on those rigging a Blendy rig style, but it's tougher to do that some spots because you're a little deeper or you got too much current. The bottom bouncer works well, but yeah, talk about simple.
Covered in your moving water. I've got some lead because I've pre -fished by myself for a couple days I was one cover more water quick like this morning one day hit its bottom That works We'll see everything. I mean everybody's boats a wreck. You got chicken rods bounce rods trolling rods Slip over rods. I made it pretty simple. You just took everything out There's my rigging right that's it
Brian Bashore (17:02.734)
Well, yeah, I'm dragging jigs too. Rattle paddle. That was your biggest, biggest fish all week. Right. The new rattle paddle, it's a swim bait that you just put on a jig head. It's got a great action to it. It's got rattles and scent and all the other good stuff. Just throw it behind the boat, pop, pop, smack. Twenty -seven incher. Every single one that I've caught behind the boat, I've been working.
So yeah, pop it. It's like a half ounce or? Yeah, no, I'm using, yeah, it's a half ounce jig head with a rattle pad. It's like a four inch plastic of that.
And he did the same thing at here, he trolled it. Hooked it on her, dropped it back, put a board on it, boom, 28 inch or 26 inch or whatever. Which was, theoretically, you were just jigging. It was a jig. That was just hovering in the right water column. No doubt they were drifting and life scoping them. If you get it in front of their face, they're gonna eat it. That's right.
sometimes no matter what it is but they've been a little picky i've been watching them on scope and some some will fly up out of a few feet and get it and other ones you got to work them right to the boat and majority of them don't even look at it they just are like whatever then they'll you can watch them with the
pull. Then get your pull. Bouncer you can watch them come up and hit it or sometimes when they double back and turn on it then it's probably more frustrating than that. That is very frustrating. Like John I watched plenty of them and just go what the hell why does it double back and stop the turn came sniffed it and left but I switched some up from watching that.
Brian Bashore (18:49.006)
One thing I did find, you know, you throw the light bait way back behind the boat and you just kind of work it a little. You don't have to snap it. You just got to work it. You get the bottom and bring it back forward. The two fish I got today and the big fish on Saturday was they're all working just the jig instead of putting them in the rod holes. Hang on to it. Does this come out tonight? No, you're good.
I want to make sure that, you know. Don't give any test tips already, right? Yeah. To you guys, it's okay. No worries. They won't say it until Monday after the tournament. So, yeah, we'll see who's hoisting the trophies up then. But yeah, you're right. Because every time I like dump it back to get down to the bottom a little bit, so if you lock it, one hitch in order to pull it off a snag or a log. So you're working on...
spinning rod, just keeping the jig long -lined out behind the boat. I mean, we've been working back and forth, but today, two of my fish right away, as soon as I grabbed a hold of it, out of the rod holder, and just went, bum, bum, boom, place. Half ounce jig. So you're dragging a half -ouncer and then running bottom -alters? Yeah.
Brian Bashore (20:10.798)
There you go. That's 10 steps for the week. Tune in to Gulliland. Try not to make it on there, because you don't do it back at home very much, but it works there too. We drag jigs. I drag them all summer, but they're more like eighth ounce. But same deal, you get that eight way, way from the vogue. Pick it up, give it a twitch, and...
They smack it. It's called keeping it simple, stupid, right? It's fishing. It's over complicated. Rivers are notorious for this simple fishing. You know, a lot of local, you go see guys in holes and marlin that's dropping little cats in this literally two guys stand on the back boat for rising over, holding them, just waiting. That's how a lot of these big fish get caught here. And that's Randy's done pretty damn well at the great chain. Yep. Yeah. Or even working that will. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know what year it was, I got a fish that pretty shame. You got a 9th? Got the same one, Brent got like a 17th. I found some good fish. Simple, just throw willow cats on the bottom. I'd work one back and a lot of times, I mean, I literally just little bumps on the bottom with that weight, like I was making noise with that weight. A lot of fish came off of doing that.
Willow cats are three four inch long little basically No idea why the hell fish eat these things or touch them you get poked. They don't bother me. I know you have a help Well, I'm all right No, no, no, no, no, no, no
They hurt. They hurt like a little bee sting. I'd pick them up and kind of just real gingerly hold them. Yeah, I let them settle down. Yeah, just don't squeeze it and watch where you're holding it. You got to treat them real nice. You got to kind of... Criss it? Yeah, you got to move their spines backwards. I'd just plop them down on the deck and then you just take your finger and push them like this on the back of the head. They stop and they go like that.
Brian Bashore (22:11.278)
You go through the bottom or through? I go through the top. I go through the bottom. I go through the bottom. They kind of wiggle themselves off. I would go through both, but that would just kill them. I go through both. I don't know, I would not have left.
I think I was going a little far back in the head. Yeah, you don't want to stick them through the brain. Nope, it's not good. Most of us don't do well with them. It hurts. That hurts. They're tough, but not that tough. I had lasers on my eyes yesterday. That did not hurt much, but I can imagine. The cranium is no good, but yeah, the little cats are a big thing and makes sense with that. They haven't been... I think it's a little early for them yet. It's kind of a summer pattern.
and occasionally they'll go off. When they go, they go. I mean, they are like candy and like chubs, crit chubs in Hawaii or chocohua. You got to have them as far as live bait goes. Hood crawlers, leeches and chubs are what we're mainly going to be using. So I don't know. We'll see where it pans out. We all had a pretty good week. I definitely I think I had more fun day one than I had all week at Erie.
just because you don't have to battle waves and fish aren't as big. Catch a lot of fish at times. Sometimes there's lulls, but that's pre -fishing where you're like, all right, this doesn't work. Now I'm done doing it. This spot really sucks. And so if we communicate that, it'd be like, nothing, nothing here. So we have a little nightly meeting and go over kind of who did what where and communicate throughout the day on what, how, how far back, what size, what color, what depth. And that's.
where we come up with a very simple pattern of a hook. A hook and a bead in the leech. And I think I'm probably the only one pitching jigs, but that's because it's hard to stop me from doing that. But you never know, if you show up to your spot and there's three or four people already on it, that's where I point me, and that's not pitching jigs, that's ringing. So then, trolling after that, I don't have any slip -overs in the boat, so. I don't like going after one spot spots. No. No.
Brian Bashore (24:22.222)
I don't feel like right now sitting on one spot is a good idea because I think the fish kind of moved through but they're not moving through fast enough. I fished a spot one day this week pretty much all day and we went bang bang and then it just big lull and then we caught one and you know I just don't think the fish were they moved through you catch them and then that was too long in between. Yeah you gotta if you hit it.
at the right time you can be done in a minute. Yeah, I mean minutes. I mean if you have four rods out, they quadruple work. Yeah, it can happen real fast but then again you can leave your spot and rivers they load up. Like a wing dam, but what happens at these points and then it's moving so you get it at the right time it's bam bam. Then you might have an hour or two of nothing of the bam plan, you know, or the feed or whatever the case is but as they move and come through if you're in the right place at the right time.
And if your fish come in the right order, you have a perfect day. If they come in the right order. If they come in the right order, it's the key. Very seldom do they, but when they do.
You hear the guy on stage. Trophy at the end because it all came together and worked for you. But that's what we practiced to figure it out. Spots, patterns, locations, whatever you got. I kind of got some timing on some things, but I don't think that's that big a deal. We've got them late in the evening, we've got them early in the morning, we've got them in the middle of the day. I think, yeah, mornings have been better. I think mornings have been better. But it gets slower in the afternoon, but you can still catch a few. We have calm, pretty much flat calm. Tomorrow morning,
tomorrow it's sunny which has been fine but also the bigger fish have come when we've had some wind and we have wind on Friday and the 20 with storm so I know what the storms do should be fine or not you can run around the river pretty good even at 10 to 20 mile an hour wind there's no 20 mile, lake Erie stuff you just want to hang on and trim down give it a nose you can go pretty much full throttle so
Brian Bashore (26:25.678)
I'm ready to go and get to this thing. Start tomorrow, kind of pumped up. Pretty much because it's going to be a nice day and that's just fun. Makes a good fish. I want to be done early, like super early because it means you had a good day but I also want to enjoy the day and fish. But I'll trade the enjoyment of just fishing all day off for coming in early. Did somebody gave me 16 pounds and I didn't have to go out? I'm good. We're at the casino so if you want to go find Teddy.
He does have a good day, I think we know where to go find Teddy. You can't be playing poker unless those games take way too long and you're gonna be out way too late. You gotta get up early. So we got boat slips over there, so we're already, boats are in the water except for Randy's and we gotta wrap this up because we gotta get Randy rigged up quick. And.
Get them ready to go for the morning. We're ready to go. I got mine off ready yesterday and did other stuff this I don't have to touch those rods and we're in the boat slips and meeting our codes in the morning and we're gonna we're gonna go wreck them and that's it. Any ass words for anybody? Nope. Good. Good. Just ready to go give them hell. So, that's it folks. Thanks for tuning this episode of Real Talk Fishing and we'll be back in Green Bay. Teddy's. Let's see last tournament of the year.
Unfortunately, he's got commitments. Well, I have, I'm selling a house and, my stepdaughters get married. So yeah, that lands on pretty much the next two. So I think these guys don't know yet, but we're going to bring the Co's on the green Bay. We got a lot of them. So they're going to pay some dues. Maybe Randy now we'll interview the Co's and talk about.
I bet you they'll have a lot of stories. They'll probably have a lot of stories. And I think people probably would like to hear their perspective. As long as they're okay with it. I don't know where Jake is either. He's a basketball freak. Timberwolves are playing. But I think Adam's down, and John's down, Greg's probably down.
Brian Bashore (28:29.518)
see when they show up but everybody's always there Wednesday night after rules meeting so we got things work out well we'll get that get them on here and get their perspective and take that it'll just be you and I it's cock we as well we'll get Chris on yeah get up Chris coming at you for your cock we are so he's always got a lot to say we can get the oil off him
But yeah, I'm looking forward to that one. So stay tuned We'll wrap this up again here at Green Bay. Give you a little update on how practice went. We'll run down on how Have we won this one, right? Yeah, confidence is good winning. You're gonna need some big fish. I haven't touched one of those but if a guy does There you go It's right order. Need a little bit of luck. Need a little bit of luck. I take luck. I'll take luck. I'll take some luck. There's always a little bit of luck in fishing, bud.
preparation is a major key. We're pretty prepared for this one. Should be good, nonetheless gonna be fun. That's it folks, we will see you on the water.