Jayden Wendle NWT Young Gun

In this episode of Reel Talk Fishing Podcast, we sit down with Jayden Wendel following his historic National Walleye Tour victory on Bay De Noc, Michigan. Jayden became the youngest angler ever to win an NWT event, capturing his first NWT win at just 19 years old. We discuss the tournament-winning strategy, key fishing patterns, family support, and what it was like competing against some of the best walleye anglers in the country. If you love walleye fishing, tournament fishing, and inspiring success stories, this episode is packed with insight, excitement, and lessons from one of the sport's brightest young stars.

What is Reel Talk Fishing | With No Limits?

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

Brian Bashore (00:01.218)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in to an episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits. As you can see, we're back in the camper, back at work. today we are joined by the youngest NWT winner ever, Mr. Jaden Wendell is going to be on here shortly. it's gonna be a doozy. We're gonna ask the kid a couple hard questions and we're gonna get some inside scoop of what he's doing. What's the what's the juice this guy's got between him and Bo bringing these new young guns up? It's it's fun to watch, it's awesome. these guys are good.

young guys are gonna have some haters out there. We're gonna address that too. So it's gonna happen no matter what when you're winning. it's good stuff. So stay tuned. We're gonna sit down with Mr. Jaden Wendell and talk about his big win over on the Bay, Big Bay, a Bay to Nock, Green Bay, whatever you want to call it. See how he did it. I kind of know it wasn't fishing too far away from me. I was what a blast. That place was awesome fishery, good time. You're gonna hear about it all when we sit down with Jaden here real quick and break down the deets.

So stay tuned. Jaden Wendell, coming right up.

Brian Bashore (00:01)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in to an episode of Real Talk Fission with No Limits. We are blessed and honored to have the youngest stick, youngest gun in the NWT winning column, Mr. Jaden Wendell. Jaden, congrats. What a kick ass prefish. What awesome tournament. And I mean you're on cloud nine or ten or eleven and it's only been a few days. Are you are we coming down off that yet? It's okay. You don't have

Jayden Wendel (00:25)
you know, we're we're coming down a little bit, you know. I'm still pretty up there, obviously on cloud nine, probably cloud ten or eleven, like you said. But yeah, thanks for having me. it's been a it's been a crazy last few days just just talking to everybody, getting back on my phone. I've had like four hundred or five hundred notifications on my phone, so it was kind of crazy trying to go through everything and try not to leave anybody out. But everybody, you know, if you reached out, thank you. I appreciate that. It means a lot. And yeah, it's been a it's been a crazy week.

Brian Bashore (00:55)
That's good. Now's your chance, just like you just did, to go ahead and say, Hey, I got your messages. Thanks for thanks for every you know, thanks for following, guys. it's tough. It's just gonna get tougher as you become more of a household name out there. First year on tour, been doing good. You've had a had a good season. I mean, you and Bo are buddies and you're fishing these tournaments together, you know, head to head, he's up there. you know, and Eric's obviously just just kind of bumped him off the AOI. But when you got two guys, one point separating them, the kid's on a

Brian Bashore (01:24)
on a burner, but you got the win. So the one thing that everybody's chasing, right? You got the win. That's that's huge. Let's talk for those that don't know Jaden, you're you're pretty new name, like I said, not a household name yet. Up and comer, nineteen years old. Did we just turn nineteen or are we getting close to twenty? Where are we at in this spectrum? Literally six months away, right? So it's almost July. Yeah. So you are literally nineteen and a half.

Jayden Wendel (01:43)
about midway, whenever January is, which is probably about right midway. yeah, exactly.

Brian Bashore (01:53)
call it right or like eight year olds we're gonna count those half birthdays. So that's that's awesome. What's the background? Where are you coming from? I've been following you for just a you know a little over a year. You big came on the scene last year, hot the Montana do you fit win the governor's cup over there?

Jayden Wendel (02:09)
We got second in the Governor's Cup in Montana and then the following week we had the North Dakota Governor's Cup also got second place in that. And then we had the it's called the Dakota Walleye Classic out of like Yula area. Yup. That has like a hundred and ninety boats or whatever it is. And we got second in that also. So it was second three weeks in a row, which is that was just crazy. Yep.

Brian Bashore (02:14)
Yep or so.

Brian Bashore (02:18)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (02:28)
Pretty good. But that was that's all it took, wasn't it? You're like, All right, I'm in, I'm doing this. I got this. I c I can compete. So I think Tom won the Dakota and then I think Dewey was third right behind ya. And I know that the North Dakota Gov Cup and the Montana Gov Cup. Montana Montana Gov Cup's huge. I mean, it's not like you're fishing against, you know, local club guys that I mean, there was guys scoping, there's guys that know what they're doing, they know what the hell's going on. So

Jayden Wendel (02:32)
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. For sure. For sure.

Jayden Wendel (02:40)
Yep. Yep, exactly. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (02:47)
Yep.

Jayden Wendel (02:55)
Yep. I I know the N W T was gone last year, for the Montana Gov Cup, so I know a lot of like the Montana N W T guys weren't there, but there was definitely still a lot of good sticks in that tournament for sure.

Brian Bashore (03:07)
Yeah, Owen does pretty good up there, Wilcox and and him and his dad and those guys pretty well catch him. It's bucket list for many of us to go up there and fish the Fort Peck thing and I thought Baynock was fun. I I'm guessing Fort Peck's right up there and

Jayden Wendel (03:22)
It's Corpex a little different animal. It's like you know, like a thirty two, thirty three, thirty four incher, they're they're swimming around everywhere. It's just about getting one to bite. I think last year, the second day of the tournament, a thirty four and a half was brought in or something like that, which is just that's just in it's just insane when that gets brought in brought in in a tournament in like a tournament setting. It just and it happens every year. It's not like it's a one time thing. It's almost every year there's a thirty four incher, it seems like, which is just crazy.

Brian Bashore (03:48)
And I imagine, I mean, a lot of that's lack of fishing pressure because this lack of people. And it's not it's a place that it's a bucket list for many of us want to go, but it's not just you just don't jump in and go like Lake Oahe is a little more feasible, you know, and beta knocks a little bit like that too. It it doesn't get a lot of fishing pressure. And you saw how many big fits.

Jayden Wendel (03:53)
Yep.

Jayden Wendel (04:01)
Mm-hmm.

Jayden Wendel (04:06)
Yep. And the Fort Wreck yeah, it doesn't it doesn't really Bait and Ok. There wasn't I was amazed how many how many boats there weren't on the water. I mean it's an incredible fishery. There was I know in Little Bay and Big Bay there's a lot of fish stacked up and when you'd find them there'd be just tons of them and there's a lot of fish out there. I've it's my first time ever fishing that Green Bay, Bays and Ock area and I I mean I'm not no professional in that area or anything, but I mean it was it was pretty incredible from the amount of

Jayden Wendel (04:35)
fish that you would find when you found it seems like it was hard to find one fish, but when you found one fish, there was hundreds of fish, which was pretty cool. Yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (04:41)
There was. And it wasn't like you needed that one loner because a lot of those thirty, you know, they were they were two or they were in groups, two or three or massive schools. Like I saw some of those big pods, and you're like, it's probably maybe there's some shorts in there, some twenty two, twenty threes. You throw it in there, it's full of twenty five, twenty six inchers. You're just like, What the hell? That yeah, that place we'll get into a little bit more of that. That's yeah, it's awesome. Then you Dakota Water Classic. I think you and Bo guys did what is the Wyoming Gov Cup recently?

Jayden Wendel (04:58)
Yeah, crazy.

Jayden Wendel (05:10)
Wyoming Yeah, Wyoming Gov Cup. That was the first week of June, I wanna say. That was a blast. that that's a fishery I've never really I've never really fished something like that before. It was like it was almost a weed. Yeah, it was just a like a fully weed bite there it was kind of was and everybody was up in the weeds and you know it's a it's a pretty small body of water for a hundred and forty boats, I wanna say it was. So there was only so many spots that there was guys in the weeds and then we ended up finding like our

Brian Bashore (05:21)
Is that Glindo?

Jayden Wendel (05:36)
our big fish bite, I would call it. We were seeing like one big fish every five to six hours out deep, but they were they were huge. So we spent a lot of time doing that. And the second day, it paid off and we got one almost thirty inch. I think it was twenty nine and three quarter or something like that, which is the biggest fish of the tournament. But yeah, it was a it was a pretty incredible place. I I can see if that place went on fire or something like that, it would it would be pretty special 'cause it's just full of fish.

Brian Bashore (06:02)
Guys, those guys, the Wyoming Walleye Stampede, I imagine, run the Wyoming Gov Cup and they run a very good tournament circuit out there. They always get a hundred plus boats and a ton of sponsors. So yeah, they do a great, great job. any team go a little west, they'd probably get a lot of that Colorado, Western Nebraska, Wyoming guys, Western South Dakota, Rapid City guys to fish into some of those and they went to McConaughey or something like that. So awesome. You're you're on a heater, you're on a burner, you're just

Jayden Wendel (06:14)
yeah, it's put on very well.

Brian Bashore (06:32)
Let's go back. Nineteen years old. What's the story? When did we obviously last year the light bulb kicked on? You said it's it, I'm in, I'm gonna do this. You literally just graduated high school, I imagine, last year or so. What's what's the future look like? Was this always in the cards? Was this the plan? Which which was changed when he was a little boy, like two years ago. What was happening then?

Jayden Wendel (06:35)
Yep.

Jayden Wendel (06:50)
you know, so

Jayden Wendel (06:54)
Yeah. Yeah, so I think my whole like passion for fishing started. We had a a lake cabin in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. I think we got that when I was about four years old. And my dad is no big fisherman or nothing. He I mean he before before I was born, he probably caught less than twenty walleyes in his life about that. And so we got a cabin in in Detroit Lakes and it was more so they were big into skiing and tubing and stuff like that when they were kids. And then we got a cabin and

Jayden Wendel (07:22)
they bought me a fishing rod and they would always catch me on the end of the dock when I was like four to five years old. They said I'd sit out there for like five to six hours on the end of the dock just just by myself fishing. And so I think I think that's what kind of started it. I always I always love the challenge of like trying to challenge yourself to catch something or like trick something in a nature like that, I guess. And so we started doing I started fishing off the end of the dock and then we got a we got like a pontoon and we would fish for bass off of that and then I eventually started watching

Jayden Wendel (07:50)
like YouTube videos is what kinda what kind of caused it. And I would watch like tournament fishing videos because I've always been kind of like a very competitive nature guy, I guess. Like like I have a just a very competitive nature about me. I I hate to lose. And that kind of sparked it. It almost was like my my favorite hobby. And then like a c competitive nature. I mean tournament fishing is just dead on the middle of that. And so I started to look at like tournament videos and stuff. And course it's all bass videos back then I I would I would stumble upon

Jayden Wendel (08:20)
And my dad's like, well, you're not, you're you we're not gonna be fishing a bass tournament around here. So then I eventually eventually started looking at some walleye stuff and I would I'd bag bag him to to fish a walleye tournament or whatever. And I live in Valley City, North Dakota, and we have Lake Ashtabula up here, it's called, it's an incredible fishery. And we took our he bought a sixteen foot, like a V sixteen tracker, and we we took that out and started pulling spinners, joined the tournament. it was when I was nine years old.

Jayden Wendel (08:48)
And we actually got like I we got like thirty thirty something out of a hundred boats and I was just pumped because we beat like half the boats and I caught all and I was nine. And I was that was I was yeah, it was on bottom bouncers. We were just pulling little blue smiley blades around. I remember it like I remember it like it was yesterday. And so that kind of really sparked it. And then we we did that for a couple of years. He was he was busy working at the shop. He runs an out of body shop here in Bali. And I was I kept bagging him and bagging him and bagging him. I think it was twenty nineteen.

Jayden Wendel (09:17)
so heck I would have been twelve years old. And he bought a six twenty ranger with a two fifty ek pro XS on it, which is which is funny enough, exactly what I won in the in the National Walleye Tour. the two six twenty with a two fifty pro XS. It's kinda kinda cool. But and then so we we started fishing out of that and that was the COVID year, I wanna say. maybe it was the year after that. So we didn't have the Ashtrabula tournament, but we ended up fishing, I hate

Brian Bashore (09:32)
Is, yeah.

Jayden Wendel (09:46)
'Cause it was COVID, I I got to do a different one that was gonna get put on. And we did the Otter Tail, the real country classic in Ottertail when I was like twelve and I don't know, we didn't do very good. Probably got like in the bottom ten of the field for sure. it was a totally different fishery than what we were used to. It was more of a well now that I know now, it's more of a you know, you jig and shiner, long lining, like a really light jig. your bottom bouncer in that clear water is not, you know, you're not gonna do too good. So that was our downfall there.

Brian Bashore (10:03)
Yeah, it's tricky.

Brian Bashore (10:12)
Nope. Nope.

Jayden Wendel (10:14)
But of course we didn't know that 'cause we we just started, but I mean both of us both started fishing then. And then I think it I think we did that for a couple of years just fishing those two tournaments, and then we eventually hopped into to the aim circuit when I was about fourteen to fifteen years old. And that was a we did a lot of trolling bottom bounces and cranking and we we had a couple okay finishes and then it and then it came up to about twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three, I wanna say. We made the national championship for aim, it was on Sakakua.

Jayden Wendel (10:44)
And I still haven't even used a live scope at this point. I I I wish I would have. I was kind of a late boomer to that. And then so we fished that. just just got killed by all the guys, like Eric, I think won it. we just just got killed by pretty much. And, you know, it kind of opened my eyes. I was like, okay, maybe I need to start looking into some of this stuff. You know, and we we finished out the year pulling creek chubs, just wasn't live scoping, maybe looking around with a pull or something. And then the next year we

Jayden Wendel (11:14)
Our local Ashtabula tournament, it's called the Barnes County Wildlife Tournament. And Ben Teets and Brian Bjorkman came over to that for the first time. And they usually this tournament was getting won by, you know, 10 pounds a day. It'd be like a twenty to twenty five pounds would win it. And they came in and they dropped forty pounds. So it was like everybody was just almost in shock because it was the biggest I think it was the tournament biggest tournament bag ever brought in there. So I was like, man, you know, I I think I got I was sitting in like sixtieth place or something like that.

Jayden Wendel (11:44)
And I was like, if I want to do this, you know, I I better I better kick it into gear right now, if I really like to do this. So that was that was in twenty twenty-four. And I I got a pull on the boat with thirty-four Garmin, little eighty six sixteen up front, I wanna say, and just started fishing with that. And the week after that, I won a tournament on live scope, my first ever week using live scope. I won the aim tournament and out of garrison with like thirty seven pounds or something like that.

Jayden Wendel (12:13)
So it a pretty f cool f first week of using LiveScope. And then of course, I and then of course after that, it didn't end up as good. We we I mean dropped down some. And at the end of the year, I finally got a little more confidence back. It would have been in around September. We had a tournament on Devil's Lake, another aim tournament. And we we managed to get into second place, and so that kind of gave me some confidence for the next year. And then the next year we were like, heck, we're gonna put this thing on the trolling motor.

Jayden Wendel (12:40)
This would have been last year. This would have been twenty twenty five. We're like, we're gonna put this thing on the trolling motor and we're gonna, you know, we're gonna go give it this year. So we got we had a new boat. We had the same boat I'm running right now, D V twenty two K miss with a four hundred R on the back, and we had a twenty-two inch Garmin, the ninety-two twenty two with Kraken and then a thirty-four up front. And yeah, the the first week with it I fished Big Stone a little tournament down there and we ended up taking fourth place, I wanna say.

Jayden Wendel (13:08)
And then it was re and then it was like my redemption time, I called it. We went to the Ashtribula tournament again, you know, a year prior, I had never live scope before. And that year we ended up we won it by eighteen pounds and set a set of record. We dropped fifty seven pounds and we set a like a tournament record or a lake record by seventeen pounds and kind of kind of blew it out of the water, I guess, so to speak. But it was it was very rewarding. one of the most rewarding tournaments I've ever had. It was almost like a you know, I come a comeback story.

Jayden Wendel (13:36)
almost the year before, never touched a live scope the year after that, win it by seventeen pounds. It was it was absolutely incredible. And then we kinda went on that run with those three tournaments in a row, getting second place and I and I figured I was getting about good enough to maybe try try it the NWT. So I was really thinking about it. And then they said they're gonna take the top fifty five or whatever they said right away to to the next year. So I was like, heck, I gotta do it. So I talked to Bo and Erie and we kind of

Jayden Wendel (14:05)
joined made a team together and af ever since then I guess it's it's where we're at now.

Brian Bashore (14:11)
That's it's a good start. And I mean that just kind of goes to show with the Astabula there what Live Scope has done, right? It opened up, I mean, you're bringing in bags that are seventeen pounds bigger than any other year, right? Teats and dorkmen go there and blow it out of the water, and then you obviously you get to scope and quick learner, you're on it quick, and it's I mean, people are just going you're finding fish that you didn't know were there, probably. And

Jayden Wendel (14:38)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bashore (14:38)
You're seeing all these monster fish probably out suspended out there. I'm not sure how ashabutal fish is, but if it's like Skakawea.

Jayden Wendel (14:44)
We actually ended up that tournament, we were way back in a creek arm and about four foot of water. And these these fish were sitting like maybe a foot or two under the surface over top the weeds. And I w I'd be willing to bet if you had a drone and you flew the drone up in the air, you'd been able to see all their backs laying on top of the water. It would have been crazy. Yep.

Brian Bashore (15:02)
And places you can never graft those fish. You can't drive in there. I mean, these are just and that's you're seeing anyway though, Devil's Lake a few years ago with the championship, and where we took ninety some pounds in three days. People are like, What what the hell? But I mean that's that's just what it's done. It's happening in the bass world. They're finding new fish. His weights are bigger, considerably bigger. Seventeen pounds, you know, bag bigger than normal. That's that's massive. It's just it's a whole new game. But you also just touched on a few points where you've only been really doing it

Jayden Wendel (15:06)
Mm-hmm. Yep, exactly.

Brian Bashore (15:32)
Like two years?

Jayden Wendel (15:34)
Yeah, pretty much. yeah, it'd have been two years using I mean, basically a year and a half of using live scope about a full or a year and a half of using live scope in my trolling motor fully and then about maybe two years total of using live scope now, yeah.

Brian Bashore (15:49)
And it it's like so you're a young guy, obviously nineteen, the learning curve, this us old guard is they're struggling to adjust. every everybody's getting better on it. It's definitely a lot more competitive. You're seeing some of this stuff kinda wash out a little bit. But there's something about you and Bo and even Nussbaum and some of these guys that pick it up so much faster. I think I think you kinda hit it. You're watching YouTube. You're watching all these videos, researching all this stuff.

Brian Bashore (16:18)
Things that these weren't available when I was nineteen years old. This stuff didn't exist, right? But that's what you guys have it, so I always touch on it. It they're piss it to young, you know, the the noise, right? these young guys are coming in doing this and that. I'm like, you just told your s your backstory. You fish these tournaments pulling bottom bouncers, doing it just the way that it everybody did it, learning growing up. And you the scope thing is just

Jayden Wendel (16:41)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bashore (16:43)
So you understood the walla, you understood behavior, you understood where they should be or where you think they're gonna be, right? Seasonal patterns, you kinda you got all the basics down, long lining, and now you take that knowledge and boom, and add that scope to it. And then being able to research that on listen to podcasts, watch YouTube, some of the fish, the next bike, some of these shows where they break things down.

Brian Bashore (17:07)
We had a I I we had to wait for the outdoor life for Field and Stream magazine to show up. I used to get in Fishman was the most technical thing and the show was great. Linda did a and that got me into it because I was nerdy like that on the science side. Well you just summed it up. The learning curve for your generation is like that. If you dedicate it like you are and take the time and the resources and the information is there, if you want it.

Jayden Wendel (17:31)
For sure. I mean, the information right now, all the information you need is at the tip of your fingers, I think now in today's world. And you know, I think it it almost comes down to how bad do you do you want it almost and how bad do you want to learn it. And I think if I think if you spend a lot of time and you're allowed to spend a lot of time to learn it, I think almost anybody can do it. I don't think it really matters on your age as far as if you put the time in, you're gonna see some results no matter what.

Brian Bashore (17:34)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (17:56)
Nope, nope, that you're spot on. So people are gonna you're gonna say that you're a young guy, you're gonna get some haters if you haven't gotten yet, but that's fine. That just means you're winning. So the more haters, the more negative noise out there. It just means you're winning and you just won. So you approved it. So time, you have time. What are you that that you're fishing? That's it. You're fishing. You're people are thinking I get out of high school, I'm gonna go to college Jade says, I'm going fishing. And it I'm gonna say with the track record, it's it's not a

Brian Bashore (18:27)
It's tough to make any money in the professional walleye world. a wind if sets you up good. That helps considerably, right? You have a boat to to move, but not not a problem. And all those second and third places, I mean, i it it's kind of what you need to get things going and get things kickstarted. Now you'll evolve into this sponsors and all that kind of stuff, which is that that's a whole nother world. I don't know if you've dived into it much, but you'll figure it out.

Jayden Wendel (18:55)
Not yet, but hopefully this fall anyway. That's what I'm thinking. But yep.

Brian Bashore (18:58)
Yeah, see? And that's the first thing you learn this falls too late. That's the end of the budget fiscal year. There you go. Yep. Always need to be in in June and July. Fiscal year closes September, October, so you won't get on next year's funding unless things are agreed to by then. So if you're listening, guys, that's a big nugget right there. So a lot of us are typically waiting until winter and dead time and being like, I have this downtime, I'm gonna reach out and still do, 'cause that you need to get in front of people and start recognizing your name.

Jayden Wendel (19:02)
So summertime. Yeah, yeah. There you go.

Jayden Wendel (19:18)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (19:28)
I'll just put it out there. The best thing you can do is invest in yourself and go to ICAS in July. And that's where you meet the people in charge. But it's not there to hey, I'm this and I want this. It's just hi, I'm Jaden, I'm Brian, how you doing? This is what I do. Love your stuff. Maybe give you some to try out and just say, just wanted to meet whoever in charge, swap cards and cool, man, we'll be in touch down the road, you know, in year two, three, four down the road. When you're winning, they know.

Jayden Wendel (19:34)
It

Brian Bashore (19:55)
Trust me, the whole industry watches. They see things called the fishing wire, the outdoor wire, their press leases come out. These guys, first thing I read every morning. The industry sees those things, they see your name. You know, whether they you know or whatever, trust me, if like Berkeley or somebody reaches out in a year or two, the guy will be like, I know you. I've been watching you for three years. You know? So they're they're paying attention, they're watching, but we can talk I we can go into that real deep.

Jayden Wendel (20:15)
Right on.

Brian Bashore (20:21)
Join the NPAA, National Professional Angler Association is a gr another great place to meet a lot of these people at the annual conference. So, but you got you're traveling with Chad Shilly, and Chad knows this just as good as anybody. so he's giving you all all all that insight and he's giving it, feeding it to Bo, you know, and and it it's just a child, it's a process and it just takes time. but the companies do want to invest in the young up and comers. So you got that going for you. Cause they don't want to give the money to the old guys, right? If there is any money or the stuff.

Brian Bashore (20:50)
'Cause most of them really aren't that great with media. And now it's social media and this and that kind of thing, right? So get good at it. It's or find somebody who's good at it to do it for ya. That's the easiest way.

Jayden Wendel (21:03)
Well hopefully hopefully I'm young enough I can figure something out anyway, but yeah.

Brian Bashore (21:07)
Yeah, it just it's just really a time consuming kind of time suck thing on you. But don't change anything you're doing. You're kicking ass, you're you're you're winning, you're doing things. But that's you know, I get back to the young guys, you got the time 'cause you're able to just fish. So you obviously got a great support system at home. I assume you probably live at home being nineteen. Dad's got a successful business, sounds like. 'Cause that that's where you're gonna get the hate. How can these guys afford these new trucks and boats and travel, spend, you know, twenty, thirty thousand dollars? You need a team.

Jayden Wendel (21:10)
yeah.

Jayden Wendel (21:36)
wouldn't yeah, I wouldn't have been able to do it without my dad, that's for sure. You know, I'll I'll be the first one to tell you that. I ain't gonna not tell you that. he's he's the reason I was able to do this and hope I'm just hoping one day I can pay him back almost, you know what mean? Yeah.

Brian Bashore (21:50)
Yeah, I I was having a conversation with somebody earlier today. I No, I got Jaden's coming on tonight and I said, You know, I gotta ask him that about, you know, the the financial thing of it 'cause they're like 'cause you I hear it and you you maybe you don't but these guys afford to do it and I'm like, hey, whether they're whether it's a trust fund or they inherit money or I said, Who cares if their parents are funding it or helping them get going, you know, or whatever. Run with it. Take advantage of it while you're while you don't have all the other responsibilities of

Brian Bashore (22:20)
owning a business or mortgage or a family and kids and I'm like, this is your prime time. Run with it. Go. Go, go, go. As fish as absolutely as much as you can, 'cause as you've learned and you you know this, more for listeners here, time on the water is the most important thing.

Jayden Wendel (22:40)
Bingo. Yep.

Brian Bashore (22:41)
Right. That you learn those little things. And now your time on the water is obviously you're gonna spend probably ninety percent of that scoping, if not a hundred percent, right?

Jayden Wendel (22:50)
Yeah, about about ninety nine percent. I besides if I'm not driving the boat, it's probably scoping, yeah.

Brian Bashore (22:54)
Right. But you've learned how to identify size, species, and then I you're I mean, I go out on crap weather and I know you do it to practice your boat positioning, right? And your boat control. 'Cause that's huge, you know.

Jayden Wendel (23:08)
Yep. Yeah, that's that's probably the most important part of of a sculping, I would say, is is your boat control. And for sure this year in the National Walleye Tour, we've seen plenty of that. I mean, it's been windy, I think, every single event. But I would say your number one your number one success you'll find sculping and the and the hardest thing to do is is positioning your boat and being able to stay on that fish. And what I did to learn that right away, I I kinda I kinda tried to speed up the process and learn it. So I'd I'd go find a fish

Jayden Wendel (23:37)
on my home lake on Lake Ashtabula and I'd follow it around for three to four hours, just just chasing the same fish around. And you'd be amazed how how where those walleyes move and what they do throughout the day and like what's happening. It it kinda opened up a lot in my mind just following fish around for, you know, three or four hours. And even I know I know in Glendale when we when we found a big fish, you would see one every five hours or so in pre fish. And the first thing we would do is we would we wouldn't cast at it. We would sit behind it for a couple hours and and see if it it'd see if it's doing anything we can like pattern.

Jayden Wendel (24:07)
And that's that's one of our our things we do a lot of is find a fish and don't let your don't take your eyes off it for a couple of hours and they'll teach you a lot about themselves, that's for sure.

Brian Bashore (24:19)
It it takes discipline and patience, right? 'Cause you wanna catch it, right? But then and I can also say that I don't do that. I work on boat position a lot, but I don't follow fish around the lake. I catch some bitches, is what I'm here to do. But you've heard Tom Wynn kind of talk about that too. Not so much intentional like that, but releasing them and then watching go back. And then following to see what they do is the

Jayden Wendel (24:22)
yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (24:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (24:42)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Brian Bashore (24:45)
You know, do they and do they die ten minutes later or what are they doing? And he's followed for like one to three hours and then got to bite again.

Jayden Wendel (24:53)
Yeah. I mean it's amazing when we when we'll chase them around and stuff like that, you'll be you'll be following them around, they'll be swimming high up in the water column, you know, for thirty minutes to an hour. Then they'll then they'll slowly sink that they're like like this and just nose down to bottom. And then they'll stop on the bottom and sit on in the mud. You can barely see And we have to we have to widen our scope out to forty foot, looking out forty foot, just to see laying on bottom. They look like a tiny perch laying down there. And then you wait about thirty minutes, and then pretty soon, here they come up again. Same fish, you know, comes up and

Jayden Wendel (25:22)
plateaus and they go chasing suckers around, chasing any kind of bait fish. And it's it's pretty special to watch. that's that's honestly what has taught me the most about any walleye I could ever have like I just follow around and that's that's what taught me the most by far.

Brian Bashore (25:39)
No, that's that's interesting. That's a good tank. I think everybody just learned something there, including myself. I need to follow fish around more. It's this these are things you couldn't do, you know, ten years ago. But I think everybody's learning that. I used to we read the the In Fisherman, the Walleye Insider magazine, and it's all what we think the fish are gonna do. But as I tell people, I've never seen a walleye read the walleye insider magazine. So

Jayden Wendel (26:03)
Yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (26:04)
We don't really don't know. There's a lot of science and people have studied and there's diving and this and that. And so a lot of it is pretty accurate and it's it's pretty spot on, but nothing is telling, more telling than following the fish around all day long and just watching. Have you ever noticed that when you're fishing and you can see a lot of this on Baitan Ach where you'll see one and you'll kind of be watching him repositioning, but other ones find him. Like two or three more all of sudden come into come into the picture.

Jayden Wendel (26:28)
yeah.

Jayden Wendel (26:31)
And what and what's crazy in in Lake Erie that was happening because they were spawning, but I I I still don't know exactly why, but the water would be, you know, like this much clarity where we were fishing in some spots. And they they could barely see your jig, but they would certainly know when a female walleye was about twenty feet on top of them and they'd come flying up. They must they must have some kind of sense or something like that. But that was that was special to see them like acting actively spawning. Yep. Yeah, it was crazy. And then sometimes the the female would just take off like as fast as she could.

Brian Bashore (26:52)
Yeah, you'd see like two of just darting fast. I

Jayden Wendel (27:00)
It was it was crazy stuff to watch.

Brian Bashore (27:03)
Yeah, they were they were harassing the hell out of the ladies there, them those males were. I told Ad Erie we had we had a twenty seven and one of those sixteens followed her into the net.

Jayden Wendel (27:06)
yeah. Okay.

Jayden Wendel (27:14)
That's insane. That's crazy.

Brian Bashore (27:16)
So we netted it. I like, you got two, buddy. He lifts the net and like, yeah, a little sixteen-incher followed it right in. There was two of them chasing her around. Caught her. And he netted it, and that 16-incher flew right into the net. And she still had kind of she just laid eggs, there was stuff hanging out, and he was making a mess all over the place. But I've seen it happen one other time. Nick did it in head to head. And I was like, that that was kind of neat. So that was that was cool. Let's go back to the painting.

Jayden Wendel (27:21)
That's crazy.

Jayden Wendel (27:26)
Followed it all the way up to the boat. That's insane.

Jayden Wendel (27:35)
Go ahead.

Jayden Wendel (27:40)
Yeah. That is really cool.

Brian Bashore (27:44)
Made a knock, NWT, you get you were pre fishing it, you got the interviews, we've seen everybody's probably read some of the posts. I was Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday mid morning, I rolled out into kind of my B spot, which is apparently close to I think your A spot. You were in front of me, Bo was behind me, and I was in the middle. And I think we're the only three that were kind of out there. You were looked like you were just chilling out in the back of your boat. Bo had just caught one and I popped like two twenty-five, twenty-sixes and takes my part. I'm like, Yep, they're still over here. Now

Brian Bashore (28:14)
That same pot I'd caught them up in nine to ten foot three days before. And then there was a trail of waypoints that went from the corner, like right into that Cates Bay or the boot area. And they were literally if I zoom out, I'm like, I said, Randy, look at these waypoints. There is a line that goes from nine feet out to twenty something feet. Like they are clearly going, they're moving this way. No. How'd you guys break it down?

Jayden Wendel (28:18)
Gotcha. Yeah they

Jayden Wendel (28:26)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (28:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was pre fish. Yep, pre fish we kind of just we kind of started out. I think Chad Chad took little bay, Bo took Big Bay, and then I I was just wandering out in the lake, just like the main lake, trying to find some kind of home run bite is what I was trying to do. And you know, I did find some fish out there. we caught like my f and for within twenty minutes of practice I had a ten and a half pounder just out roaming on Lake Michigan, in like fifty degree water.

Jayden Wendel (29:07)
And so I I thought I found something really Yeah, I thought I found something really good there. I caught like a ten and a half and like an eight pounder right away. And I was like, shoot, you know, and then I I come back and check a couple days later and there's not a there's not a living fish out there. But Bo found Bo found a pretty good area in Big Bay. It was back by like that Case Cates Bay, Garden Bay area. They call it the the locals call it the boot, I believe, where we were where we were fishing. And they kind of just stayed in that area all week. they would they would they'd move around a little bit but

Brian Bashore (29:08)
Yeah, who's cold?

Jayden Wendel (29:37)
Our our main pod was right in that area. And then I know the first day of that of the tournament, we pulled in there and there was there was literally fish everywhere. I put the troll motor down. It took me about ten minutes and I seen one fish, and then after I seen that fish, we had our two overs that we weighed for the day within eight minutes. caught right away. it was a seven and a half and an eight and a half pounder. And they're all in this one little pod. And so after that we kind of kind of

Jayden Wendel (30:06)
moved around and we're looking for our slots because I mean that's honestly more important than your overs out there most of the time. There was a ton of twenty five to twenty-eight inches. It just kind of depended if they're fat or skinny is what you're looking for, the fat ones. And and so we we looked in for our we hunted for slots all day pretty much and we ended up bringing in a in a bag of thirteen and a half pounds of slots, just kind of just kind of roaming everywhere. They're all four and a half pounds about

Jayden Wendel (30:33)
And we caught we cut a lot of our slots, or two of our slots in Ogant's Bay, it's called a little bit

Brian Bashore (30:38)
Yeah, I saw you. I was you came in there right by me in the afternoon. I'm like, must be looking for the slots.

Jayden Wendel (30:41)
Yep, yep, yep. A little bit a little bit west. yeah, yeah, yeah. That place that place is full of slots. I think that was everybody's slot spot because there was about fifty boats in there when I when I came in there and it was it was crazy. yeah.

Brian Bashore (30:50)
Well about two thirds of all those big bags came out of there as well on day one. Then you got further up in the weeds you had all the slots.

Jayden Wendel (30:56)
yeah. Yeah, there there was some big fish in there.

Jayden Wendel (31:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there was some there was some really big fish in there too. We we caught a few eight pounders in there throughout the week and stuff like that. And our main area of big ones seemed to be out there. I mean, we were just fishing the basin of Big Bay is all it was, you know, went twenty to twenty four foot, I think it was. And yeah, it was it was it was pretty interesting. They'd just be out there roaming around and we were looking we were really targeting the ones

Jayden Wendel (31:27)
That were about five to ten foot below the surface was the ones we could get to bite the best. And they were just usually singles. If you found like a wolf pack or like five pack of it was kind of tougher to get to bite. It was it was pretty weird actually. And then you'd run into a s a single and it would just it would just be you mean, you'd get that it was almost guaranteed half the time. And yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (31:43)
Yeah, I had the same issue. So did you did you float it sounded to me like you were did you and the higher up it seemed to me the bigger they were.

Jayden Wendel (31:53)
Yeah, that was it that was true the first day and a half, I would say. And then that second day, I'm not sure if they were they were feeling pressure or not, but that that second day I had the live camera in the boat and stuff, and then in the morning we were we were really getting into we had a a nine pounder right away or nine nine and a half pounder is what we had right away. and then, you know, we had like a seven also in the box or something like that, and just just three smaller slots. And then it and then it was getting to be about twelve thirty, and I and I wasn't seeing as many as I wanted to be.

Brian Bashore (31:55)
Well why?

Jayden Wendel (32:23)
as I thought I should be also. And I wasn't sure if it was because of the boat pressure or not, but I really started keying in on that bottom five foot of the of the water column and I ran into a big one about twelve forty five, twelve fifty. casted at it and it was a really big one. let it chase it to bottom. I told my co angler it was my co angler's turn to to reel in a big one and gave him the rod and it was almost an eleven pounder. It was about thirty almost thirty two inches. It was it was pretty special.

Brian Bashore (32:51)
Yeah, we caught on that quick. I think th there was less wind. That's why and and more that sun was up high, and that seemed that water's crystal clear. And so it seemed like it pushed them down, but we had to let chase it to the bottom. Caught all off bottom. That's just goodn really Yeah, I was missing off bottom. I had to fish and dismiss But in Little Bay, I caught all suspended. I couldn't catch on the bottom. They wanted it

Jayden Wendel (33:00)
it's crazy.

Jayden Wendel (33:08)
Yep. that second day we we caught all.

Brian Bashore (33:20)
hover it up over their head and they'd eat it. Big bay, they wanted that and you knew it when they came fast, you're like, All right, I he's he's taking it.

Jayden Wendel (33:28)
Yep. Yeah, that you knew they knew they were gonna pick it up almost. Yep. When they come in that fast. Yeah, the the first day in the first day in Big Bay, we we actually caught all going upwards, bringing the bait upwards, but it had to be like a really, really, really slow cadence and just dangling it in front of their head and they would just grab the back of your crawler. And that's why we were using three sixteen sounds jig, even an eighth at times, depending. just trying to get it as light as possible, just so you could move it as slow as possible in front of those fish, and that would sometimes entice

Brian Bashore (33:31)
Yeah. Yeah, new.

Jayden Wendel (33:56)
I think that was a pretty pretty big key to what we were doing was throwing the I'm not sure what everybody else is throwing, but throwing as light as possible just to try to hover it as best as you could. Cause it seemed like if you brought it in too fast, they'd either see the boat or it'd be moving too fast for them where they would just they just wouldn't even chase it. So it was it was like a cat and mouse game of how light and how heavy you wanted it to throw almost.

Brian Bashore (34:00)
Yeah, for sure.

Brian Bashore (34:19)
It was. I had a three eighths and a quarter and I pretty much threw three eighths in day two I should have been throwing my quarter. Cause even if ones that chase it down, I would slow it down if they were coming, 'cause sometimes it would go too fast and if they got too far ahead of them, they would kind of lose it. And they you'd see them get close and they'd just kind of stop like where to go. I'd pop it and they would dart over, you know, so they could see it again. But I'm like, yeah, they're on it. I just kinda held it and just let it

Brian Bashore (34:47)
Go slower, but they're like the big ones ever gonna eat it. They just saw it and they were that well Yeah, it was done and over. For sure you're running VM C's, Jig and Crawler, Snational Walleye, Jig and Crawler 2, or everybody wants to call it, 'cause well it freaking works, man. So

Jayden Wendel (34:52)
Yep, right down to it. Yep. Yep, for sure.

Jayden Wendel (35:04)
Those ones right right there. Those three sixteen sounce ones right there. Yep. Yep, white. yep.

Brian Bashore (35:07)
Yep. White. Green black.

Brian Bashore (35:14)
Hard beat. Those hooks are good. those are the moon eyes, and I was running tungsten and then I went to the straight moon eye because the bait it held the crawler on so much better. With the bait care. I'm tungsten's great, you can see better obviously with the scope. But I'm like, I also can see this 30-inch walleye really good. And if he if he's diving down, he's going for my bait. So

Jayden Wendel (35:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jayden Wendel (35:37)
Yep, yep.

Brian Bashore (35:40)
It was that was cool. A lot of fish. That place was amazing. The the pre fish was fun. I mean it was kinda like I was there for about three hours and landed on those fish in Organs and then the next morning I went to where you guys were at, shallow and worked my way out and just caught I'm like, I we're done practicing. I'm I don't what more do you want? I mean

Jayden Wendel (35:57)
Yeah. It was it was crazy out there too. It seemed like there was only like five spots that had fish, but when you found a spot that had fish, it was full. It was insane. We we were talking before the tournament, our team and we were like, Well, there's like five spots out here, you gotta just go to one of them, you know, and I mean there's gonna be people on every single one 'cause everybody knows where they're at. But yeah, it was just it was just it was it was crazy how there was there was an area with fish and there would be tons of fish and everybody knew that they were there. I think

Jayden Wendel (36:24)
I don't think there was really any secrets as far as how any anybody caught as far as I know.

Brian Bashore (36:28)
No, not not not a lot. It wasn't wasn't hard. I mean, people were trying not to beat the fish up, but then you're also like, What am I gonna do all day? I mean, we this tournament Monday or Tuesday and everybody'd been like, Let's go. Let's let's get up, let's get good. The concern was what's the bull pressure gonna do? You know.

Jayden Wendel (36:36)
Yeah, yeah.

Jayden Wendel (36:40)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I know I caught Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know I caught I went to Big Bay twice that week and I and I caught a total of three walleyes in Big Bay and two walleyes in Little Bay all week because I was just trying to I was just trying to find something else out out of the ordinary, but I never could. So yeah, that's all I I mean I I caught five walleyes in both those bays combined all week and I knew they were there. I knew I could catch just by how they reacted and just never found a home run bite, I guess so to speak, that we were looking for all week.

Brian Bashore (37:09)
No, well you I I think you did. You you you hit a home run. So I think you found the home run by it. It was just being steady and like I think making your adjustments with your riggs was huge. because you're I mean it just you read the fish, you you saw what they were doing, you made the adjustments to following it, to hovering it, to get them feet up. I mean there was guys I Eric was throwing some plastics, I couldn't get to bite a plastic for nothing. I got a g on a net rig, first cast with the net. I'm like, they should eat this 'cause the way they're following it down and they're eating like this.

Jayden Wendel (37:16)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (37:39)
Money. First cast, boom, a twenty-three inch or just a little too big. And I was like, damn it. That's it. That's the only one I caught on Deadrig. First cast and not never another one. I was like, whatever, we're going back to a worm. but I wasn't using the full one.

Jayden Wendel (37:50)
Yeah, I know I know I couldn't get any on plastics. Yeah, I couldn't get any on plastics either. I don't think I caught a walleye on a plastic all week, to be honest. I think they were all on night crawlers, I think. Yep.

Brian Bashore (38:00)
Yep. Yep. I started out with a jerk shad for the first three hours and once I went to a crawler and I was an O'Gonz, I got a smallly and then I moved over and then I went and then it was just twenty six, twenty seven, twenty nine and a half. I had a thirty one and a half on the big bay on that side, but it was up in nine to ten foot. It was a thirty one and a half. Next cast was or two minutes later was a twenty nine and a half. I'm like these are good fish, you know. They're skinny.

Jayden Wendel (38:23)
Yeah. yeah. yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well yeah, what of I was gonna ask you what that what are that thirty one and a half way?

Brian Bashore (38:31)
Is it wasn't nine and a half, maybe?

Jayden Wendel (38:34)
Yep. I know I know that week we had a few a f we had like five over thirty throughout our team and they were all under eight pounds. It was crazy.

Brian Bashore (38:43)
Yeah, I had that one was in the Cates Bay, but way up in nine ten foot. On a northwest wind, it was ripping, it was when it storming in there one day. Got another thirty on O'Gaunt's Wednesday. I was going out deeper to get away from all the other fish. I got a thirty. I'm like, They're here too. I don't don't know what to do. But it but it was seven something probably, you know.

Jayden Wendel (39:00)
Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (39:05)
Yeah. Yeah. It was it was crazy how skinny some of those fish were. And I'm and I'm not sure it seems like on tournament day we got a little a couple little fatter ones, but I'm not sure if it was because there was a lot of Mayflies on the surface and we were starting to get little balls of ale lipes too coming in. I'm thinking that's maybe they started eating those a little more and they were a little fatter. So I'm not sure if anybody maybe I just got lucky and got fatter fish too, but it seemed like they were getting a little

Brian Bashore (39:17)
Yes. Yep.

Brian Bashore (39:25)
No, I I think they look like they were getting fatter a little bit as we went. My first fish on tournament day was like my third cast and it was a twenty eight, but it was like eight and a half pounder. I'm like, Well this one and then it pulled up, I went, That's a tank 'cause it was solid. You know, then the next couple overs are like twenty five, twenty sixes and I'm like, these freaking five pounder, six pounder, you know. And then day two they were both twenty seven, twenty six and they were like five, six pounds, they were skinny as hell. But the unders were

Jayden Wendel (39:36)
Yeah, it's a big one. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (39:41)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bashore (39:55)
Twenty two and seven eights, twenty two and three quarters, so they were four pounds. But you can get a yeah, you could get a twenty two that was also like three point two. Right. So yeah. You just it you had to find the fatter fish, but it was hard to pick out the fatter fish. You could see some on the scope where I'm like, that that one's a tank.

Jayden Wendel (39:59)
Yeah, those are good unders for

Jayden Wendel (40:04)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (40:13)
Yeah, it was it was crazy how you could actually see the thickness of them on scope. I know in in Erie we were being able to see if they were pre-spawn or post-spawn. But yeah, and we we could see if they were a little fatter out in Bait and Oc too, a little bit. And we kinda we kinda started looking at it. We we would we would bump our scope out to one twenty and we had just pan around as fast as we could. And once we seen one sitting, you know, ten foot below the surface, how we wanted to see way up there, we'd just zoom over to him and bump it down to sixty five so we could get like the best picture of the fish.

Brian Bashore (40:17)
Mm-hmm.

Jayden Wendel (40:42)
Exactly. And yeah, you could actually see how fat they were sometimes. It was pretty it was pretty crazy.

Brian Bashore (40:48)
You got you're running a w one of those twenty two inch Garmin's up front or twenty two inch screens?

Jayden Wendel (40:52)
Yep, the ninety two twenty two, yep.

Brian Bashore (40:55)
Ninety the thing's huge. That's a big guess.

Jayden Wendel (40:57)
Yeah, it's it's a big screen. I I mean I love it. It it was so cool. I last year in the North Dakota Gulf Cup, I we were fishing. I like to fish shallow, honestly. I like to fish in the weeds. I like to fish anywhere under fifteen foot of water is like my favorite. And that's that's Bo's completely opposite favorite of what he likes to do. He he's he's chucking big he's chucking big jigs and in the trees and oahee and stuff like that. I mean it's his complete opposite. So it makes a pretty cool team and

Brian Bashore (41:16)
Well his GS for D yeah.

Jayden Wendel (41:25)
So last year last year in the Gulf Cup I I was throwing a crawler at and I finally learned I could see how far they had the crawler in their mouth when they would bite it. So I I never missed it miss started missing any more fish 'cause I just wait 'til it they would grab the whole jig. And that was that was something cool I learned up shallow is you could actually see how far they had that crawler into their mouth. It was pretty neat.

Brian Bashore (41:43)
Yeah, that that'd make a that's a huge difference. That yeah, bows dropping jiggin' wraps and stuff a wahi all summer fishing eighty feet, sixty feet down. And I'm like you, fifteen feet. I don't like fishing deep. I don't like catching them deep. Shallow fish are aggressive fish. It's just when they're there, they're there to eat. So you I think you probably tend to catch more. You don't have to sit there and manipulate and finesse so much. But also where I got it it it isn't it's the Missouri River, but it's not

Brian Bashore (42:10)
remotely close to as deep as where a boat is out on Lake Wally, so they can't go thirty, forty feet. And when they do, that's fall. So we're two to eight feet all day long today. yeah, the shallow water walleyes will you know, well, they aren't like bass, they don't fight. They're like, they're lame. You catch some shallow water walleyes. I set the hook and had those suckers fly out the water and flopping around thrashing like a bass, so

Jayden Wendel (42:17)
Yep, yep.

Jayden Wendel (42:33)
and those and those beta knock wall ads, those might have been the hardest fighting wall ads I maybe have ever fought. I mean, it was it was one of the craziest things ever, for sure.

Brian Bashore (42:41)
Well you you'll ha you'll you'll have a new take on that next month in Green.

Jayden Wendel (42:46)
really? Yep. Down there a little farther.

Brian Bashore (42:48)
Yeah, 'cause they're gonna be fat. Same fish, same beautiful golden black, awesome color, right? And if depends on where you're fishing at Green Bay, you're gonna learn a lot there. It's gonna be the trickiest one on the whole to it's gonna piss you off. You're gonna love it and you're gonna hate it. I hate it always. And but I've had some good days, some pretty cool days. Those are I always say the strongest, most fighting fish I've ever caught. A lot of that's the clean water, right? 'Cause they see the boat and whatever. But even

Jayden Wendel (42:51)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (43:19)
You're gonna go to Chambers and Green and all this and throw stuff. I don't know, they're just they're gonna be bigger now. So those twenty seven, thirty inchers are actually gonna weigh ten pounds and have shoulders and you're just gonna be like, boy, it's big and you're gonna be like, it's all right, it's big fish, but my God, it about ripped my rod out of here.

Jayden Wendel (43:28)
Yep, yep.

Jayden Wendel (43:35)
Yeah, they they fight a little different or they're they're built a little different, I guess, 'cause even the skinny ones were giving me a run for money, I think. It was it was it was pretty crazy.

Brian Bashore (43:43)
Yeah, it's that is a place I would go back to. I I'd like to just go fun fish, but y you get those, but can you hit it on the right time? 'Cause I think the locals are all like, This isn't supposed to be happening. They're like

Jayden Wendel (43:55)
Yeah, it was supposed to be more of alewives are kinda supposed to be there, weren't they? And then the the fish room was supposed to be shut down. Yep.

Brian Bashore (43:59)
Right. It's everything was way behind. You noticed how skinny they were. A lot of their bellies were beat up, their tails I mean, like they literally just spawned a couple of weeks ago. And so the water was cold. Like you said, you went out in that Lake Michigan and I tried a couple times and the water went from sixty eight, sixty six. I don't think I ever caught a fish in less than sixty six, sixty five degree water temp. But then you get to like fifty and you're like, This is this dead sea. I mean there is no life out here at all.

Jayden Wendel (44:07)
Yeah. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (44:26)
Yep. it it was it was like a ghost town. It was crazy. You'd be lucky to find one ball bait half the time. It was it was pretty crazy.

Brian Bashore (44:35)
Then I ventured out, I just turned back around and went, I'm I'm not even wasting my time. I went out to Minneapolis Shoals, went down the west shore, and I'm just every every one of those got like an hour. I'm like, There this sucks. I'm out of here. There's so many fish in the back of Little Bay and Big Bay. Like this it was. I'll phone the guy that fishes there and he had been fishing there forever. He goes, I it's never he's like, I've never had seen it like that. Because I know there's a lot of big fish, but they're normally

Jayden Wendel (44:49)
Yeah, it was pretty special. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (45:03)
Like they're probably gonna be by next week, they're gonna be scattered out, hitting all those reefs and Minneapolis shoal, they're moving there. There's they're gonna be more spread out. But I also think there's a lot more fish in there than there probably ever has been, maybe thanks to the Sheboygan Walleye Club, right? The guy came and spoke the rules meeting.

Jayden Wendel (45:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jayden Wendel (45:19)
Yep, yep.

Brian Bashore (45:21)
Hats off to those guys. Whatever they're doing, they're doing it right. Keep doing it.

Jayden Wendel (45:24)
Yeah. I mean they said yeah, they they said those fish in Little Bay were they're I mean, they're responsible for quite a few of those and I mean the if that's true, the amount of fish in Little Bay is is pretty ridiculous. I mean if that if they're stocking that many, that's that's that's and that's incredible. I mean, that's amazing.

Brian Bashore (45:37)
Yeah, 250,000 a year, I think he said, fingerlings. So I was told little bay is just little fish. That's where you go get your unders. First fish I caught little bay was twenty six and a twenty five.

Jayden Wendel (45:41)
Yep, no.

Jayden Wendel (45:49)
I think they're mistaken.

Jayden Wendel (45:51)
Yep, yeah, there's some good fish in there. I know that's where Chad fished the whole tournament or planned to fish the whole tournament anyway, and it was he was catching some big fish and pre fish. That's there's no doubt about that.

Brian Bashore (46:01)
Yeah, they were there. I saw on my talk to Tom Winter. He's Yeah, I got a twenty five and a twenty seven. I said, and I saw some bigger ones. He's Yeah, me too. He's like, There's no way that they just little ones live here and big ones live over here, right? There's like there's just no way. And and there was a lot of really nice slots in there too. So

Jayden Wendel (46:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (46:19)
Mm. That was a that was one of our our slot areas on the way back we could hit. We had a s we had a spot back in a marina back there and then even in front of the Escanaba River. right where right where it came out there, it was like, I don't know, four foot or something. There was a lot of slots in there. But it I mean, we drove over it every day for for launch and I think they they kinda spooked out of there a little bit maybe, but it was it was it was it was full. It was full during the first week of it because yeah.

Brian Bashore (46:41)
I saw somebody fishing one of those piers where we took off when I was coming in one day and they had a nice, nice one they were taking a picture of that they caught right off the pier. It was it was an over. It wasn't an under it was an over, but it wasn't, you know, a eight pound over, but probably a nice twenty five, twenty six inch or off that pier. I'm like, Yep, that freaking fish are in here too.

Jayden Wendel (46:50)
Yep. yeah.

Jayden Wendel (47:01)
Yep. No matter where you went in those l in those bays, there's a there's a really good chance of seeing one, that's for sure.

Brian Bashore (47:06)
Yeah, folks, if you ever we're just sitting here bullshit about our awesome fishing week, 'cause it was fun as hell. But if you ever get it going for a fishing trip, Escanaba, Gladstone, Big Bay, Little Bay, Tanakh, it's everything it's been known to be, the the home of the dinosaurs, the monster fish. People up there fish for salmon. You see all the locals, you don't you drive by all the the little neighborhoods and stuff. Little boats. You don't see a bunch of rangers and nitros and chemists parked in guys' driveways. They're all little sixteen foot boats.

Brian Bashore (47:35)
As we stayed at the Bayview Lodge and bait shop there, I think you guys got crawlers. One of theirs got his little sixteen foot C nymphs sitting there. That's it. These guys fish all the time, but they go out and they pull spinners on planter boards and whatever. But they don't and they a lot of small east, a lot of small lot of bass fishing. And I've seen bass guys in the mornings, but they just don't go target a lot of those big monster walleyes. They stay a little bay, and that's it. They're just selling.

Jayden Wendel (47:59)
Yeah, there's there's a lot out there. I mean, that's I mean it was similar similar last year. We we did the AIM National Championship on in out of Duluth and Lake Superior. And man man, is that the most incredible fishery I've ever been to in my life? I every time I I'm I'm going back, I like it I'm so stoked for it. And there were there's no locals that really fished it. I mean the boat ramps were pretty pretty empty every day. And we'd go out there and you know

Jayden Wendel (48:26)
You're catching five over thirty inches a day is like I mean, that's kind of common. we had we had five over thirty inches in a tournament out there the last week of May or so and we got second place. with like like it would have like fifty eight pounds aim scale and we got second place. I mean, if I mean that just shows the true incredible fishery that that place is. It's it's one of a kind.

Brian Bashore (48:48)
Yeah, and those are very big fish in spirit. They cold water, they grow slow, but they're just they're thick. They're eaten.

Jayden Wendel (48:54)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (48:56)
I Lake Kawahi fish are kind of in a class of their own nowadays, I think. But

Jayden Wendel (49:01)
That was that was like that was a crazy pre fish too. I mean, it was kind of just after spawn and I still cut my personal best. It was like a thirteen thirteen one, I wanna say. the the my first fish when I was out there was a thirteen one. It was pretty crazy. And Bo told me before he went there, he's like, You got a really good chance of catching your first PB out here. I'm like, if the they just spawned, you know? Like, how is that even gonna be possible? And yeah, sure sure enough, I got my my biggest fishes right out there, the first cat like the first fish of of that trip.

Brian Bashore (49:29)
Well when their bait's this big, they put the weight on pretty quick, right? When they're eating herring. So

Jayden Wendel (49:31)
Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (49:35)
That's pretty that's pretty crazy. I wish they had those in Sakakwea 'cause our fish tend to be a little a little skinnier and smaller, but obviously the water there's no problem with the water. I mean Fort Peck they're huge. Wahi they're huge. They need yeah, Sakawea, I wish they were huge.

Brian Bashore (49:46)
I I've seen Scockwheel has Scott a lot of 30. Skakawia's my favorite fishery. Your championships in Sakakwia. Kind of I mean damn near home water for ya. Gotta be stoked, gotta be pumped about that. Are you gonna get into Dakota Walleye Classic or does that run into the Green Bay Tournament?

Jayden Wendel (50:03)
That runs into Green Bay. I usually do that every year though, and it's like one of my favorite tournaments to do for sure. And but I'm doing the Gov Cup still and then I'll be back and fishing a couple of aim events before that the N W T championship. Hopefully that I make anyway. And yeah, that that

Brian Bashore (50:18)
You you you've already made it, by the way. If you win, you're in.

Jayden Wendel (50:23)
Okay, okay. really? That's how that works? Okay, I didn't know that. That's sweet though. Okay. Okay.

Brian Bashore (50:25)
Yeah, but you have to fish all four. That's tournament director discretion, but if you win one, you're in the championship. So you're in. You just need to show up at Green Bay. You don't have to catch a fish, you just gotta show up at Green Bay. But save for it, show up.

Jayden Wendel (50:31)
Yep. Right on. Well then

Jayden Wendel (50:37)
There we go. Well that's pretty sweet. Yeah. yeah, that's I mean Scakawea, that that that I would consider that it's about fifteen mile boundary or whatever we have to I believe birth hole is the boundary for that for that championship and that and yeah, that's it's pretty small. It's about the Gov Cup boundary. And that's that I would consider that my home tournament body of water. Just 'cause Ashtabila we only have one tournament on. But if I had a home tournament body of water, it would be those first fifteen miles of the east end. So it I would

Brian Bashore (50:47)
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty small.

Jayden Wendel (51:06)
It's my most it's my most home body of water than the national wallet tour will ever go to and it happens to be the championship, which is pretty cool.

Brian Bashore (51:13)
Yeah, I mean that's what I was really looking forward to, but my W Two career has come to an end, so I'm not gonna go, but I'm gonna go to the Big Ten, which I go to every year 'cause that's my one of my favorite tournaments there in September. And it's the other end of the lake, which fishes kind of quite a bit a little bit different, especially in the fall, but and I saw that boundary. I'm like, this is kind of a small boundary, but I'm like filling forty boats and that East End's actually I mean, it's mile mileage wise, it's small, but it's wide and there's a lot of options. You got Douglas Bay, Garrett, so

Jayden Wendel (51:39)
Yeah. Yeah, there's I mean Douglas Bay is a i basically its own lake inside of itself. I mean it that thing's huge and then you got it's a pretty wide part of the lake. You got Pick City down there, it goes way down to the dam and there's a there's gonna be a lot of there's gonna be a lot of water to cover for sure. but there's it's it looks tight, but it'll fish big for sure.

Brian Bashore (52:00)
Yeah, yeah, especially that that time of year. Everybody thinks you gotta go to Van Hook. You gotta run up there, you gotta do this. You gotta go to the beacon, right? You gotta do these things, which I think is the boundary for the the walleye classic. So but I don't know. That that place is phenomenal. Scockwea is a favorite. So fishy. You can catch doing h however you want to fish, you can catch Obviously scope and suspended, and you will get on plastic stir, you won't, but still gonna be hard to beat a jig in a worm. So

Jayden Wendel (52:20)
Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (52:27)
Stop to beat anywhere, it seems like anyway.

Brian Bashore (52:29)
It is tough. Green Bay at your next stop. What do you feel it? How what's the vibes for that? Never been there, I imagine, as well. I don't think Bo's been there since he's little. Chad's got some history there.

Jayden Wendel (52:40)
Yep. Yeah, I'm I mean, I'm we're pretty excited for it. I know Bo hasn't been there since he's been sculping anyway. I mean, I've heard stories, Chad telling stories about when Bo was a kid there and of course the wild kid Bo is. I can't imagine what he was like when he was like five years old, but Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're pretty excited for it. I mean, we've never been there, but I mean it kind of fishes to our strong suit, it seemed like. I'm more of a jig and a worm guy. Bo is more of a power fisherman guy and I would call it. And

Brian Bashore (52:54)
You can just imagine.

Jayden Wendel (53:10)
It seems like you can catch them both ways there, from what I've heard. So, we're just we're excited for it. I mean, we've never been there, so I don't have any expectations. We're just gonna go there with open mind and and see what we can find.

Brian Bashore (53:21)
It's gonna fish like three different fisheries almost. So you go out of O'Connell, so you're basically on the mud end of the lake. And there's gonna be fish. And there can be big fish, and there's been one down there, but your upper end is kind of like Chambers Island. You gotta stay in Wisconsin waters only, so that kind of goes around Chambers. Could very well be one at Chambers. This late July, August is when the big fish bite really gets going. Shiver meadow jigging wrap.

Brian Bashore (53:50)
Jigging a crawler, jigging a plastic, whatever. Those are all gonna be into play. But when you get up there, now you're gonna deal with some you're not gonna get that crystal, crystal clear water because that's gonna be off limits. That's the Michigan side. Still gonna get some really clean stuff. Then you have the Sturgeon Bay side. And you got a bunch of islands and different current, and Springle can write you a history books about that place. He knows like the back of his hand. and that's gonna fish a little bit different too. But the problem with that is you're gonna have you're gonna find you're gonna catch fish everywhere.

Brian Bashore (54:20)
But they're gonna be thirty miles apart between your spot one, two, three, and four. You're gonna you and if it starts blowing a little bit, you're kinda like, This sucks, you know, and those fish tend to move a lot. Escanava was was special, they just were there. Green Bay, they're not just there.

Jayden Wendel (54:29)
Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (54:35)
Yeah, it kinda it kinda stayed in the bunch. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I've heard. We we were expecting, you know, in the wind there was a north north wind or whatever we had. We thought just by what we've heard that they might blow out or whatever, but they definitely didn't. I mean, they were in there as thick as could be still and it was it was pretty it was pretty special. But it's I mean, definitely gonna be a different challenge in in Green Bay with that with the wind. We're not used to fish blowing around. I mean, neither of us are. Chad Chad knows some stuff about that, which will help a lot. But

Jayden Wendel (55:04)
Yeah, I mean those those guys, those Green Bay guys, a lot of these like Eric and stuff, Eric, Max, Isaac, they're all I mean, that's basically that's where they that's their home water and I mean these guys and they're good. So that's to try to keep up with them on on their home body of water is gonna be tough. But I mean we're gonna give it our give it everything, that's for sure.

Brian Bashore (55:11)
Home order.

Brian Bashore (55:23)
Yeah, I mean, obviously everybody's in the AOI chase. You're you still the deal. You're in the championship. Don't sweat that. Don't let don't let that sit the back of your head like, Man, I gotta stay in the top forty. You're in the top ten or fifteen anyway, I think, aren't you?

Jayden Wendel (55:34)
I'm in sixth right now, I believe.

Brian Bashore (55:36)
six. So yeah, you you catch one fish, worst case you dropped at fifteen.

Jayden Wendel (55:43)
Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Brian Bashore (55:44)
So even if you're like twenty, I've been in like top twenty ish and I'm like, I just have to go to Green Bay and catch eight fish, I can't get knocked out. That's kinda how that points it. There'll be less post there, but

Jayden Wendel (55:53)
I've heard I've heard some sc I've heard some Yeah. I've heard some scary stories about Green Bay, so I never know what I'm coming into, you know, fish peop people fish are gone and everything, but hopefully it hopefully it's all right.

Brian Bashore (55:59)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (56:04)
Yeah, I mean you just don't zero in your case it don't matter. You're in. Like if Bo was a zero, well, he's in second, he'd he'd still be in the top forty. But if you're in a like fifteenth, twentieth and you zero, that might bump you out of top forty. So a couple of years back, if you zeroed, you're out. You're not making it, period. that pretty much still the case, but if you're that top whatever, 'cause now you're gonna have eighty plus guys that are doing all four going into that, competing for that top eighty spot now, because they

Jayden Wendel (56:07)
no.

Brian Bashore (56:33)
change the the cutoff thing so but i know of a few of us that were in that and ain't going to green bay so we opened up some spots for some other guys so over the future good stuff good stuff what we're using the VMCs what's your rod and rails your garment guy cameas guy mercury guy what's what are we throwing for for sticks and rails

Jayden Wendel (56:55)
The the JT outdoors, the JT seven six or seven three Meg light. It's called the JT X Meg Light. I mean, I've been throwing that for the last two years since I started LiveScope and and I and I fully believe there's not a better I haven't used a better rod anyway yet that you can that you can actually make that crawler dance and hover as good as you can. I mean that's it's been my go to and I know it's it's worked very well for crawler. it's it's like a light rod, I think.

Brian Bashore (57:19)
They're medium medium light.

Jayden Wendel (57:24)
I don't know the exact specifics on it even. It's it's just called the the seven six JTX Mag Lite is what I

Brian Bashore (57:31)
It's gotta be a medium light. And that's long, but I was explaining this actually on the phone earlier today because I broke one of my stupid apps. I'm an idiot. End of day one, go back into little like we got in like a little early because it was pretty gnarly. I'm like, let's just let's go. We'll kind of mess around a little, kind of do a little scouting for day two. I'm done. Set my rod down in the front of the boat. My spot lock's been kinda acting up. I'm in the back, putting things away, getting ready to go in. We're just two minute boat ride to go in.

Brian Bashore (58:00)
Co-angler's pitching around. There's some suspended fish. Wind swings, spa lock does something, the boat spins, and my rod slips, and the motor catches the line. I'm just an idiot. Didn't have it in the boat. There goes a St. Croix 7-1 medium extra fast. About $900. Boop. Washington on a live scope. I was like, there it is. Put us right on the top. I'm like, try to try to snag it. And he's trying to hook up to it, you know, and I'm like,

Jayden Wendel (58:17)
Ooh. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (58:23)
Yeah, the digger.

Brian Bashore (58:28)
putting thing, I'm like, whatever, we gotta go. He's like, Well, it broke if that helps any. I'm like, it does because I could turn into warranty. I said, however, I don't have the serial number 'cause the rod's in the bottom of the lake and it's twelve thirty feet deep right there. So and it just sucks. You could just see it, it was like floating and the rod tip was up. You know, the reel held it down. I'm just looking at it going, God damn it, that was I just got that thing 'cause I broke broke the same rod at earie and I just got got it replaced. I'm like, my bad. The wind gusted and I'm like, what an idiot. So

Brian Bashore (58:57)
Yeah, that pissed me off. But I'm a those longer, I was using the longer runs, l rods, the seven one, seven threes, because when you start hovering those baits, it just helps. Really helps. I mean, I typically run like a six ten, but I'm like, nope, this suspended ones or even just in general, I'm like, it longer rod helps. Makes a big difference, just like three or four inches in a run.

Jayden Wendel (59:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jayden Wendel (59:17)
Yeah, huge difference. They just just trying to twitch that. My my rod tip goes just twitching back and forth like this and it kinda just keeps that bait steady hovering like this almost upward and it just slows it down as much as as you could possibly can, I think. But

Brian Bashore (59:30)
It's it's the little things. I'm a St. Cro guy, love I've been telling us to people for years, and I'm sure you're gonna agree, your jigging rod is where you gotta put your money at. It's their most important rod in your arsenal. And they're all two hundred plus dollars nowadays for a a decent one. I don't know what J T's cost, but I know they're not they don't they're not giving away. So and and it's

Jayden Wendel (59:49)
Yep, yep. And they're

Jayden Wendel (59:53)
Yeah, your jigging rod's definitely your your bread and butter as far as as far as jigging goes in general. I mean, even if you don't have live scope if you're jigging from shore or anything, we do a lot of that we do a lot of that back home and it's that's your n that's gonna be your number one weapon is gonna be your rod, no doubt.

Brian Bashore (01:00:02)
Yeah, the sensitivity.

Brian Bashore (01:00:10)
Yep. Yeah. I went to my higher end ones for this tournament because I could feel just that little tick when they picked that crawler up off the bottom, you know, and then it was like, All right, give it to it, give it to it. Versus I mean some of the big ones either just like it disappeared, but then you just kind of went to drag that crawler and then be it okay. I think I swear they just then held it and were swimming right towards you with it. Right. It just it got heavy and you're like, yeah, it's on there. yeah, but some of those

Jayden Wendel (01:00:18)
Mm-hmm.

Jayden Wendel (01:00:30)
There she is, yeah.

Jayden Wendel (01:00:36)
Resume.

Brian Bashore (01:00:39)
Some of those guys with other rods, you're you may not feel those and you're missing some of those bites. And that's every bite counts at a tournament. Big time. Big time. Big time. All right. Well wraps up. We've been chatting for an hour. Awesome. Just wanted to get you your little chance to talk about what you're using out there. Learning curve for these young guys is way faster, folks, but it's there, it's available for everybody YouTube, podcast, TV, Google, AI, whatever.

Jayden Wendel (01:00:48)
Big big time. yeah. Yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:01:07)
Deficient information is at your fingertips if you want to take the time to learn, right? It's how much do you how much do you how bad do you want it? How how much do you want to learn? Well, best of luck going to Green Bay and on to the championship. new era coming next season. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be the it's showing it's the best of the best. None of us really know what that format looks like or what changes there there's gonna be. now they bumped it from sixty five to basically a a hundred.

Brian Bashore (01:01:36)
in a field now. It's gonna be eighty NWTs, ten MWCs, and ten discretionary or whatever. It's gonna be it's gonna be different, but maybe not too different. But some bit nice changes this year. You had some live stream going on. Bo had some live stream. That's all new stuff. That's cool. Keeping people in the loop what's going on. So I think that's helping helping grow. The big challenge is getting Co Anglers to continue to sign up. We they're about twenty short for the last tournament.

Brian Bashore (01:02:03)
Mowbridge went pretty well, enough locals. Here he was like 30 short, you know, they're able to feel it, you know, by offering getting those last minute guys in. But so if you're interested in being a co, there's still gonna be co anglers next year, but sign up so these pros can continue to fish. Because they're gonna guarantee a hundred pros fishing, they gotta get a hundred, you know, a hundred co's in. They may need to modify some things a little bit, Mississippi River or whatever the case is so that co angler gets more involved. At Green Bay, though, your co angler has to catch three fish.

Jayden Wendel (01:02:33)
That it is three fish, all right. Out of the And then we're allowed to bring in is it six then I believe? Yep. And no call ble I

Brian Bashore (01:02:35)
Wisconsin's a three fifth minute.

Brian Bashore (01:02:40)
Six. Yep, no coaling. No coal. No coal keeping six. They can all be big. You don't have to worry about unders and stuff. But basically you can hand and you can hand the rod off. But once you have five, somebody's done, no matter what. I mean somebody has three. typically the co, right? So, whatever the case, but they they do gotta catch three of So there is that. but most of these codes are pretty good.

Jayden Wendel (01:02:57)
Yep, yep. Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:03:09)
So I handed the rot off. You handed the rot off plenty. We had, you know, one come off and I don't know that was necessarily the Cole's fault. I think it just happens sometimes that it come unbuttoned. So

Jayden Wendel (01:03:19)
Hold out.

Brian Bashore (01:03:20)
That's way it is. But you'll get that if you go to Bago. Pretty much anywhere in Wisconsin right now. That's that's how that's gonna work. But Erie, Michigan, those places of reading coal, God, that makes for such so much more fun of a tournament. And it kinda takes a little stress off, right?

Jayden Wendel (01:03:36)
It's it's a little more smooth that but even like in Skakawea, I mean you're you you can catch all yourself, but there's also you also can't cull, so you put in the live all you're weighing which is gonna be a different different challenge by itself for sure. Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:03:48)
Yep. Yeah, it's it's Owahi, which there was the bite was kind of finicky and you're like, if I get one of these, I'm I'm boxing it. I'm not too sweating it, right? It's I need I need two big ones, but yes, Kakwia, yeah. And you North Dakota's five over fifteen. I don't believe North Kakota's a no cole state or a no party fishing state.

Jayden Wendel (01:03:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (01:04:08)
Yep, no party fishing, I don't believe, but no

Brian Bashore (01:04:09)
No party for so but you can you'll be able to probably keep eight box eight way in five there, I think. Even though your limits five

Jayden Wendel (01:04:18)
I I think I read it I think I read it and I think you're only allowed to box five from what I've seen, maybe.

Brian Bashore (01:04:24)
Seven or eight. It's not it's not always your limit. So it's not like ten bringing and because they don't want you to waste, you know, and typically you're not gonna anyway, because by the time you have five or six, you're like, I'm not putting anything else in the box unless it's bigger than these five or six, you know, and you're not I mean you're gonna upgrade five fish. It's like, well, man, you must put five really small ones in there to start with, you know. But but some I think the casino cups like that, right? There's you can bring and you have ten or fifteen fish.

Jayden Wendel (01:04:27)
Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (01:04:51)
Yeah, you can you can have I think I think fifteen almost. If you have three guys, maybe it's ten. Yeah, it's it's I mean Yeah, exactly. I think that's what it is. So I mean which I mean you don't at that point the the Libel is probably getting pretty crowded, but yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:04:55)
Yeah, three guys and three guy levels.

Brian Bashore (01:05:05)
Yeah, that that kinda seems like a waste. And I don't I'm sure most people don't 'cause once they get five or even eight, they're like, I d you know, there's we don't need to bring these fish in. I think most tournament anglers are pretty conservative minded or conservation minded and and like we don't I save these fish for tomorrow. Or in a kakoya case or await a case next week at the next tournament here on the same body of water. Right. So kinda how it goes. So Anywho.

Jayden Wendel (01:05:22)
Exactly. Yep.

Jayden Wendel (01:05:27)
Yeah, yeah. exactly. yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:05:30)
You got anything to leave our listeners, any nuggets, tidbits, any little words of wisdom? You dropped a ton.

Jayden Wendel (01:05:37)
Well I would just yeah, I would just say, especially to a lot of the younger guys that are watching that you know, this is kind of their dream to do, you know, just just never give up on your dream almost. just stick with it. If you got something you like to do, if you really like to do it, put time into it, see where it gets you, and I think you'll be surprised how far you get with it.

Brian Bashore (01:05:56)
Right on. I I'm enjoying sitting back in the cheap seats and watching you and Bo this year. I I'm all in this is great. some of us guys just need to get the hell out of the way. It's a change. Run with it. Do it while you can. Life's gonna happen and throw shit at you. And you're gonna have you're gonna have bad tournaments, you're gonna have N W T wins, you know, you're gonna have championship wins, you're gonna have all these it ebb and flows. but you are showing it, Bo's clearly showing it. That it

Brian Bashore (01:06:25)
There's there's a separation in it last probably five years of these guys are really, really good. And it's not everybody wants to say it's scoping and yeah, that's got a lot to do with it, but most of the guys were doing well prior to scoping too. So it's not they know how to catch it just helps knowing being versatile, you know, and you're gonna hit the Mississippi River. I know if you ever fish that or not, but it's gonna be in the schedule and you're gonna be like, Whoa, this is a little different.

Jayden Wendel (01:06:51)
Yeah yeah, this year yeah, this year I actually hopped into a few AIM Mississippi River events just to kinda get familiar with it 'cause I knew it was probably gonna come. And it's it's a little different animal, there's no doubt about that. I can definitely see how having some some knowledge about the place would probably help. But it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting when that comes on the schedule, but I'm excited for it. I mean it's gonna be a new change and something to look forward to. Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:07:12)
It's it's one of my favorite. Yeah, one of my favorite fish. Because it's diverse challenge, you can kind of do whatever and and you kinda get back to a little bit old school instead of like not to say you can't scope there. I went the last time we went there, I boom, there's one, bam, caught it, you know. But that element of surprise, like, I know there's fish there, what is it? You know, and then you s when you set the hook, you're like, I that's the one, you know. It's not a sixteen, it's a thirty.

Jayden Wendel (01:07:38)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:07:42)
And there's a lot of them and they're big angry pissed off fish there. And you can get them in that two to three foot, four foot of water stuff. So very cool place. Anywho, all right. Thanks a ton, Jaden. Congratulations on your win. Awesome to have the youngest NWT winner ever on here. I think Nusba must have like twenty something when he won it. I know Max is pretty young. Eric's still pretty young. Bo is Bo younger than you?

Jayden Wendel (01:07:42)
Yeah.

Jayden Wendel (01:08:07)
Bo is three months older than me so he cannot win it anymore.

Brian Bashore (01:08:09)
So he can't get it. He can't never get it. Sorry, Bo. That Jade's got that one on you forever. It's just the way it is. y you're and you're definitely telling him about that and driving it in virgin.

Jayden Wendel (01:08:21)
Well, I think that was the I think after I won that was the first thing I said to him when he when I walked up to him was that for sure. 'Cause we that was like our number one thing is we we wanted one of us to win it this year just so we held the record and I happened to be younger and won it, so now you know, now we don't got a chance I guess as far as that goes. But it was it was pretty funny.

Brian Bashore (01:08:35)
That's it. Can't touch it. Can't touch it till next year when a eighteen year old rolls in and and school starts cooling up on everybody. He's gonna always got flat tires at the boat ramp every day and says just jade in the boat and don't want to break his record. So No, you wouldn't do that. We wouldn't do that. Great group of guys, everybody's there to help. Lean on those guys out there. You got Chad in your corner. Great dude. It's gonna help you on the way, but don't be afraid to ask any of these guys that you see. Reach out, DM call

Jayden Wendel (01:08:42)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:09:05)
Help with sponsors, what did I do? There's no dumb question. It's the questions that you should ask. And a lot of people didn't because they didn't know who, you know, or what to ask. Maybe felt stupid. A lot of them learned these MPA was different ways back, and a lot more guys attended, and you got a lot of information that way. Gary Parson mentored many guys. Springle knows kind of coming up. And they they are where they are today because of some of them veterans and seniors leadership in a sense said, Hey, let me connect you with this person.

Brian Bashore (01:09:34)
Let me, you know, I had Jay Shakirak. I'm like, Seagar booth at iCast. Let me introduce you to this guy. Hey, this guy's an up-and-coming bass guy. Trust me, you want to connect with him. All right. Boom. Bam. He's a Seagar guy. Tommy Scarless introduced me to the St. Croix people years ago. And and they Tommy said, This, there's a guy you need. He's in this market. You know, and you're in a a a market where you don't have a a

Brian Bashore (01:10:03)
ton of Jaden Wendells up there. You're not like Minnesota where you got a gazillion pros or Wisconsin or Michigan, right? You got a lot of hammers in North Dakota, but not a a ton of, you know, the Teats doing well. Northrop was, you know, fishing it for a while. A lot of them don't do a big sponsorship game. So that's a market that they want somebody in to go to those sports shows and events and reach out. Cause when I can tell everybody in North Dakota pretty much fishes. So

Jayden Wendel (01:10:31)
yeah. There b about anybody you see has a boat in their backyard, so yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:10:35)
Yeah, it it's all rangers and nitros. It ain't sixteen foot C Nymphs Michigan. It's big boats and there's a lot of oil money up there. The guys are spending it and having a good time. New campus, new boats. So anyway, I'm rambling on it. I just want to share and tell so much stuff to to help you along the way. It's like I told Bo. We're I'm trying to help you out here as much as I can 'cause I wish, you know, somebody would do these things and they did. I had people do those things for me too. So it's awesome. It's a great, great group of people, great organization.

Jayden Wendel (01:10:45)
No doubt.

Brian Bashore (01:11:03)
Well, that world's different than the bass world, tough to make a living. So every little thing you can get in every connection or network. But you just keep being you, keep your head down, keep catching fish. You're gonna kick ass. We're gonna see you're gonna be around a long time. You and Bo. It's fun, fun watching watching you guys develop. Stay tight, don't butt heads. You're gonna butt head sooner or later, but that's okay. It's

Jayden Wendel (01:11:29)
Right on.

Brian Bashore (01:11:30)
It's gonna bring home. So all right, folks, thanks for tuning in. Thank you, Jaden, for joining us today. tonight from Lewis Clark Lake in the camper down here on the mighty Missouri River. And I hope it's done raining now. So keep those lines tight, stay safe, folks, and we'll see you on the water.

Jayden Wendel (01:11:53)
Yeah, thanks for having me.