Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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)
Welcome back folks to another episode of real talk fishing with no limits brought to you by Segar high performance braids and seven reels, S C V I I N reels. Check them out at seven reels.com today. We're going to talk to NWT pro warrior boats pro, ⁓ up and coming Angler. He's a hot, hot stick. He's been on a roll for a couple of years. If he's not a household name yet, he will be soon. Mr. Jake.
He he's from over in a Fargo working in Minnesota. The guy is an absolute stick and all around good dude. And he has been on a tear the last few years. It's getting it done. we're going to dive in and talk a little recap on Lake sharp. Kind of what, what he did to get them there and, ⁓ just to kind of the hurdles we all had to deal with as well as the upcoming tournament in, in lacrosse coming up here at the end of may.
And just a bit general about his tournament fishing experience. Dude has fished a lot of tournaments to get this stuff dialed in. So he has a dedicated angler and he is a good dude. So we got a great conversation coming at you here. So stay tuned to hear from Mr. Jay Kahe right after this brief message from Clean Cut Cutting Boards.
Brian Bashore (00:02)
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of real talk fishing with no limits. Today we're joined by national wall, like two or pro warrior, pro Jake, he Jake's coming at us over from Minnesota. It's bright and early. And I think you probably get her already rolled into work on Jake.
Jake Caughey (00:19)
Yeah, no we got we got here a little early today to shoot a podcast and shut the door and hope that it doesn't get open for an hour or so but there's there's no guarantees that the phone's not gonna ring doors not gonna open something so
We'll see what happens.
Brian Bashore (00:34)
Hey, we're you know, it's it's spring. It was almost 70 degrees here in Sioux Falls. You're actually a mode my yard. ⁓ I guess it's kind of go time everywhere. You guys are still waiting. You got a year here in Minnesota, right? So.
Jake Caughey (00:48)
Yeah, so right on the
border of North Dakota and Minnesota. Yeah, I live in North Dakota, work in Minnesota.
Brian Bashore (00:51)
Minnesota. Okay.
I was like, at you live on the good side. right. yep, yep, exactly. Well, the Minnesotans are waiting for their walleye opener here that's coming up. I think they still got a couple of weeks, but I can't imagine living somewhere where I just couldn't fish walleyes all year.
Jake Caughey (00:56)
Right? Everybody playing the catch game over here.
Yeah, I guess I'm like kind of used to it because I grew up from like, I'm originally from Brainerd, Minnesota. So I grew up like, you know, open it was a big deal and whatever. ⁓ you moved to North Dakota. went to NDSU and it's like, you guys can fish walleyes like in the spawn, like in the spring, like it's usually closed, you know, I'm like, so I grew up to Devil's Lake to the coolies and all that stuff. When I was in college, was like, man, this is crazy. There's hundreds of walleyes in here and you can just fish for them.
Brian Bashore (01:34)
Right.
It is fun and they're big and I'm not in Devil's Lake so you don't appear to be hurting the population too much by catching fish during the spawn.
Jake Caughey (01:43)
Yeah.
A couple years ago at the championship, there's definitely a healthy walleye population at Temple's Lake.
Brian Bashore (01:55)
Yeah,
yeah, that was a good championship with some, would say record. mean, what 30, what are you bringing to one day? Like a 39, what do you have to 90 pounds in three days.
Jake Caughey (02:06)
Yeah, it was insane. mean that place, the amount of fish that you don't cast at because you're in a tournament is nuts. Quarter mile, half mile long schools at 18 inches. These are useless to me, but it's pretty impressive to see.
Brian Bashore (02:14)
Hmm.
We would have liked to sing those last week.
Jake Caughey (02:26)
Yeah, would. Yeah, like two and a quarter pound 18 inches would have been real nice.
Brian Bashore (02:30)
Right, would
have been lovely, you know, or at least one eight-pounder would have been even better yet.
Jake Caughey (02:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't miss anything. Even a five-pounder I would have been pretty happy with.
Brian Bashore (02:42)
Yeah,
that was a little, little tricky, a little different. Before we get into, we'll get into Lake Sharp and our upcoming lacrosse tournament, but let's let the listeners know a little background to Jake. What he's, what you're doing. Like I said, you're at work. He just told me you're agronomist. We're going to co-op busy, busy time of year for you. What's your background? You got, you know, four kids, 10 kids, any kids. What are you doing when you're not fishing?
Jake Caughey (03:06)
So no kids. ⁓ I guess I'm an agronomist, so busy, busy in the spring, ⁓ spring tournaments never usually work out great for me because it's like team no sleep here, you know, tournament and then work and stuff like that. But I guess when I'm not fishing, ⁓ big sports fan, like probably a little tired right now. Cause I watched the Timberwolves playoff game last night all the way to the end and
⁓ Big sports fan, I love hunting. ⁓ The last three, four years here, I've taken up bow hunting, like I think every other tournament fisherman. And that's, ⁓ I think I'm more addicted to looking at my trail cameras than when I wake up in the morning, than probably anything. ⁓ But yeah, hunting, fishing, I just like being outside. ⁓ I used to love ice fishing like a ton, but kind of.
I've become a little soft in my old age of 33 and I'm getting a little tired of the winter. So I actually look forward to summer now. It used to be my least favorite time of year. And now I'm like, man, I can't wait for summer. I just want to go in the boat and like put shorts and flip flops on and let's roll.
Brian Bashore (04:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're living in the wrong part of the country if you don't like winter.
Jake Caughey (04:30)
Yeah, no, it definitely makes a vacation a little bit more, you know, in the conversation every year. So.
Brian Bashore (04:37)
Yeah, I'm the same way. I don't never really, I fished a ton, but the older I get, which is far from 33, ⁓ I'm, I'm, summer. I'm a summer guy. Bring on the heat. don't mind a hundred degree heat. but don't really get, I do like it maybe in eighties and nineties, but it is, it is still good, but I, I don't mind the cold. ⁓ it's just not at, you're not as mobile. You're not, you know, just I've seen you fish me. We're up on it.
We're moving, we're going all over the place and you know, we're not, we don't sit still very well.
Jake Caughey (05:09)
Yeah, we went to Winnipeg. I I do a couple ice trips a year. We'll go to Winnipeg once, Lake of the Woods once, go chase some crappies around somewhere too. And we're up at Winnipeg and we're just driving around. It was super nice out. But putting the four-pacient sonar down, know, and looking around and you're like waiting for them to come to you is like a torturing process after you fish the way we fish. It's like, there's like a 28-incher about 30 feet out right now. And in the summer,
Brian Bashore (05:30)
Yeah.
Jake Caughey (05:37)
I'd probably drop a jig and crawler right on his head and catch him, but right now I'm like, please swim under my eight inch hole from 30 feet away. That'd be great. So it's almost like a torture.
Brian Bashore (05:50)
It's a tough cast into those little eight inch holes, isn't it?
Jake Caughey (05:53)
Yeah, yeah,
I honestly would venture to say now that I've lake trout fished a little bit, like during COVID, I think not being able to go to Winnipeg and stuff like that, we went out to Fort Peck and did a little bit of lake trout fish. And ⁓ I think I that's probably my favorite ice fishing now. So if I can go do like some Laker fishing, which I don't do a ton of, but if I can do a little bit of that, ⁓ that's fun. Or else just go sit on a crappie hole and watch the barb go down or something like that.
I'm not too mad at the walleyes when I game in the winter.
Brian Bashore (06:25)
Right. Yeah. I haven't got to do the lay. I've tried it a couple of times or tried to get out at Lake Pectola out here in the Black Hills and get them, but yeah, Lakers are, you know, not the greatest tasting, but big. And if you can catch big fish on a little rod, good times.
Jake Caughey (06:39)
It's so fun, they're so aggressive and ⁓ man, I actually like fishing them with just a straight flasher because it keeps you entertained. Something might be around, you know.
Brian Bashore (06:51)
Hey, it's okay to go old school once while. Yeah. Bow hunting. Uh, I bow hunt. Love it. A lot of the, know, that's seen, you know, the hoarder and a bunch of these guys have picked up the bow hunt over the last few years. And, and maybe it's because we're pretty patient, you know, as a tournament angler that, know, we enjoy the bow hunt, but it's also the. Waiting for them to come to you, right? You're just sitting, you're chilling out, you're relaxing, you're.
Jake Caughey (06:53)
Yeah, right.
Brian Bashore (07:16)
You love the hot, you love the fish love being outdoors. And I think I'm bow hunting is nothing more than, especially if you're hunting during the rut and you spend the entire day in a tree. I've just taken it all in.
Jake Caughey (07:24)
Yeah.
that's the one thing I love about it. think it's almost like a wind down. You know, even if you're even if you're having a busy day at work or something like that, and it's like, you know what, I'm going to crawl out in the tree about four o'clock and then you just like hang out for a while whether you got I mean, we have fed turkeys all kinds of stuff. Keep your busy while you're sitting in the tree and enough gray squirrels to
you know, get pumping and then but it I'm lucky enough that you know, being in the egg industry, I have some pretty good buddies who are hers and they let me hunt some pretty good stuff. ⁓ so yeah, it's just fun. just like watching deer too, little bucks and you know, during the routes, it's kind of fun to just watch how they work and learn more about it. Like I said, I've only been doing it three years. So a lot to learn here and I've ⁓
Brian Bashore (07:49)
Right.
Jake Caughey (08:16)
had some tough learning experiences out in the true stand a few times.
Brian Bashore (08:19)
⁓
I hear you there. Me too. went many years without shooting and it wasn't not of, I didn't see them. I missed a couple, had a, just a kind of a real crappy old bow I inherited, you know, but now I got a good bow and there's zero reason to miss. mean, these things are pretty spot on. mean, I'm shooting it at 50 to 70 yards and it's, you know, it's, good to go. I just don't shoot a lot of deer. just watch them. Like I said, get consumed by watching them. Like,
Jake Caughey (08:43)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (08:45)
Yeah, this, this season lasts like four months, all those way, you know, and then it's like, that, was it. Or something happens that you don't get to go anymore. The weather turns into horrible, you know? And I'm like, that's, that's pretty cool to be sitting up in a tree and those kinds of wins.
Jake Caughey (09:02)
No, it's, I usually wait for like the, I'm going to take like a dough or something like that, I try to do it during rifle season just so it's clean and quick. And I don't have to, you know, be like, man, I got to get this meat on ice right away or whatever. Not September. And, ⁓ but yeah, it's, you never know. Last year I said that and I sat probably two weeks at the end of the year, just trying to get a dough.
I ended up missing one and then I never even got one. So luckily dad took care of business and grateful season. So we have to some deers deer meat. So.
Brian Bashore (09:39)
Good. That's a, there may is great to have in the boat or in the fishing season. So yeah, it's, it's some of my favorite and I didn't get one last year. I barely bow hunted ahead of sometimes to go and had some deer in the area. Should have went earlier. Um, and then rifle tag, I don't know what happened. Oh, my dog was sick and we went out for a couple of days and he was dying of cancer and we had it like a day and it was just like, let's, gotta go get him. We got.
Jake Caughey (09:43)
Yeah, no, I love, I love Venice and Dierke.
Brian Bashore (10:08)
I don't want to leave them at the kennel. Let's go home. just kind of just wasn't into it. was let's, let's get out here. We'll do this some other time. And I'm glad I did spend a little more time with him, but he loved the heart. Love to fish. That would explain the candy shop. I'm always like, there goes Jake, the candy man is the side of the guy's boats. This candy shop on the side of it. I didn't understand like what the hell is it? Does he own a candy shop? He's got a sponsor that's selling fricking candy candy. What's going on? But it's tell them a little bit about it's big, waterfowl hunting guides, I believe. Right.
Jake Caughey (10:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I laugh because I think every person that comes, so I'm number one, not a wrapped boat or sticker guy or anything like that. So, but we do have quite a few extra miles on the National Walleye Tour this year. And I have more people, you know, want to be a part of the program, which I really appreciate. And I'm like, you know what? I got to give my son.
Brian Bashore (10:52)
Yes you do, yes we do.
Jake Caughey (11:02)
don't like wearing my jersey very often either. So I'm like, I gotta get my sponsors a little bit more than just, you know, Facebook posting, social media stuff. So I was like, yeah, we'll wrap the boat. And I was looking for a title sponsor and my buddy Blake, he owns, he's the owner of the candy shop out in Wimbledon, North Dakota. They do guided duck and goose hunting out there. He's like, man, I want, I want to be the title sponsor. Like let's figure something out. And we figured something out.
Trent at TSG did an awesome job making it, you know, the boat wrap look nice. I just told him, said, make it look clean. I have like 50 different sponsors that have different colors and make it look clean. And he did an awesome job. so that, I told Blake, said, that's great advertising for you because every goes by there like, what's the candy shop? And I was, yeah, was pre-fishing the other day and Shakira was by me and he calls me and he's like,
Brian Bashore (11:52)
Exactly.
Jake Caughey (11:59)
the candy shop, huh? And I was like, yeah, we had to Google it to see what it was. You know, I was like, perfect. That's the whole reason. Yeah, like perfect advertising. So no, it's been kind of fun. And as you can imagine about every person I see rolls up to me in the access when I'm getting ready or getting off the water and, you know, playing the 50 cent, I'll take you to the candy shop. We start, we start something, you know.
Brian Bashore (12:05)
That's the point. Yep.
Jake Caughey (12:25)
you started something. I'm like, it's not going to be as easy to hide in this boat as it was in the last one. So, but it's all right. You know, I've got a lot of good sponsors, a lot of good people that support my program and, and, ⁓ you know, it's, they, need exposure to, ⁓ for helping me out. So.
Brian Bashore (12:30)
No, no.
Yeah, that's a, know, and you got that, that big warrior. it's, it's pretty clean on the sides. gives you, you got a big portrait. You got a big canvas basically to say that, to put that on there and keep it clean and nice. It's a tricky game to play when you start knowing the rap and trying to get who on there or what, and not making it look like a NASCAR, you know,
Jake Caughey (13:04)
Yeah,
that's right. I didn't want 55 different ugly looking, you know, stuff. I told Trent, I was like, I've seen some of the boats that you've done. They're pretty sharp. So whatever. he sent me a couple of proofs I was like, yeah, that's going to work. That looks pretty sharp. So.
Brian Bashore (13:21)
that'll work.
Yeah, it's, I gotta just use too big, you know, the title sponsor on it and then just go above the rail with the stickers for, know, for the rest of the North stickers, you know, whatever to give them their fair share. Cause like I said, it's, got a lot of miles on it. It's great advertising, you know, for those that are listening, if you're looking to advertise these professional anglers, it's, it's not just the boat on the water. That's minimal really. It's the highway time, you know, and, and, and all of that, that's where you get that most exposure on it. Cause you're
Jake Caughey (13:48)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (13:51)
I you're going to Dunkirk, New York, you're going to Lake Huron, you're driving for 18 hours and six, whatever it is, you're passing tens of thousands of automobiles. know, I need to just hundreds of those Google the candy shop or whatever. You know, they're going to land one or two or three, whatever new things. And even with that, it's branding and that word's out. You know, it, mean, it's just, they're going to see dividends period.
Jake Caughey (14:15)
Yeah, I mean a lot of fishing fans and stuff like that are into waterfall hunting and yeah, it's super cool. Go check them out. I I love going out there and hunting with Blake and the boys and yeah, so it's a sweet deal and happy to have them on board for the 2025 season.
Brian Bashore (14:36)
That's awesome. got to get Jeff and the NWT guys to get that candy shop as your theme song keyed up. So next time you come across stage, so be like bass masters has everybody has their theme song. Everybody has their song and it plays. can't hear it a lot. If you're watching, you know, on their live stream, but it does play. It's just a little clip. ⁓ if you're with the classic, you heard it played and it played over and over and over because the guy was forgetting to turn the music off during the interviews. But yeah, I think you just,
We just paid it in you into a corner and that's it. That should do theme song candy shop, whether you like it or not, long as that's on your boat. That's it. There was.
Jake Caughey (15:12)
Yeah, I'm
waiting for the I'm waiting till I really see them to say that we took them to the candy shop or something like We're just gonna dabble around with maybe some other 50 cent songs for posts and whatnot We got yeah, really really whoop them good. Are we?
Brian Bashore (15:19)
Yeah.
Yes, that's, that's perfect. Setting up good for you. Let's talk in the tournaments a little bit. You've been doing this for a while. Now, last year you were just, you had a stellar year, matter NWT, everything you fished, you kind of, you took people to the candy shop. Basically last year you did it. Dive into a little bit that. When you get into tournament fishing, what circus are you fishing?
Jake Caughey (15:52)
Yeah, so Last year was super fun. The last couple of years have been have been really fun I started tournament fishing not super long ago. I guess compared to a lot of a lot of you guys that I fish against I think it was like 2015 or something like that. I bought a 618 Ranger tiller and from Hoyer actually which is great and I was like
You know, I've always, I've always loved walleye fishing. I've always been into sports my whole entire life, played sports. I was like, I need something like competition wise, you know, let's try this thing. So in like 2016 and 2017, I just entered every tournament that I could. Like, like I didn't have any PTO from work to pre-fish. So I would just show up on Saturday at like Lake Winnebagoche and be like, yeah, guess we're going to go try to catch them today. Here's my three.
I took my 300 bucks because there wasn't a lot of checks coming back my way. ⁓ you know, just literally, literally got my ass kicked for like two years straight. Like it was, I fished 28 tournaments, both of those years. And I think I cashed four checks total out of those two years. Like it was not good. But I always hung around and I always learned and like these guys who are always doing good, it just like, it like made me like, man.
Brian Bashore (16:47)
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
Salute!
Jake Caughey (17:17)
getting all those plaques and like, cause like really, we don't really do this for the money. The money's nice when you win one or whatever, but like the hardware, now that's a different story. Like that's no one remembers the, you know, $4,500 check you got for winning a tournament, but they, they remember, Oh, that's a nice check you got on the, on the wall there, plaque or what. So I finished my butt off, um, ended up starting to have a little success. think in 2018 we had a
Brian Bashore (17:27)
Alright.
Jake Caughey (17:45)
big tournament around home where I'm from in Brainerd. ⁓ It's a fishing and hunger tournament. There's like 120 boats. then me and a buddy won that. ⁓ My tournament partner, Boony, we won that. And that was kind of the start to like, okay, maybe we're onto something here. ⁓ Next year, I ended up getting a warrior tailor and ⁓ running ⁓ a little more higher level stuff. I've been running a lot.
Aim and Minnesota Tournament Trail stuff. And then I was like, we hopped into an MWC on Leech because they came around the Leech area and we got second there. It was like, all right, you know, like maybe we can hang, you know? And ⁓ I got an invite to travel with a couple of guys on the NWT when I kind of said, hey, I think I might do this tour. And 2020 was my rookie year and took took my fair share of Beaton's on the NWT for a couple of years. And
It kind of transferred into, hey, I need to spend a lot of time on the water if I want to compete with these guys because they're, I mean, they're just killers. mean, WT is best of the best. And so, yeah, couple of years ago, I dove into the forward-facing sonar deal because I was getting my butt kicked doing that. I like, you know, I was just like, I'm going to get better at this. And I had a
Brian Bashore (19:04)
I hear you.
Jake Caughey (19:09)
You know, I've had a lot of good buddies that I fish with, tournament partners, ⁓ that have, you just chit chat, tournament fishermen, where I was trying new stuff, hey, try this, try that. And eventually ⁓ really got the forward facing stuff rolling. And two years ago, I think it was just like something I felt super confident with and we won a few tournaments. ⁓ And then last year things really, really took off.
Had a really, really good year and happy with, you know, like stuff's finally starting to pay off. wasn't like you just, and people think, yeah, you just got life scope and you got good at it. Like, man, I took a lot of butt kickings to learn a lot of stuff where, look why they're here. And, ⁓ and yeah, so just kind of just rolling with the flow. Last year we, we ended up, you know, the summer.
Brian Bashore (19:44)
All right.
Yeah.
Jake Caughey (20:06)
was nice for work and stuff. So I just tried to fish everything I could. When you're fishing good and you're spending time on the water, I just tried to get in every event that I could that made sense. And so we fished 21 events last year. This year, for sure, I'm doing the NWT. I don't have any, and the NTC actually, at Pixtown, forgot about that. Yeah, looking forward to that. But other than that, kind of just the same
Brian Bashore (20:27)
⁓ yep, that should be fun.
Jake Caughey (20:35)
wherever we end up ⁓ kind of deal. would like to maybe venture out to Sakaka. We'll, July, August, September, see if there's some events out there because that was an absolute blast last year when we were there.
Brian Bashore (20:41)
yeah.
So
the Big Ten tournament is a Sakakuya. It's usually the first week in October. It's the last week of September this year. So maybe before harvest you can get in on that one.
Jake Caughey (20:55)
Oh,
that actually makes sense because I wanted to fish that for a long time, but it was always on the same day as that fishing and hunger tournament around home. And that was like a local tournament that I was doing with somebody. so I'm like, but yeah, that big 10 that definitely have, uh, have looked at that one before. So that.
Brian Bashore (21:01)
It's a tournament.
Yep. All right.
That's a
fun one. Jeff does a great job and Newtown's your Southern boundary. You can't go past the bridge. So you're fishing that, that upper part thousand dollar entry, you know, team. ⁓ if it does fill up with a hundred, you know, boats, it's 30 grand to first place. So, ⁓ top 10 payout and, ⁓ usually it's been a steak potato, you know, meal the night before put them by the, I the local fire department and then everybody's going to get a door prize and they're, they're not.
Jake Caughey (21:23)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (21:46)
It's not &Ms, man. It's like bottles of whiskey and stuff like that. it's a. Yeah, they do a hell of a job with it, so.
Jake Caughey (21:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, so that's kind of the plan just to bounce around and wherever we end up, end up, know, spring's been going pretty good so far. We've been knocking a lot of stuff out. So hopefully June is open and then have a few conflicts this year with like NWT tournaments running into a lot of like tournaments that I would like to get into and whatnot, but we'll end up somewhere. guarantee you we'll be on the water. So.
Brian Bashore (22:19)
Oh, that, know, I always tell people if you want to get into tournament fish and start just like you did with these little smaller local club type things, it's, and the more of them you fish, it's got to make you a better angle. And it's exactly, it's hard lessons you're going to learn. And you're learning by watching the people that are schooling you. And it just takes a few years. mean, 28 in a year is a lot. I mean, some people probably have 10 years and to have a fish 20 tournaments, but by getting your butt whooped after a while, you're going to get that.
That drive and that passion. Hey, I need to, I want to do better. I got to do better. What are these people doing that that I'm not doing? That's making them so good. And time on the waters, hands down the best thing. However, I spent 200 days on the year on the water and I'm seem to be getting my butt kicked anyway. So it doesn't, there comes a point, I guess, but, but live scope, like you said, is it just cause I have it doesn't make me, you know, that I still got to be at the right place, you know, be where the fish are given the right presentation. And you definitely got that dialed in.
Jake Caughey (23:14)
Yeah, I think it's one of those things. mean, everybody's like, yeah, so, you know, this and that. it's like, you look at a tournament and tell me about that doesn't have live scope on it. And then we'll see from there. Like the one thing I find about live scope is when when you find fish in practice, say it's four days before a tournament, you might find a school of the winning fish. You go there back on the tournament. If you don't understand why those fish are there.
when they're going to be there, what made those fish set up the way they did the day you caught them in practice. You're not going to catch them in the tournament because they might, they might be, you know, a quarter mile away, half mile away, but you know, you're like, Hey, they're going to be in here somewhere because this certain condition and this current or whatever. And yeah, you can drive around with life scope and look and look and look. sometimes you randomly land on a pod and you win, but it, it's, really not as easy as everybody.
Yeah, you're awesome. Eat, bud.
Brian Bashore (24:13)
No.
And especially last week at Lake Sharp, you didn't see a lot of people living up on the live scope. It was definitely a tool to have, like I you could roll up and you could, you could scan it and be like, all right, they're here. Confidence is what you gain from doing all these tournaments. And that's probably the biggest key factor on that thing was. I wasn't catching them scoping, but having the scope gave the confidence that those fish are in the area. However, on that tournament, they were there one day, hell they might've been there one hour and then they were all gone. So.
Jake Caughey (24:41)
Yeah, it was and to be honest, that sharp. was I was, you know, fishing about 60 miles from from the takeoff in the tournament like they weren't like down in the flooded trees and the river channel and stuff like that. Like the fish weren't like just sitting up like all suspended like, hey, here, catch me. They were buried in the mud. I mean, you read the recap of like what, you know, Ranny Topper was saying and.
guy that's like yeah everything's buried in the heart like it was hard to see you couldn't see him ⁓ and you know sometimes I would throw like a swimbait at him and get him to show themselves a little bit and then it was like dang that's a good one let's throw a jigging minnow back if it didn't need the swimbait or whatever and it was it was definitely not easy to to scope them on sharp this last week it was it was tough
Brian Bashore (25:32)
The Southern fish are easier than the fish up North because they weren't moving as much. And I wish I would have went down there because I had a blast pre-fishing down there and just kind of was like, I don't know. And they seemed like I was going for it all. Not fishing the whole circuit this year. Give me points. I'm going to stay up North and hope for that eight plus pound, you know, that Robert Crowe got trying to get that big pre-spawn female because I got some pre-spawn females to practice.
Jake Caughey (25:36)
Yeah, order.
Brian Bashore (25:58)
You're hearing more more from guys afterwards that there was some big fish caught and there was some big fish caught, you know, down South and, ⁓ but the boy, could definitely catch them faster. And, know, I didn't get on the deep. I kind of heard about some deep fish a little too late, literally the day after I left practicing down there. And it was like, damn it, you know, like 30 foot of water or 18, 19 inches. it's like, yep. I was pretty well stuck shadow the whole time.
Jake Caughey (26:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, it ⁓ there was some deep ones but I found with like the deep fish When you had like those cloudy or windy or any cooler days they weren't they weren't like Suspended like they're they're in the bottom but if it got like there's a couple days where it got hot and sunny and it was
70 or whatever, those fish started to rise up a little bit and it was pretty fun when it was hot and sunny. Like the second day I made some bad choices. I didn't have anything in the box at 1030. So I kept like a one, two, and then a one and a half. And then everything came in the wrong order. was like pound and a half, pound and a half, pound and a half, pound and a half. It's like, I can't throw these back. And then seven fish in my box and I caught a two pounder and I'm like,
Okay, that gives me more weight than I had yesterday. I was just out of a check. I can't throw this two pounder back, but right, it was like 1245 and it just got flat calm and sunny. I'm like, Oh man, I caught that fish, you know, six feet down and like 35 feet of water. I knew what was going to happen if I could have had another hour to zoom around. Never know, but fishing up North is definitely the right call. If you're looking for like a top 10, cause you catch one eight pounder, think you're probably top 10 regardless of what you're.
Brian Bashore (27:29)
Yep.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. That was the plan. Uh, it didn't, work out. So same situation, you know, I didn't keep any fish. They wanted to one o'clock and went, Oh, I then brought in frigging four. just whatever. This, way that the way it works, but literally got, I don't know, 30 to 50 fish a day.
Jake Caughey (28:01)
Yeah, it was definitely not a like if we're going to go to a tournament where it's going to be like a tough, granny, like weight, tight weights and stuff like that. It's definitely fun when you're when you're catching a lot of fish. Like, yeah, I think caught like 40 fish the first day and it was like, yeah, we came in with like just under eight pounds, but it was a fun day. You know, you never know. You're like, be a two pounder, you know, like everyone's fish, same stuff like even whether we're bringing.
Brian Bashore (28:23)
Yeah, you're in these. Right.
Jake Caughey (28:28)
40 pounds a day or 10, you know, it's like everyone's got the same playing field. So that's what makes it fun.
Brian Bashore (28:33)
Yeah, it's a little lower than I anticipated more eight, nine pound bags, but some of those fish weren't, you know, they were a little skinny. ⁓ once I got down south where I thought were just fine and average, and it was the way I wanted to fish it. and I talked to Hummel on the phone every night who didn't travel. And he's like, from, he's like, from what I'm hearing, you need, you should go south. He's like, that's your thing. You need to pitch work those shores. And then I'm like, ⁓ I'm going for a big one. I'm to stay north and, and caught six fish.
Right off the bat, threw them all back and then, know, hindsight is 2020. Should have did this, should have did that day too. But like I and I kept saying it the whole time during the tournament was we need sun, we need the sun. And then we had cloudy all day and rainy. And then the second day, I'm glad we didn't have the wind. So I'll take the rain, you know, versus the wind at any time, but we needed a little bit of wind because the practice we had like Easter day was really good.
Jake Caughey (29:12)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (29:25)
Flat common Sunday was still good, especially down South, but I'm just like, we need sun. Those fish wanted the sun.
Jake Caughey (29:32)
Yeah, no, I think when when that water would warm up, ⁓ especially up north, they would they would bite a lot better. And then it was just the bite just, you know, was a little tougher when it was cooler. And then down south, you just had that little bit warmer water. Like it was always even that first cold, rainy day that we had of the tournament. Like I still had 50 degree water temps. So it was it was like, you know, they're still going to be pretty consistent in that. And I just didn't I was like,
I know this is a long run and I'm probably the same fish I could catch up Northstein right by the ramp, but I just have a lot of confidence in what I was doing. it's like, you know, I did catch a nice over in practice. So was like, you know, get one of those and there you go. ⁓
Brian Bashore (30:18)
Yeah.
Yeah. If I would've caught up over even a couple of 19s down South versus his 30 17s, would've been like, that's it. I'm going South because there one lives there at least one lives down there. didn't catch any up North either, but I knew they were there. I fished sharp, but just a few times in my life and did catch a 30 inch up North. Um, or my teammate did a new way of practice for an MWC. And I'm like, you know, there was three of them caught up here. Granted, this was 10 years ago. And I'm like, I know they're up here, but a little earlier, earlier in the year.
⁓ when I rolled it on Friday, mid morning practice and I had eight pounds on pre-spawn females real fast. And I kind of got eight pounds about every day practice. I'm like, okay. You know, and then typically you're to do better in intermix. You're going to grind those spots a little harder. You know, you're going to, you know, you're not going to just give it an hour or whatever. So I'm like, all right, we're good. Maybe, maybe 10 would be a phenomenal day at this point, but we should be able to get eight, you know, and then bring in five and six pounds.
pretty disappointing but a lot of saga moved in and those fish were spawning and dumping their eggs and getting out of there.
Jake Caughey (31:23)
Yeah, it was crazy. mean, like, I guess you could say I learned a lot at this tournament. I guess if you don't learn something from from a tournament, you know, whether even if you won the tournament, I'd say you didn't, you know, win or I always I always try to learn from tournaments and fishing during a spawn on a reservoir. I've never done that before. So it's like, I guess Chamberlain kind of. But when we were at Chamberlain, everything was mostly post spawn the last time we were there. But it
Yeah, that was a big learning experience and just the whole works and I don't know, looking forward to the next time we have to fish a reservoir for the spawn.
Brian Bashore (32:04)
Yeah, that was a challenge to be prepared. I blew it. did not bring my Detroit river jig box with all my half to one ounces that, know, everybody was vertical jig. And I'm like, I got, you know, a few in here and I could have went by some of them. Like, nah, I started pulling some lead and trolling was really producing a lot, a lot more fish. Granted, you know, I had four rods out versus the one I practiced by myself the whole time and, you know, and scope and, I caught them. I caught them even in the tournament. I scoped a few off some sandbars, but you know, they were one pounders.
Jake Caughey (32:21)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (32:33)
So it was like, this is fun, but this isn't going to work out. So throwing them, you know, throwing them back, but yeah, just didn't, it didn't lay up like I thought it would, but you know, congrats to Robert Crowe. And I think you ended up with like, what do get 28th maybe.
Jake Caughey (32:47)
Yeah, I ended up just out of a check. Yeah, I good points to start the year, but, uh, yeah, I guess I started last year in 29th place. So we're doing better than last year, but.
Brian Bashore (32:49)
Yeah.
No, it's
all right. That's good points. It's a lot better than my 78. So, and that thing was so one pound, one fish, like I brought in four, right? You got to bring in five period. It's rule number one. I always tell them like, we got to bring in five, you know, and it might get to one that made a difference as a pound. would have taken it from, but that one pound would have taken it from 78 to like 58 maybe, you know, or, or 60th. It was so tight.
Jake Caughey (33:19)
Well, it's
not even the weight sometimes. Like I remember when we started at the Illinois River, I was tied for the last check spot with two other guys and I didn't get the last check because the first day I brought four fish in and then I brought five the second day and they go to, I think the first tiebreaker is limits. And so I lost that. So I lost money because I literally didn't toss a sauger in the box or well, I caught four fish.
Brian Bashore (33:38)
Yeah.
Yep.
Jake Caughey (33:47)
is what it is but I didn't have five fish like I did and we had the same weight throughout the tournament but no, he got her so that's...
Brian Bashore (33:56)
And that sucks when you're on a, when
you can call like we could call it the Illinois river. And then when you like in the bite wasn't great. So they're like, I'm going to calling tournament suite. just get a box of them and not have to stress. And they're like, I can't even catch enough to call. This sucks, man.
Jake Caughey (34:02)
Yeah.
Well, look at England's year last year, how that got decided. mean, one little 14-inch sawger could have made a difference, you know?
Brian Bashore (34:12)
Yeah, Phil.
Yep. Yeah. That's the
difference between a brand new boat and not one. So that's, that's a big difference.
Jake Caughey (34:20)
Yeah, Like,
crap and a brand new poet.
Brian Bashore (34:24)
Yep. Yeah.
If you ate first, you are last in that it doesn't matter. It's nice to say I finished in the top 10 of the AOI, but it paid just as good as the guy that finished hundred twentieth. So. ⁓
Jake Caughey (34:36)
Yeah,
someone asked me where were you in AOI last year? I like, I don't know, like not first. ⁓
Brian Bashore (34:40)
Now first I know that so yeah,
you know, 20th, fifth, whatever it's I'm close, but it doesn't matter. So slowly get it. I think it might be in your future. You've been on the roll. You're doing it. All right. Who are you traveling with a group of guys this year?
Jake Caughey (34:47)
Yeah, well, we're getting we're getting better. We're just slowly creeping up the ladder. Yeah.
Yeah, so have always traveled with what we call team godfathers like Gary Maher. He's the godfather, we call him. Pretty much done everything. And while I tournament fishing, ⁓ been a really good mentor to me actually, pretty cool. I've never had someone to like mentor me or kind of just this happened in the 2002 PWT down here. Look, you know, or whatever.
Brian Bashore (35:03)
Okay, yep.
Yep, good dude.
Yep.
Jake Caughey (35:27)
and then Kurt Hansen, ⁓ and then Chris Walker and, we call him whack. He, ⁓ is having a baby. So he's only, he only fished the first tournament this year. So we brought on, ⁓ Kent Anderson and, yeah. So we have us four will be traveling, traveling the rest of the tour and, ⁓ yeah, be a good team and looking forward to it. So a lot of, a lot of tournament experience there. So.
All those guys, all the top 10s and wins that they've had. I'm just trying to absorb some of the stuff that they tell me.
Brian Bashore (36:01)
Well, listen to Gary because we're off to lacrosse on the Mississippi River and that's last time Gary was there. I believe he won it. So.
Jake Caughey (36:08)
I will say that the one of the things I've learned from Gare is he's probably one of the most level headed competitors I've ever met. Like he could be leading a tournament and then totally suck the next day and he's like, yeah, well that sucks. You know, it is what it is. ⁓ He's like, I've that a million times. I'm like, really? And he's like, yeah. But then like Prairie DuPain, for example, we had a terrible practice.
Brian Bashore (36:26)
Yeah. Swagos.
Jake Caughey (36:38)
Like we were like, I caught my first legal walleye 15 minutes before I went in to the rules meeting and we had like one spot where we caught a couple and like Kurt and Gary were going to go there and Gary was sitting in like 41st or 43rd after the first day and just, you know, Mr. Level headed like, Oh yeah, we'll catch him tomorrow. You know, whatever. And he went out there and whacked them and won the tournament. And it's just like such a detriment to like how
Brian Bashore (36:45)
I had
Jake Caughey (37:06)
how you have to be if you're fishing at that level. You can't let any, you know, a mediocre day buggy or when you have a crappy day after, you know, sitting in the top 10 or stuff like that. That's what I've learned because I, I've been pretty good at being a one day tournament angler for awhile growing, growing pains and stuff, but.
Brian Bashore (37:27)
It, uh, does suck when you drop or have a good day and a bad day, or, mean, it's always better to follow your bad day with a good day. So you can at least leave on a high note that you were on something. It just didn't work out this day to do the conditions, but that's term efficient is you had to make that adjustment and figure it out. And we don't always make the right adjustments clearly.
Jake Caughey (37:45)
No, it's a bigger mental game than a lot of people think. I mean, you can, ⁓ it's a totally different deal when they're out there and practice and you're just like, I'm going to go try this spot. I'm going to go try this spot. You know, have to remember to do that in tournaments. have to remember like, Hey, just because you caught a 19 incher on this little tree at Lake Sharp, like you don't need to go right back there all the time. You know, like maybe fish something that looks similar in the tournament. Some of my best tournaments I've like made a little audible during the tournament.
Brian Bashore (37:48)
Totally.
Jake Caughey (38:15)
maybe fished a little new water that was similar to what I them practice and then it was like, ⁓ man, no one's here, these are the right fish and there you go, you just wreck them.
Brian Bashore (38:26)
Yeah, I didn't even where I caught my biggest fish, wasn't the 19 and a half practice on sharp. I don't even fish. I never fished it again. ⁓
Jake Caughey (38:31)
Yeah, yeah,
some one-offers too where you're like, I don't have time to fish all this crap and then all of sudden, you know, good one and then, but at the end of the tournament, that's all you got.
Brian Bashore (38:44)
Yep. It was actually a spot, two spots at a deep lead lead spot here in current by some of that timber kind of a gnarly spot where something big is probably hanging out versus the seven six foot shadow flat, which is where I could catch in a ton of them. But I started here and I seen a couple other guys would start here courts and some other guys are trolling it. They all made a pass and left. I'm like, they're obviously.
Jake Caughey (38:53)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (39:07)
They're not there. They're not biting. These guys know what they're doing. They're not, they're not leaving if they're on fish. So that, was all I had to see was, you know, paying attention to what's going on around you. Like I don't need to waste my time there. I'm to go keep going further south where there wasn't really anybody on the flat and we absolutely caught the crap out of them. But yeah, you got to make those little minor adjustments and, fish that new water sometimes and be like, I know what I'm looking for. This water temperature, this current, you know, clarity, whatever it may be or structure and be like, they're, they're out of.
ought to be there. And, course, the advancement electronics, you can drop down and be like, and they are. So now I'm going to catch them.
Jake Caughey (39:43)
Yeah, that's
why I'm looking forward to Pixtown so much for the NTC. That was like one of my first like, hey, I'm so proud of myself because I went to a spot that I hadn't planned on fishing in the tournament. I like put in the first day of practice, ran some water, caught a few fish at this one spot. They're like 90 inches, which were pretty plentiful during that practice. And I was having a little tough time day two after a decent day one. And I was like, I'm going to go check that spot.
It was just like every 15 feet there was like a 19 and a half inch you're just sitting right there, right there, right there. And I was just picking them off and then got lucky and cracked like a 26 and a half and we're done by 1030. And I was like, gosh, so proud of myself for going out. No, not that's not normally what I do. And, know, you just stick to your game plan and I just audible that. And after that, I've been like, well, I'm just going to trust the day, trust my instincts, trust my.
Ever since I started doing that, it's been a total game changer.
Brian Bashore (40:44)
Yeah, trust your gut. You're always like, here's my game plan. This is what I'm to go do. But I don't know. More often than not, you're about to take off and you're like, man, but something's telling me go do this or go here. And more often now I'm like, Nope, I got to be here at eight. I got to be this spot at 10. I got to be here at 1115. Now I'm in the same boat. I'm like, Nope, I'm going left. You know, I'm going to go somewhere completely different and more often than not it pays out. Not always. Sometimes you're like, son of a bitch.
Should have went, should have taken a right, but you don't know.
Jake Caughey (41:15)
like
last year at Green Bay like you either were going right or you were going right you were going way left like way left and yeah I chose to beat my boat up and all my stuff and my co anglers and myself and go way left both days so
Brian Bashore (41:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a, you know, with the boats nowadays, you got a warrior, you got a wave wrecking machine and one of the few tiller guys that's still out there. It's always you or Tim Abraham. always like, I don't know. It's either Jake or Tim. It's Jake or Tim. can't tell which one of those guys it is over there until I get real close, but I'm like, it's a tiller warrior. There's only a couple out there and you know, but now we've got the candy shop on it. So I'm like, that's Jake. Okay. I know who it is.
Jake Caughey (41:58)
Yeah, no, well, I mean me or Tim but like I'm not gonna you know I'm I'm a little bit taller than a couple guys on tour I would say Tim is one of them and definitely chase Parsons. I mean he He thinks he's tall but I don't know if that's when he's standing on his like Staple in the mirror when he goes to brush his teeth in the morning or what the deal is like I think they let him stop ordering out the kids meal and
Brian Bashore (42:08)
Yep, yep, definitely.
Probably.
Jake Caughey (42:23)
He's grown up a little bit, but he's still not as tall as me. Like, just because I have short legs and like a fat gut doesn't mean I'm not like 5'10".
Brian Bashore (42:31)
Yeah, Chase is, ⁓ don't even know how tall he is. Not very, and Tim is definitely a short, short stout dude as well. No.
Jake Caughey (42:39)
I wouldn't want to mess with Tim though. I mean, I'd way rather mess
with Silver Tim because like Tim's pretty jacked.
Brian Bashore (42:45)
Yeah, he is. Tim's a dude. and he's a, he's a no nonsense, no bold type of guy. So he, he stayed at the Mo motel next to me on this last term of him and, and the McQuade and Herd and, and Zell. we got to cook up some brats one night and shoot the stuff a little bit. So we're going to lacrosse. What's your history on the Mississippi? you there? You were there at parade of Shane a few years ago.
Jake Caughey (43:09)
Yep,
so I don't have a ton of history on the Mississippi River. ⁓
Brian Bashore (43:15)
Well,
none of us do for lacrosse because we've never gone out of lacrosse. So that's pools eight. So for those listening, lacrosse is on pool eight. So you're like kind of lacrosse to the Genoa I think. then, but we can go up, up to seven or down to nine. So nine is Prairie de Cheney, which a lot of people have experienced in, well, Prairie de Cheney is actually 10 and we'd be locking up, but we can go down or up. So seven, eight, nine are all in play.
Jake Caughey (43:38)
I would assume that, you know, I've been doing a little research as I do for every tournament. Mainly the most research you can do for like pool seven on the Mississippi river is watching bass fishing. So it, it's pretty cut and dry. There's always the river rats that know like, Hey, behind this little tree, there's like four rocks and that's where all the big ones out if you throw willow cat or whatever. I like fishing rivers and.
Not so much because I'm good at it, because I'm not, but because it makes me do stuff that I'm not comfortable doing. It makes me pull lead core. makes me drag jigs, fish without forward facing sonar and just your instincts. Looking forward to that. And I didn't spend a whole ton of time on pool nine when we were at Prairie du Chien. I think I spent like two days up there and I didn't catch him any better than I did on pool 10. I like, I'm not going to mess with the locks. ⁓
But it, I'm guessing that's where a lot of people will go just by the sounds of it. Kind of what I've been seeing is, pool nine. You know, there's a lot of fish in pool nine. The one thing all across is like, there's just not a ton of walleyes, but it is the Mississippi river. Like I am originally from Brainerd, Minnesota. And there's people that don't think there's a ton of walleyes up there in the Mississippi river. And it's absolutely loaded. just have a ton of lakes around that everyone likes to go to. ⁓ yeah.
Brian Bashore (45:01)
Yep, because it's easier than the river.
Jake Caughey (45:04)
Yeah, but you know, fishing rivers, you get all kinds of stuff. It's just like Lake Sharp. I mean, you're pitching and you might be catching giant smallies. You might be catching walleyes, pike, crappie, you name it. You know, it's just like that on the river. When we were at Prairie du Chien, I had a ton of fun. it, yeah, we didn't catch a ton of fish till like the tournament days, but I had a ton of fun just exploring stuff. Every little backwater cut or even like pool forest kind of that way.
little nooks and crannies you get to explore. I don't know, looking forward to it. ⁓ I like these places where people haven't gone all the time. I'm not a big time ⁓ tournament name or walleye angler so I don't have a ton of people blowing up my box like, hey, I'm from lacrosse, you gotta try this, this, and this and wanting to be my best buddy so that I... ⁓
do good in a tournament or they can say, yeah, I gave Jake Cahee the winning bite or the entire bite or whatever. I don't have that going on. So I like like the no information role last year at Huron. I thought was awesome for the championship. Like I wish we'd do that for every tournament and then like a practice period as well. ⁓ I thought that was really good and it kind of, I don't know, as far as like the pre-information kind of just levels the playing ground and really puts it out there to say, all right guys.
Brian Bashore (46:05)
All right.
Jake Caughey (46:28)
Go figure it out because you're supposedly supposed to be the best anglers. Go figure it out on the water, right? Not pour.
Brian Bashore (46:36)
Yeah, those are two rules. I agree. I wish they're in place to know info things very hard to enforce. You see it in bass world this year. And I mean, and you know, the guys are enforcing it on themselves, but they're taking a lot more polygraphs and stuff than NWT isn't just randomly doing them because they're not cheap. So, ⁓ and I totally, totally get that, but yeah, there's definitely people that inboxes are, are loaded up and you know, I used to manage some of these or have access to some of these pros Facebook profiles that I had helped.
kind of do their social and I would see those come through. I personally don't that's great. And, but I just can't catch those other people's fish when they, tell you about that bite. So I'm like, it's good info. Not to say I'm not going to go look at it, but 90 % of the time I'm like, cool. It's not for me. It's not going to, that's great. I'm not, know that I can go there and I'm not going to catch them the way you're telling me. And then most of that information isn't, isn't it. It was a year ago when they caught them there, you know, I'm like, if it wasn't yesterday.
Jake Caughey (47:19)
Yep, same.
Brian Bashore (47:33)
It's old, old news to me, not to say I'm not going to take it into consideration and be like, Oh, that's the exact same pattern that I'm on over here. So maybe it does work, but like sniper's at a time it ain't happening. And I don't know who you are.
Jake Caughey (47:46)
Yeah, exactly. mean, how many times you've been out of gas station filling up and some guy comes up to show you the 24 inch that he just caught or something like that. And he's like, yeah, I caught it right here on a blue hair jig or whatever. Okay. And you go, you know, you go sniff around and you're like, okay, no, not going to work for me. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea what the current was, what cadence you're using. mean, that it's just, yeah, trust your trust your own instincts is way better.
Brian Bashore (47:57)
Right.
I gotta work. Unless I- I- Yeah.
Yep.
Unless you see them on the water, you know, just putting on a clinic and they want to come share all their info, what they were using an eighth ounce, you know, whatever this was. You're like, yeah, that was legit. I watched it happen. So I might go, go mix this up and try it. Or you got any more of those baits or where can I get some of those at? That seems to be what they're dialed in on here. But so the Mississippi river, I like you, I love the rivers. pool nine is full of those little, you know, kind of sloughs and Minnesota slough. There's, there's a lot of places, you know,
Jake Caughey (48:33)
Right.
Brian Bashore (48:45)
to go and look. eight, I heard last year at a coangler at Skakwea that was from lacrosse. And he said that the walleye fishing was actually really good. Now I've fished that pool before bass fishing. I gave up walleye fishing after like four hours and went, I'm going bass fishing for the week I'm here. Cause this is fun. We're catching a ton of them. ⁓ there, there was a few walleye caught, but there was quite a few boats. It was outdoor rider event. And I think one walleye was caught the whole week. So.
Jake Caughey (49:10)
Yeah, I mean,
when we go there, people are going to figure them out. Someone always does. And a lot of these river tournaments, like you see a lot of locals up there in the top, you know, in the, ⁓ so I wouldn't say it's a survival event because I really stopped using that word of like, Hey, I'm going to survive and try to get points and stuff like that, because I want to cash a check. Like, I'm not, you know, I'm not here to like,
Brian Bashore (49:16)
Right.
Yep. Yep.
Yeah, this.
Jake Caughey (49:38)
spend five grand for the week and then just be like, okay, I got 45th and I'm okay with points. Like, no, I want to be in the money. Like I want to win this deal, you know? And so someone's going to figure them out. like I always just ask myself like, why not me? Why can't it be me? You know, I'm going to, I might land on that perfect little spot where I toss a willow cat in and, know, do the Gary Maher.
Brian Bashore (50:01)
Yep. Somebody's always got to be a donator and unfortunately I've been one plenty the last couple of seasons. So, but it gets, it gets old, right? This isn't cheap. I need to go the worst case scenario. need to cash in a check, you know, best case scenario. That check is, is extremely large. that's.
Jake Caughey (50:11)
No.
Yeah.
Yeah,
this is, that's one thing. It is not cheap at all to run any of that. I mean, like after you, yeah, the boats and electronics and all that stuff is incredibly expensive, but just the, just the fuel. don't think people on a fuel you put in, like you don't go to the same access every day. Like Sharp was an hour away a lot of the times, you know, one way to put the boat in.
Brian Bashore (50:40)
Right.
Jake Caughey (50:47)
Fuel, lodging, mean just everything throughout the week just adds up and especially now that we're, I mean we have some pretty long trips on there, Alpina and Dunkirk and even Green Bay if you make the championship, you know.
Brian Bashore (50:59)
Yep. Yeah. It, you know, when we had, you know, speaking of survival mode, we had 93, I think there was 95, we ended up with 93, you know, anglers in this last tournament. That is not a good number. And there's a far fetch from 125 average that you need to have the, uh, entry free championship. So I'm not really sure how this is going to fold out. That should have been one of the bigger tournaments of the year. Uh, same with lacrosse.
Jake Caughey (51:18)
Yeah.
I think
South Dakota always has like 120, 130 boats in any tournament we've ever had there. So it's a little concerning to see that. And I don't know if that's just partly like the economy or it was just, you know, Easter weekend or whatever. Yeah. I don't know what lacrosse will be. mean, it's a river tournament. Some people are intimidated by rivers, you know, and then after two tournaments, here we go. Now we got to drive all the way out to Alpena.
and see what happens out there. Yeah, it could be tough for a lot of people to run the whole works and then not to top it all off. So you're sitting in 50th spot or 50th, you're within reach, but you need to have a really good tournament. Well, now we got to drive two days one way out.
Brian Bashore (52:05)
Yep.
Right now
you got a $8,000 investment to go to Dunkirk, New York, you know, to get points.
Jake Caughey (52:18)
There's a very good chance at here on end at Erie that you sit on shore for three or four days of your practice. I mean, you know how the Great Lakes are. It can be real nasty if you get that wrong wing.
Brian Bashore (52:24)
Right.
Yep. Yeah. We're hitting them in the
summer. So hopefully the weather is little more stable, but here on is it's always going to be rocking and rolling. There's just no way to get out of it. And it doesn't take much wind to kind of get that thing moving. I mean, you can always go down into Saginaw or a river.
Jake Caughey (52:46)
I can't believe how rough that lake was. Roughest lake that I've ever been on. I think the last day of practice there, it was an offshore wind, which should be perfect. There was like four mile an hour offshore wind. It was a beautiful morning, calm. And there was no residual from the day before. I went out like two miles. It was like three footers. I'm like, why? This place is always wavy. It's never...
class, you can never go f****g that place is just nasty. Like, it runs there is not easy. Like you have to have some equipment to do that.
Brian Bashore (53:25)
Yeah, it doesn't. It's the way it lays. heard it's the windiest or the, know, the kind of roughest of all the great lakes, the way it lays north to south. It's just so big and wide and long that yeah. And then deep and crystal clear. mean, you could just take your glass of water, dip it in there and drink. And I'm pretty sure that is some clean, clean water, but
Jake Caughey (53:36)
EEP
It was nuts how you couldn't get close to anything out there. In the really clear water, if you were within 90 feet, if you hit 80, they were gone. It was like Sia. I fished some of that 125 feet of water stuff. I ended up fishing in dirtier water and was shallower. It was a lot more consistent than all that. Huron was fun because they have shipwrecks all over.
There you can go see them. So I was snooping around at the shipwrecks checking those out. I did have a lot of fun.
Brian Bashore (54:24)
It's a cool place. Actually, we're heading up that way to, Mackinac Island and stuff, I think for vacation here late in July. ⁓ I won't be fishing up there in the, the turrets. That's just, it's, that's too far to drive, not a place we want to go. No, thanks. Just, ⁓ going to do some other stuff. ⁓
Jake Caughey (54:40)
Yep.
Brian Bashore (54:43)
You touched on a little bit. are some other, you got any other input on what, can we do to get these numbers up? What can we do to make the walleye tournament circuits bigger? think local wise, there's a ton of tournaments going on. You got the Ames, MWCs, obviously NWT, MTT, which is, you know, big. One of my buddies that's fishing NTC with me is jumping in those this year. Casino cups have been, you know, pretty successful over the years and we both fished that one at Sakakwea. ⁓ we, know, there's the Gov cups. There's just a ton of walleye tournaments and some of those smaller ones.
Maybe they're growing a little bit. I don't know, but they're doing fine. what can you know? What can we do? What can we make? How can we make this all better with what we have?
Jake Caughey (55:22)
Yeah, you know, I That's a tough question. Like I think you know, there's some rules and stuff that maybe need to be changed like the no information Yeah, that is what it is. But like the practice period stuff ⁓ I know this is a professional circuit. So like
I am technically, I don't ever call myself a professional angler. I'm just a guy who likes to compete because I do have a day job. That's what brings home the bacon. not going out and fishing. That's not something that brings home millions of dollars every year. You can have a really, really, really bad year fishing. me, I've a few.
Brian Bashore (56:01)
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm well aware.
Jake Caughey (56:06)
I don't know, it would be nice to see some of these circuits go out and just get more sponsorship money and more sponsors to support the Anglers. I mean, you watch the, I'm a very big fan of the Bassmaster Elite Series. I watch it all the time. watch all everybody's YouTube channels. ⁓ And it's like, just to see the amount of sponsorship. Yes, I know we're on a smaller circuit and stuff, but I really think if someone really put the time in and stuff, look at what the FLW used.
Like I'm a huge Wallet Tournament fan. Like I used to watch all the old PWT, FLW videos, stuff like that. ⁓ The FLW used to do really well with sponsorships and stuff like that. I don't know where we kind of strayed away from that or now it's more of like we need to make a bunch of money doing this or else we're not going to do it. ⁓ But I would just like to see a circuit that, you know, put more of the anglers first instead of...
everything else or at least make it feel that
Brian Bashore (57:07)
Yeah, that's, it's, you're right. And that's a tough, tough gig, especially I, and part of our numbers being down is like you touched on the economy fuels, not cheap. And I think a lot of that, you know, is, is the travel on, you know, this year's schedule. ⁓ I know Jason, I touched on that and he didn't think the travel was, he thinks, you know, a lot more about the rules and it's, I think it's just a little bit of everything. the, investment on things, the, you know, the, the enforcement of certain things that are in place or not in place. ⁓
Jake Caughey (57:29)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (57:36)
Seems to be running pretty good. ran pretty good last year, even though we had those weird limits. took all that off this year. ⁓ you know, may not keep them more fish, which is much more appealing to people, but the sponsorship level of it is. I get it. And in our NWT, I like it. Mass Pro owns it. The wallet federation runs it, you know, so who's going out and chasing this and who's getting it. You keep telling us about, you know, this new company or I think rapidly just signed on and anyway, the new sponsor.
Jake Caughey (57:55)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (58:05)
but nothing changed for the anglers. I'm like, thanks for telling us, but what does that mean to us? You know? ⁓
Jake Caughey (58:11)
You know,
you found a little bit deeper pay, like to pay the 40 % of the field or something like that. think you have a lot more people hopping in, right? I think people that are like, well, if I'm looking at the NWT, like just the season, I would say it's probably 20 grand between 15 and 20 grand just to fish those four tournaments, right? Not championship between 15 and $20,000. And it,
Brian Bashore (58:22)
yeah.
yeah.
Jake Caughey (58:39)
That's a lot of money. So say you pay 40 % of the field or whatever, it gets a $3,000 check or whatever. Like, K, cash, three checks, or you know, because you got, you know, 35th, a 30th, a 37th. And there you go, there's nine grand of that. So it makes it a little more feasible for a guy to run the whole tour and yeah.
There's circuits that do pay down a little bit farther and that's great and stuff like that. on the national level, mean, there's really only one pro circuit, you know, that's pretty much it. So. ⁓
Brian Bashore (59:14)
Yeah, we
went to one and four, so 25 % of the feeling is paid, which is how it used to always be. That's still, but we up the entry fees, 250 bucks basically that cover that. So once again, you're bringing in these new sponsors. So good on you. And I get it. There's operating costs. There's all these things, but nothing, nothing's changed. We still have the same coverage, the same live feed, right? The same, all these, nothing's changed. So I'm like, don't tell me about it. You know what?
Jake Caughey (59:24)
Yup.
Nope.
Brian Bashore (59:44)
Just keep you miles of just keep that to yourself. Cause all you're to do, you're just pissing off a bunch of anglers going cool. They're on board. We should see something. We don't, we don't see nothing. You're not, are you handing out rap?
Jake Caughey (59:55)
Yeah, there's only like a certain amount of time you can keep going like that guys are just going to keep showing up and showing up and then eventually the numbers are like it's just that's just how it works. It's not it's not just tournament fishing. It's any business if it if you keep doing something a certain way and people are kind of like, I don't know. Like they're going to be seeking out other opportunities. Like like, for example, for you, you're like
Brian Bashore (1:00:11)
Right.
Jake Caughey (1:00:22)
Hey, I don't really like where the schedule's going. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm going to go on vacation in July instead of go beat myself up. You know, it makes sense. So.
Brian Bashore (1:00:28)
Yep.
Yep. Yep. You can't do the same. And the walleye world's not very good at evolving head to head is, you know, made some created themselves created a platform as you know, it's the PWS thing didn't work out so much, but they may, I wouldn't be surprised if that comes back. Amy's made some adjustments. A lot of these governor cups are doing the catch photo release stuff. ⁓
Other people, you know, and they're doing some out here in the fishing crews, trying to do a little on the water, live thingy at noon with a few anglers. was one of them at Chamberlain and thank God we actually caught fish when the camera was rolling. It may not be the greatest thing. It's definitely not MLF Bassmaster elite series quality, but it's there. They're, trying, they're doing something. They're trying to throw it something new out there, you know, to keep everybody entertained and.
Jake Caughey (1:01:02)
⁓ It's.
Brian Bashore (1:01:20)
For people watching along. Cause if you ever notice on any of even the local term, as soon as it's over, everybody wants to the results. And some people don't, they're just, they don't get them up. They don't post them for weeks. You know, I mean, worst case scenario, take a photo with, you know, of the, of the, the board where you write it in a Sharpie on the trailer and post that at least, you know, let those people know they want to see where their friends or whoever are sitting at the end of the day and what kind of ground they got to make up or if they're leading. So some of it doesn't take a lot. It just takes, like you said, somebody has to build it.
Jake Caughey (1:01:25)
Yep.
Brian Bashore (1:01:49)
want to and then has to put in a little effort and do a little work.
Jake Caughey (1:01:53)
Yeah, I like, you know, the social media side could be more to like Robert does a great job, but he's kind of a one man band on the social media stuff. He can only do much and great job for what he does. it ⁓ like just more of that more of, ⁓ you know, coverage. You got to have you got to tell a story to like maybe maybe some guys don't like each other or something like that. know people who don't like each other, who get heated on the water like.
some rivalries or like, you know, this guy doesn't like this guy and they're going head to head for angler of the year. Like make some stories out of it. Right. You know, so, uh, like, I don't know if you could, you could do a lot with it. You don't have to thought about it and whatnot. When you're driving down the road, you're like, Oh man, that'd be kind of cool. But, um, at the end of the day, you know, it's got something has to happen because I don't think we've seen numbers, you know, increase. So.
Brian Bashore (1:02:50)
No,
they've slowly decreased year after year, but it's business and it does take money to do all these things. So when they bring in new sponsors and maybe the angler doesn't see it on the payout side, I just say, I hope some of that's helping you invest into the organization. So where you're going to do something new, you're going to do something different. Maybe it's more, more coverage, more, you know, we've taken these profile photos for a couple of seasons in a row and they're still not a profile page, you know, on the website. I'm like,
I'm not giving you another photo. It happening. You're done. I quit wasting my time. So.
Jake Caughey (1:03:23)
It would be
super easy to send out something when you register that is like, Hey, where are from? What's your favorite food? You know, kind of like we do for the championship, like Robert. And then, you know, like, like church it up a little bit, like maybe for the championship, maybe we have a drive through weigh in, you know, sweet, have a drive through weigh in. then your sponsors can be, you know, pumped out a little bit more. There's a little more camera time, like 40 anglers.
worked their butt off to get there all year, like give them a little recognition for making the championship, even if they had a bad tournament or something. Do a drive-through weigh-in, other stuff like that. Like I think it's great how they have the kids fishing clinic after, that's awesome. And that brings a lot of people to the event and to the area and stuff, but like we can do a lot of other stuff, I think that would really help the whole atmosphere out. Cause man, some of those South Dakota weigh-ins,
They're super fun because people just love it out there. And I don't know why we can't have that at every event.
Brian Bashore (1:04:25)
Yeah, they roll in for those. I, I covered the mass master classics at Lake Oahe on the media side when they were here years ago, but we weighed in in peer, even though they fished the system above, but they came into peer and weighed in and it was the crowd size was, it was big, you know, it's a bigger hoopla and what have you, but it's, this is walleye country. So he had just about as many people showed up for the NWT weigh-ins as the mass master classic had weighed in. I mean, then that tells you, mean, you've never seen,
Francis Case when you were there a couple years ago.
Jake Caughey (1:04:56)
my gosh, that way, wild, there were so many people there.
Brian Bashore (1:04:59)
Yeah,
there were hundreds. And then the NTC this year, 250 plus boats. I don't even know where everybody's going to park or be or how that's going to work out so well, but I would anticipate that, you know, maybe not enough exposure on that. A lot of people probably aren't even aware that it's, it's coming to town necessarily. Um, but it should be locally, the word will get out. So it should be good.
Jake Caughey (1:05:15)
Yeah.
That should be a fun way in too. And I'm hoping that Francis Case is fishing super good that time. Cause that was the same time that we were there. And when I got, cause we ended up, me and buddy, my buddy Jared, we, ⁓ got lucky on the Minnesota tournament trail championship on Lake of the woods last year. And so that they're a Federation, ⁓ you know, member. they're like, Hey, we got a bid to the NTC if you guys want it.
Brian Bashore (1:05:27)
Yep, Zach same time.
NNNN
Jake Caughey (1:05:47)
And they had like a couple of them for like team of the year and all that kind of stuff. Actually Hunter and Bob, Nady are going and we're staying with them and they're like, you got to come. And I'm like, all right, like twist my arm, get to go fish, picks town at the time of the year when the NWT was there. and so we, was like, yeah, absolutely. That was such a fun bite. I love fishing the Missouri river system. Let's go. So I'm hoping assault.
Brian Bashore (1:06:12)
It, it,
it should be good. Last year, the bite was not good at all. Um, people kind of quit going there, but all that did was give those fish a year to grow. Well, not a lot of pressure. And I've been fishing the Northern and the central part of it and it's good. And those fish are very healthy and there's plenty of them and a lot in that 18, 19 year class and a lot of that 20, 23 now you're going to get lower on the system where the there's definitely some bigger fish. So I think it should be good. It should fish.
Kind of like it did when we were there before. I think the fish might be fatter back then. They were kind of skinny when we were there for the NWT. you know they didn't. You know 19s they they weren't two plus pounders. They were kind of scrawny.
Jake Caughey (1:06:55)
Yeah, I got a lot of 19 and a half, 19 and three quarters that were like two, two and a quarter maybe like, know, those like nice big, you know, unders that sometimes you can get down there that's beating on, you know, like.
Pelagic baitfish and stuff like that Yeah, there were a lot a lot of skinny ones there. I think I had a 20 think only weighed like five pounds
Brian Bashore (1:07:22)
Yeah, they, the theory is that we need to have a hundred days of ice to kills off all that bait. And we didn't have that going into last, you know, the winter before we had like 20 days. And so all that bait made it through the, you know, the winter, those things, gorge, they were full made fishing tough. Cause there was a ton of bait in the system, you know, not, and then prior to the new bait hatch and then,
Jake Caughey (1:07:32)
Yeah.
Brian Bashore (1:07:44)
There's zebra mussels, that water's getting cleaner. Those fish are moving in some different areas. A lot of guys are just doing what a lot of local guys do and they go fish their spots. And if that ain't working, then I guess there's no fish left in the system and it's horrible. And I'm out of here type thing where, cause I knew guys that fished at that don't go there very often. They're like, I don't understand what the problem is. got, you know, got plenty of them. Well, they weren't fishing memories. They were just using electronics and, and driving around. So.
Jake Caughey (1:07:52)
Yeah.
Super
cool place. Gosh, I love PICS down those. I'm looking forward to it. I think anywhere on Francis case is good to be honest with you.
Brian Bashore (1:08:19)
Yeah,
it's a good fish factory. It should be fun. ⁓ If you haven't got lodging, good luck finding some. So there's not even any campsites available at this point. So.
Jake Caughey (1:08:29)
the one thing Hunter called me and he's like, don't worry about lodging dude, you're staying with us. I'm like, all right, sounds good. Perfect.
Brian Bashore (1:08:35)
Yeah. Yeah. Thank God. Thank God he's found a place.
So your best bet for anybody listening, if you're going to look at the hunting resort, pheasant outfitters and you know, see if they can rent you out a place. You may have to drive a little ways, but that's it. I looked at campsites last night and they're yeah, they're all gone. So.
Jake Caughey (1:08:53)
That's fish in
Dakotas. Anywhere in the Dakotas, you always have to drive, you know, to the rams.
Brian Bashore (1:08:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Especially Scott Kuya. mean, you know, you're
leaving at five or six in the morning to go practice. You're like, well, I got an hour drive. So, you know.
Jake Caughey (1:09:08)
At
least in the Dakota, when you're driving, it's like, there's some antelope. there's mule deer. there's a big white tail. there's pheasants, like literally chicken feet on the side of the road. I mean, like they're so thick. ⁓ I was swerving on my way out there because was on Friday night, know, it's like sun. It's like, man, I'm swerving, swerving, swerving. There's pheasants everywhere. I couldn't believe it. Like I was explaining it to someone on the phone. I was like,
Brian Bashore (1:09:21)
How many pheasants did you almost hit every day you drove down down south?
Jake Caughey (1:09:36)
I bet I can see like 30 or 40 pheasants right now on the road in front of me. Like they're everywhere. And man, if they get a little rain by the sounds of it, they're going to have an awesome, awesome action.
Brian Bashore (1:09:52)
Yeah. Yeah. We, we have no shortage of pheasants in South Dakota. So, you know, like I we could use, got, and they got a little rain, so we should be all right. I think it's going to be a good year, like, like every year, but a lot of that is where we're fishing on the system is a lot of reservation. So you just have all this untouched habitat and whether they stay on that or not, they're, breed on it. I saw antelope heading down there to West Bend one morning, got on the water, had turkeys everywhere, you know.
Jake Caughey (1:10:11)
Yep.
Brian Bashore (1:10:22)
I don't know how many, like you said, tons of pheasants, know, white tails, muleys, it's just everywhere. Eagles flying up and down the river.
Jake Caughey (1:10:30)
Yeah, down at West
Bend, there was a nice group of turkeys right before the ramp. Like, and I was like, so I just started turkey hunting a couple of years ago and that is like major big time addiction, which it doesn't fit in between any of my hobbies because I, all I tournament in the spring or we're working and, ⁓ but man, if I can sneak out for turkeys, that is awesome. So like there was one, one day we were pitching along a bank and I heard a hen scratching and so I'm just like,
Brian Bashore (1:10:34)
Yep
So, you know.
Jake Caughey (1:10:59)
You know, God, I'm gonna be a Tom around here. all of a I was like, I was just like, you know, throwing, I was like, oh, one just blows up on me. My body's like, Holy cow. So then we sat there for 20 minutes and really focused hard on fishing. But yeah, no, I'm like, Oh man, that's about as close as it's gonna get for me this spring. I think the way things are looking, it's pretty good.
Brian Bashore (1:11:13)
Right.
Yeah, I used to love
spring turkey hunt and I've done it in Nebraska on the Republican river where I actually had my shotgun in a sling over my back while I was standing in the middle of the river pitching road runners and catching white basterd and white basterd on, and then it had a little diaphragm call in my mouth. And I called Tom right to the bank and it was like, the rod down, flip it over. There we go.
Jake Caughey (1:11:38)
Yeah.
I love Turkey Hutton. no, definitely South Dakota is just a good place.
Brian Bashore (1:11:54)
It is where the wildlife roam. So if you're not aware of that, watch dancing with wolves people. So that's a pretty good testament of a lot of the prairie land. So, all right, we've been chit chatting for like a little over an hour already, and we could talk plenty longer. It's early. We all got to get to work. Um, let's wrap this up. Any thoughts, any little nuggets to leave for those listeners out there to help them along their angling journey, making better tournament anglers or better anglers in general.
Jake Caughey (1:12:01)
Yeah.
Uh, probably just, you know, I would say if you're going to learn life scope, one of the things that I did the first couple of times I had it, I didn't bring rods with, I just put it down in the boat and I just went out to spots that I've always, you know, if I line up this crappy house and this point right here, usually like October time, if I rig a child, I always catch a nice one, you know, or whatever. Go look at my favorite spots. Go look at all your favorite spots. Oh, there's a tree there. That's why, or there's a nice weed line.
here, there's a really nice rubble or whatever. That's the one thing I would do. ⁓ Don't ever be afraid to learn. I don't know how many times I've listened to Corey Sprengel at sports shows, but it's been a lot. And there's a lot of people I think who are too proud to be like, I don't need to go listen to this guy, listen to that guy. I've listened to Tom Winn, I don't know, a handful of times now. Every time I listen to people talk,
You learn a tidbit. If you can just take one little tidbit out of that, it makes you such a better tournament angler. Just be open-minded. Don't ever get that like, I know what I'm doing. I don't need to listen to this guy. know, this guy, you know, doesn't do good in tournaments, blah, blah, blah. You can always learn something. If you stop learning, stop winning. So that's, that's basically it. If you keep an open mind and, and, uh, for me, sometimes it's hard keeping, keeping my mouth shut and my ears open, but, uh,
If you can just absorb as much as you can, ⁓ that's something that I found has been successful.
Brian Bashore (1:13:55)
Yeah. Well said. Stop learning. Stop winning. You are correct. It's we, you'll never know everything in the wall. I were just in the fishing in general. And I always tell clients, I'm like, haven't, I've yet to see a wall. I read an in fisherman magazine or the wall. I insider magazine. we're completely speculating what we think we know, you know, that they're going to do. And live scope has opened up a whole new world to, like you said, I can go and see why, why am I catching Fisher every year between this landmark and this landmark and be like,
Oh, it's a different bottom or there is a big tree that I keep going right by and that, you know, this tank just lives there all the time.
Jake Caughey (1:14:31)
Yeah. And then like, for example, I listened to your podcast and you have all these different anglers on that I fish again. You'll be talking about a tournament we were just at or somewhere we're going and there I'm like, gosh, why didn't I think of that? That was a good idea. Like, you know, I can't believe that guy did that at that tournament or I, why didn't I think of that? You know? So I guess you could say I'm first time caller, longtime listener of the podcast.
Brian Bashore (1:14:54)
Yes, it is, uh, we're just dropping knowledge out there. if people just need to listen and fall along and you can ask, you know, the seminars are great. I always say, go, go listen to them. And just like you said, if you learn one thing, one little tidbit from another angler, it might be that one thing that takes you from 20th to first, you know, you implement it or whatever, but it's always evolving. always challenging and trying new things.
Jake Caughey (1:15:13)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Bashore (1:15:20)
That's just it. You can ask a hundred anglers the question about how to do this. You can probably get 90 different answers. So, you know, there's, yeah, there's not necessarily a right or wrong, but there's always a it was right at that time type thing.
Jake Caughey (1:15:33)
Yeah, everybody.
And like, people are like, well, how did you win this? Or how did you get a top five here? It's like, when it's your time, it's your time. It'll, it'll happen. Like if you, if you make sure that you're prepared, that's another thing like preparation, you know, big, you know, organization, that kind of stuff. If you're prepared and you have a game plan, that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing you can have going into a tournament. When it's your time, it's going to happen. Like it just works out that way. So.
Brian Bashore (1:16:00)
Ask Robert
Crowe. He'll tell you when it's your time. It just happens. I heard the, ⁓ I think the big one was caught up by his co who it sounded like he was, he thought he was snagged on a log and it was just ripping on it. You know, and then he looked out and could see it and it was on the other side of the boat and they brought it all the way under the boat. And I like when that works out like that, it's just, it's your time. So.
Jake Caughey (1:16:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's all.
Yeah, it's,
⁓ man, I can imagine seeing a nine and a half pounder coming up on the sharp.
Brian Bashore (1:16:30)
Yep.
But I guarantee he was prepared. He knew the area was potentially holding these fish and he was prepared to have the right equipment and gear and was locked on and was able to, you know, successfully come whether you want to call it luck or not. There's always a lot of luck in fishing, but if he didn't have all these other things in play, he wouldn't have got the fish in the boat. You know, he wouldn't have screwed up the net job or his line would have broke, or he would have had Nick's in his lead or whatever the case is, you know, several things would could easily make that go South. So it, uh,
Jake Caughey (1:16:33)
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah, Bobby closed
here to doing well in tournaments, so he's seen a few in his day so Cool
Brian Bashore (1:17:04)
Yeah, he's been around. It's definitely been around a long time. No.
All right. Awesome. Thanks a ton for your time this morning, Jake, and we look forward to seeing you over at lacrosse. Good luck the rest of the season for all of those listening. You can follow Jake's journey along on, believe it's Jake Kahee fishing.
Jake Caughey (1:17:22)
Yep, Facebook and Instagram.
Brian Bashore (1:17:25)
There you go. Catch him on the socials. Follow him along. A guy is a stick. he's hoping for another year, like his last couple of years where he's making some money and cashing a lot of checks.
Jake Caughey (1:17:35)
It'd be
nice. We're finally getting back to those levels after all the years of sucking.
Brian Bashore (1:17:41)
Yeah,
it's going to, takes a little while to make up for the initial investment with the 28 tournaments of season where you maybe made a few hundred bucks. And they're like, all right, now, now it's all starting to balance out. It's probably still probably on the losing end because it just takes forever. But you know, you know, you get a couple of wins underneath your belt and then that the scales tip and you're like, all right, now I'm above water, you know, but like you said, we're not in it for the money. We're in it for the passion and, and the plaques and the memories are the things that nobody can take away from you. So.
Jake Caughey (1:17:47)
you
Yep.
Yep. Someday I'll have to pull a man cave, but it might take a few years.
Brian Bashore (1:18:11)
Alright, thanks.
It may take a few years. It, it's worth the, you know, it's worth the time. It's worth the investment and worth a great group of guys traveling with it just makes life fun. So that's what it's all about. If we ain't enjoying it and there ain't no point in doing it. So let's get out there and have a good time. And it is full on fishing season everywhere across the upper Midwest. Now, except for you poor people, you know, the poor hanglers that live in these States with walleye seasons, I'm sorry for you. Um, but you're more than welcome to come over to the Dakotas anytime where we catch them all year round. So.
Jake Caughey (1:18:28)
Yeah, that's good.
And yet there's giant crappies over in the Dakotas that don't get touched because people are fishing walleyes in the spring.
Brian Bashore (1:18:45)
That's it.
Right
It's because they're not
all eyes are perched and, if you want some small mouth fish in West Bend area on Lake Sharp is a second to none right now. You can catch yourself. Yeah.
Jake Caughey (1:19:01)
I'm all for crappies. I caught
a giant crappie in the tournament, like giant. Like I was catching like 13 and a half, 14 inches in practice. I caught like a 15 and a half in the tournament. I was like, this thing weighs more than any walleye.
Brian Bashore (1:19:10)
of big crappies.
Yeah, no doubt that is the take of a crappy that's one for the wall. That is, that's, that is a big crop. That's I'm pretty sure that's a proud Angler in the South Dakota book. So if you want to register that up and get your master Angler award. ⁓ all right. Yep. Yep. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Thanks for tuning into this episode of real talk fishing with no limits. You can catch these over on Spotify, Amazon, Apple podcasts, anywhere those rat or you're watching along on YouTube or the wall, I guess Facebook page. ⁓ that is a wrap. Stay safe and well.
Jake Caughey (1:19:18)
Yeah.
Gosh, that is dumb.
Brian Bashore (1:19:46)
see you on the water.