Tackle Shack Report
Brian Miller and Jason Schwartz - 1st Place
Adjustments throughout the day earned Brian Miller and Jason Schwartz the victory in the Tackle Shack Tournament on Coldwater Lake last weekend.
The anglers had 15.62 pounds caught on a mixed bag of patterns and baits.
“The first 3/4 of the day was a disaster for us,” said Schwartz. “We changed the game plan five minutes before takeoff and started fishing shallow with topwaters and swim jigs on a stretch we did fairly good on in practice.
After 2 hours we realized that this was a bad decision. We decided to just stick to docks where we caught short fish after short fish. At about 11:30 we we're going to hit one last dock and it held a 2.5 pounder so we fished a couple more and caught 2 more quality keepers.
“At about 1 p.m. with the trolling motor on high while crossing a super shallow flat, we ran into some absolute giants cruising around. Brian hooks one with a tube and it's a 5.7 pounder! Looking around, we realized there were more big ones cruising around but only managed to catch one more that helped our bag.”
Ron Fabiszak and Chris Thorton - 2nd Place
Ron Fabiszak and Chris Thorton were second with 11.70 pounds by “junk fishing.”
“We started up the chain fishing Texas rig worms on outside grass in 10-15 feet,” said Fabiszak. “We moved a little shallower and caught a few on wacky rigs, then went back into Coldwater and made a final cull. We caught around 10 keepers.”
Duane Bontrager and Seth Wingard - 3rd Place
Duane Bontrager and Seth Wingard also made adjustments to finish third with 11.38 pounds.
“We started fishing weed beds in 6-12 foot of water with drop shots and Texas rigs,” explained Bontrager. “We caught some earlier in the day but as the day progressed the bite seemed to die off. Around 12:30 we called an audible to go scoping in 20-35 feet of water where we made a couple of key culls. We caught plenty of little fish and about 10 keepers.”
Bo and Blake Boyd - 4th Place
Fourth place went to Bo and Blake Boyd with 11.14 pounds.
“We started the morning in about a foot of water flipping pads and got our biggest about an hour into the tournament, and then it took us till noon to catch two more,” said Boyd. “Around 1 p.m. we moved to Coldwater and got our last two keepers the last hour of the tournament in about 12 foot of water on a drop shot.”