SWC 3rd Cabela’s Qualifier

I know every year as we enter the month of June all SWC Members begin looking forward to the biggest club event of the season- our 3rd Cabela’s Qualifier on Lake Winnebago. The Queen Lake of the walleye world, the home of schools full of monster Wall-eye, roaming reef structures, and open water haunts alike. OK this really sounds good- too bad we are talking about Winnebago. Now don’t get me wrong, I love fishing Bago at times, it is a great body of water with plenty of action to keep kids enter-tained while getting a limit of frying pan fish. We have all learned over the years that big baskets can come out of this body of water if you are in the right place at the right time and lay the smack down on them.

This year, our 3rd Cabelas Qualifier was our first adventure into the TWF Side Pot experience. There were some nerves, not from the anglers but from the club officers and tournament director. We were not quite sure what was going to happen with the potential for a paid Cabela’s NTC Spot up for grabs and many potential new members expressing interest in the event- the heightened anxiety was finally able to come to a peak on June 23rd. 36 Teams, launched their boats, 21 of them entered into the TWF Side Pot, and made their way out of Calumet County Park harbor and out into the choppy waters of Lake Winnebago in search of Walleye. One concern going out was the threat of stronger winds possibly invading the area as the day wore on. As it turns out Mother Nature played nice with the tourna-ment anglers of the SWC, and held back the strong winds until after all the boats were safely back into the harbor with their catches.

Teams caught fish literally all over the lake, from Neenah, to Fond Du Lac, to the river in Oshkosh, and along the East Shore. Many of us veterans of Lake Winnebago know that more times than not the river is where you can become a Hero or a Zero, and even though many top weights did come from the river the third place team actu-ally worked some East Shore structure and landed an impressive weight.

The team of Eric Carlson and Dan Roth not only landed a solid 5 fish weight of 18.52 pounds they also managed the big fish of the event at 6.34 pounds. The gents made a short boat ride and trolled cranks along the East shore rocks and plucked off their fish.

Making a little bit of a longer run across the lake to hit the River, the husband and wife team of Brett and Kelcey Leitl began jigging and by 9:30AM they had landed their entire bag of tournament weigh fish! An impressive feat, and from what we learned at the weigh in, Kelcey was the Rock Star with the magic touch on the jig stick. Their 5 fish bag weighed 19.9 pounds.

With a game plan of trolling the mud, the team of Ryan Dempsy and Adam Adler decided, as they were making their drive across the lake in the morning, to go give the river a shot for a couple hours. After not having any luck, they began re-rigging and making the drive through the no wake river back out to the lake, when they decided to stop and try one more jigging spot. Well that stop paid off, and after successfully sticking successive bites they decided to stay put and grind it out. That grinding it out landed them in first with a nice 5 fish bag weighing 20.59 pounds.

This victory pushed them into a solid lead in the point’s standings for Team of the Year with 2 first place victories on the Winne-bago system. The good news for the points leaders was that they were also entered into the TWF Side Pot and the victory garnered them a paid Cabelas NTC Entry in the 2014 event on Green Bay. Congratulations Ryan and Adam for winning the first SWC Side Pot Event. Brett and Kelcey also garnered a $75 Cabelas Gift card from the TWF for taking 2nd in the Side Pot event.