Happy Labor Day! Tournament info, new Musky prototypes, SCO Guided Kayak trips & Rentals

YEE-HAW!!!!!

Alex and the James Gang hope you are all having a blast on this gorgeous holiday weekend cooking weens & sweet corn on the fire, eating s'mores, catching smallmouth bass, tearing up the ATV trails, shooting guns, or whatever it is you do for fun. Hopefully you are not spending it at work. We are excited for the upcoming fall Major League fishing Tournament to be held on Dairyland Reservoir near Ladysmith, WI Oct 14, and decided to camp there this weekend to see the lake for the first time. The lake is very rocky, with lots of boulders, gravel, and wood cover all over the shorelines. There are several feeder creeks along the lake shore. Cribs, fish habitat areas, log bundles, and cinder block structures are located throughout the lake. We covered about 50% of the lake with a slow drive through, watching side imaging and for structure and cover changes. It seems like the cover is awesome everywhere, and it will be tough to find the magic spots to get on the winning patterns for this tournament. Current was very slow, and the southern winds actually overpowered the light current, unless you were right in front of the Big Falls Flowage NSP hydros. We had 1 bar of WEAK 3G cell reception north of County Road I bridge,  but had solid 4G reception near the Memorial Park boat ramp and at the Einar Johnson Memorial Park launch on DAM RD. I was able to load up Scoretracker live at both ramps without a problem, so we should be good to go for the tournament. I use Verizon for service. Usually the AT&T people do better than me in most places. Sprint people, you better have the score card ready if its anything like the Red Cedar Lake tournament. We will provide scorecards again for back-up scoring if network service is an issue.

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DAM ROAD BOAT RAMP - SITE OF THE OCT. 14 MLF LAUNCH

We currently have 32 anglers interested in the tournament in 17 boats, for more information click on the link below! $20 entry fee per angler

click here for FALL FLAMBEAU CLASSIC info

REMEMBER NO LIVE BAIT ALLOWED!!!!

Dunkin Frog Musky & Dunkin Frog Bee Whacker Testing

After Andrew Draper's continued success with Muskies on our Dunkin Frog and Bee Whacker bass lures, we decided to bend up some musky-grade prototypes to test over the holiday weekend. The musky version is upgraded to 500# toothproof stainless steel wire, a HD stainless steel split ring, larger HD hooks, longer bodies, and added silicone skirts. The action of both on the water were pretty good, I loved the action of the Dunkin Frog Musky, I felt that the Bee Whacker would be more appealing to the musky and the angler with a shorter, thicker, meaty grub rather than the long Kalin's swimbait that we tested it with. We will look at our options this fall and get it right in time to bend up a few for the Madison Fishing Expo in February. The bright colors of the hot feet Ribbit really popped and the large buzz blade threw water nicely, and was very visable from a distance. The Bee Whacker sprayed a lot and made plenty of noise, the black was very subtle and it looked great coming across the surface. I think we weighted both lures correctly to please the anglers. Apparently young muskies love to eat frogs, but so do nice chunky smallmouth bass! Check out these pictures Andrew Draper has sent us of his recent Dunkin Frog catches:

16" Smallmouth around THREE POUNDS!

Thank you Andrew for sending us your pictures!
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Tyler and Chang of Small Craft Outfitters have had a busy summer and are super excited to get you out fishing this fall!! They really lit it up last fall and have high expectations with the cooler water temps coming and the fall bite picking up. According the reports, Tori R. dominated amongst the kayak anglers this weekend in numbers of bass caught. Check out the fun times they had in pictures below For more information on how to book a kayak guided trip, or to rent a premium FEEL FREE kayak,  click the link below:

Kayak Guide/Rental info

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And before we call it a day, lets take a look at another solid 4 pounder caught by Mat Eichinger in his latest CWBA Opens tournament held on Miller Dam Flowage in August: