 STAPLES LAKE, WI - SLAY NATION EVENT #1  The first event ever in the WI Slay Nation series took place on a fantastic lake in Western Wisconsin. Staples Lake, near Cumberland, WI, produced a lot of quality largemouth bass for the event, and several trophy-sized fish showed themselves while the males were fanning beds for the upcoming spawn. The pattern that seemed to produce was a deeper, 3 foot area in which you could not see the fish present. What was difficult was seeing large bass all over in 2 feet of depth, which led to constantly presenting lures to them sight-fishing most of the day.  9-YR OLD ALAYNA H. PUT HER TEAM ON THE BOARD WITH THIS 16.5" BASS  Over halfway through the day, we failed to land a single bass. We only had one bite, a very nice sized largemouth that hammered a 3/8 oz James Gang nest Invader, but on a moderate taper vibrating jig rod, I failed to get the hook to show itself. The fish threw the lure after a few seconds. As we ran into Mat Eichinger and his partner Alayna, we found that they had boated 5 bass, 3 of them counting in the event. We discussed the struggles of sight-fishing, and they had said that power fishing chatterbaits and jerkbaits produced their fish in weedy flats. We decided to give up on the constant large bass fanning their beds, and headed to the wind-blown side of the lake to try some different finesse presentations. We threw the James Gang Baby Squid Bait and the Dirty Dave hair jig, and instead of largemouth bass, we were just pounded fish after fish by psychotic crappies and aggressive pumpkinseeds. The crappies hung on, while the pumpkinseeds failed to get hooks in their tiny mouths. Angela Piontek landed one on a 4" zoom jerk shad, and I was getting bites on the Lovertail 2, along with the other two bass lures I discussed.  20 BLACK CRAPPIES BOATED IN A BASS TOURNAMENT IS NOT GOING TO WIN MONEY  As we cycled through presentations all day, including moving baits and finesse lures, we bumped into a pike that throttled a James Gang Baby Squid Bait in the wind-blown shoreline that had a green algae bloom washed up. We worked the shoreline down towards the starting boat ramp, and ran into fellow competitor Travis Gasper. While we closed in towards him to ask how his day was going, we noticed he had a very nice largemouth around 18" in his hands. We captured a quick pic with him and he told us that he already boated 25 largemouth bass in that wind-blown area using his favorite finesse presentations! What surprised us was that he was basically doing the EXACT same thing that we were doing, except a foot deeper. He was not targeting bedding fish in 2' of water sight-fishing. Instead he was blind casting staging bass that were actively feeding in the wind-blown algae bloom areas. Once again, a tough day for us turned into a learning experience. My partner this day, my wife Angela, decided to throw her soft plastic Yum craw in the 3' area after talking to Travis, and immediately hooked up! She reeled in as I grabbed the net and we put a 17.5" largemouth bass on the board!  LATE IN THE DAY TRAVIS GASPER IS WELL INTO THE LEAD WITH A LIMIT OF 5 BASS  JAMES GANG FISHING CO VICE PRESIDENT ANGELA PIONTEK WITH A 17.5" BASS THE COMPETITION HEATS UP IN FINAL HOURS JAMES GANG PRO STAFFER & WI SLAY NATION TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR MAT EICHINGER LANDS A QUALITY LARGEMOUTH AND IS IN 2ND PLACE  With only 2 hours remaining, we didn't feel comfortable trying to fish an area that someone else had hit hard for most of a tournament day. We decided to venture to the opposite side of the lake with our Motorguide 36V troller (no outboards allowed in Slay Nation) and risk losing fishing time to try and present our lures a little deeper in areas of trophy fish present. At the time, Travis had the big bass lead with an 18.75" fish, and we knew that we tangled with some 19-20" class fish on the opposite side in shallow spawning areas that would not bite. As soon as we arrived and began casting a little deeper, we hooked into a feeding fish. This was a better quality fish with a lot of girth, and after my wife netted it we placed it on the Ketch board and found a 17" beauty for the scoreboard. Minutes later, I hooked up again on my Mr Twister black/blue plastic craw, and this one, though shorter at 15," would put us in contention with Mat and Alayna for 2nd place. We felt like we finally figured out the pattern late in the day. As time was winding down, we only had one hour left and a decision to make. Do we make a long run with just a trolling motor to fish a shallow reed area full of bass and waste fishing time? Or do we continue to hit the same areas we pressured all day? We decided to gamble, attempting to pass Travis with the potential of a Big Bass Award and make the time-consuming run to fish the point of reeds with limited time. As we arrived, I threw a cast into an area full of crappies. Immediately I felt a bite in deeper water and set the hook hard, figuring I would quickly get rid of the crappie. To my pleasant surprise, this was not a crappie battling me. Another bigger largemouth bass was battling me through the reeds with my drag screaming. As we scooped it in, we registered our 4th and final fish, a nice 16" bass. We felt very good about our average sizes and thought that we could challenge Mat & Alayna for 2nd place at the end of the day. We were out of time and had to head back and throw a few quick casts near Travis's prime area leading to the 3 PM cutoff. We barely squeaked out 2nd place by just a few inches on our 4 fish bag, and Travis took both first place with his 28 fish boated and also big bass at 18.75!" Congrats to all that came, as every angler boated at least one quality fish. It was a very fun format not using any outboards, and I actually chose to leave my gas tank, gas line, and Helix 12 at home for this one.  UNCLE JESSE WITH A 16" BASS LATE IN THE DAY TO HELP HIS TEAM CLAIM 2ND  TRAVIS GASPER STOLE THE SHOW WITH 28 QUALITY BASS, AND THIS 18.75" MONEY WINNER! CONGRATS FOR THE WIN & BIG BASS AWARD!! JON BOAT, CANOE, KAYAK, TINY BOATS? COME JOIN US FOR AN AFFORDABLE, FUN TIME! CLICK ON THE BUTTON BELOW TO BE LINKED TO THE WISCONSIN SLAY NATION!!! ENTRY FEE ONLY $50/BOAT. CAN FISH SOLO OR AS A 2-ANGLER TEAM. ANNUAL REGISTRATION IS $60 AND INCLUDES A FREE SLAY NATION PERFORMANCE LONG SLEEVE JERSEYFUN TIMES CAMPING FOR THE EVENT IN TURTLE LAKE, WI RED HOT NEST INVADERS ON BACKORDER!!NEST INVADER 3/8 oz swinging weedless swimjig
$12.00
2 PACK swinging weedless jigs, with a premium skirt, a Mustad 4/0 EWG hook, and a premium James Gang Fishing Bootykicker trailer injected by lethal Baits Soft Plastics. This lure can be used as a swim jig or drug on the bottom in cover such as rocks with its football head shape. Skirts are replaceable with the banded type on the market. Jig is powdercoated to match the skirt and trailer color. FREE SHIPPING, typically ships in 1-3 weeks. Our hottest lure of 2020 has been by far the NEST INVADER weedless swinging skirted jig. Our 3/8 size heads are currently on backorder from our supplier. Our 1/4 oz versions are ready to order, however. We will continue to run our promotional sale on these until the end of June! Please click on the SHOP button above to order from our online store! FREE SHIPPING INCLUDED!!! MAY 31 is 2020 WI RIVERBANK RALLY ENTRY CUT-OFF DATE!!! ONLY $10 TO JOIN US!! If you are a fan of fishing from the river bank for suckers, carp, catfish, sheepshead, or buffalo, come join us for only $10 as we compete for the biggest of each category all summer long! Entry fee taken online at the link below!!!! 
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AuthorJesse James is an avid fisherman that loves smallmouth bass fishing, loves spending time with his family, with other family-orientated people, and loves seeing children fish. A huge fan of BASSMASTER Elite Mike Iaconelli, like Mike, he is known to be a little strange, and obnoxious, but only to have fun and make people laugh.
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