Travis Carter, Elk Point, S.D., and Dan Foss, Onawa, Iowa, captured first place in the Seventh Annual First Class Cat Attack Saturday.

Forty-five teams of catfish anglers headed out into a rain-swollen Missouri River from the South Sioux City Public Boat Dock at 7 a.m. for the competition.

A heavy rain the night before, put the Big Sioux River at nearly bank full and foiled many angler’s plan of fishing that stream.

The high water made this the toughest fishing of any of the events, but Carter and Foss brought in eight channel catfish for a total of 26.40 pounds.

The pair took home a check for $1,373.

The 45 teams from six states weighed-in 98 channel cats and eight flatheads for a total of 106 catfish.

Total weight of all fish was 210.30 pounds. No blue catfish were caught this year.

No team weighed a limit of 10 fish. Two teams weighed nine and five teams weighed eight.

Second place went to Shane Jones, Westfield, Iowa, and Adam Conlon, Sioux City, $968, 14.15 pounds.

Third place: Roger Titze and Tron Glaser, Sioux Falls, $653, 13.70 pounds.

Fourth place: Dwayne Huss, Sioux City, and Roger Huss, Amazonia, Mo., $293, 13.05 pounds.

Fifth place: Josh Zahner, Holstein, Iowa, and Ben Cleavland, North Sioux City, $203, 13.05 pounds.

Sixth place: Doug Wagner, Jefferson, S.D., and Wes Whitead, Sioux City, $113, 12.30 pounds

Seventh place: Michael Eck, Elk Point, and Steve Hopkins, $100, 11.20 pounds.

Eighth place: Mike Gordon and Brian Smith, Lawton, $100, 10-pounds.

Ninth place: Bill B. Watts, North Sioux City, and Bill L. Watts, Farmington, Minn., $100, 9.60 pounds.

Big Fish Award went to Roger Titze and Tron Glaser, Sioux Falls, $212 for a 8.60-pound flathead.

Second big fish went to Robert Peterson and Russell Berg, Sioux City, $159 for a 7.30-pound channel cat.

Third big fish went to Brant Kurtz and Travis Deeds, Correctionville, $106 for a 6.45-pound channel cat.

Noon weigh-in winner was Larry Stroman, Moville, and Joel Stodola, Sioux City, $100 for a 6.40-pound channel catfish. They also placed fourth in the big fish division and won $53.

Bike Giveaway winners were Kinslee Walrod, 2, and Cael Walrod, 4.

Total cash payout was $4,533 with merchandise prizes worth $2,000, for or a total of $6,533.

For more info, www.firstclasscatattack.tk.

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

WEBSTER, S.D. — Our plan was to hit two lakes a day and take full advantage of the variety of fishing to be found in the Glacial Lakes area of northeastern South Dakota.

Mother Nature threw us a curve, however, and rather than fight 25 to 30 mile-an-hour winds, we fished mornings and motored off the water pounding against a spray of white caps each afternoon.

The first morning was the worst.

A south wind was blasting at 20 miles an hour by 10 a.m. We parked at the boat ramp on Reetz Lake, just south of Webster.

“We won’t last long, out there,” I said to Fran. “We might be able to get out of the wind along that west shoreline.”

I had not planned to fish Reetz. Less than a month earlier I had fished it and caught several walleyes over 20 inches there. But, with the wind I thought our chances were better here on a lake where all walleyes under 28-inches have to be released.

We lasted about an hour and a half and boated two nice walleyes on bottom bouncers and spinners fished in 12 to 14 feet of water.

The rest of the afternoon we spend prospecting other lakes and checking out boat ramps for the next day.

With the wind forecast to blow again, we launched the next morning on Enemy Swim Lake, long one of the northeast’s glacial gems.

It’s a beautiful lake. Clear water, wooded shorelines and a couple of islands. It’s 2,150 acres with a maximum depth of 24 feet. All bass between 14 and 18 inches must be released with only one over 18 allowed in the daily bag. That just about guarantees good bass fishing and that is just what we found.

We started on one of the main lake points casting crankbaits and spinnerbaits in water nine feet and less, but never brought up a bass. We moved deeper on the same point and switched to bottom bouncers and spinners with crawlers.

Again, nothing. Only perch.

We left that spot and headed for a small rocky island nearby and that’s where we found the bass.

Smallies were laying in the shallow, boulder-studded water and were more than willing to take our Big O crankbaits.

We worked through that area and moved down towards some pencil reeds and banged the biggest of several largemouth we took that day.

We fished some other good spots and then, tired of casting, we put on slip bobbers and began looking for bluegills adjacent to pencil reed flats.

We found some nice ones, but surprise, surprise, we also found more smallmouth.

Tucked into heavy coontail growths, the smallies smacked our worm-baited hooks just as willingly as the bluegills and I was soon casting a shallow diver crankbait and taking them on that, too.

We were able to hide from the 20 mph west wind and play with these weed fish until late afternoon.

We pounded through the surf back to the boat ramp and over dinner that evening planned our next day.

Crappies had been biting well on Pickeral Lake, a 981-acre lake just a couple miles north of Enemy Swim. Although the bite had faded from what it once was, we decided to go there. It was, afterall, on our list of lakes to fish on this wind-plagued trip.

The next morning found us leaving the boat ramp in a stiff breeze out of the northwest. I had no idea where the crappies might be, but I suspected there would be some along deep water weedlines or maybe others suspended over deep water.

We found a long, underwater point on the west side at the south end of the lake.

We started out drifting one-eighth-ounce Road Runner jigs tipped with a crawler fished under a 1/16-ounce mini jig tied about 18 inches above the Road Runner.

We found the crappies grouped on an inside bend at the very tip of the bar, but it was tough to hold on the area in the ever-increasing wind. Bottom bouncers and spinners worked as well. We caught perch, crappies, bluegill walleye and smallmouth on that point, but as the wind grew our enthusiasm dimmed.

“We’ll come back again,” we decided. “Maybe the wind won’t blow.”

(But I wouldn’t count on it.)

TEKAMAH, NEB. — It probably wasn’t the kind of day you would pick for catfishing, but nobody told the cats.

Pat Carter, Elk Point, S.D., and I arrived at Summit Lake in the middle of a morning rainstorm, but when the downpour turned to sprinkles, we launched my boat and headed out.

Pat had fished the lake a couple times before and was impressed with the channel catfish to be found there. When he suggested we give it a try, I was quick to agree.

For the past seven years, Pat and I have gotten together prior to Sioux City’s one and only catfish tournament and spend a day or an evening chasing “ole whiskers.”

It’s a tradition now and what began as a U.S. CATS sponsored tournament is now a local tournament with Pat as the director. Strong sponsor support from local businesses, headed by First Class Credit Union, and individuals is quickly making this event one of the premier catfish tournaments in the country.

Last year the First Class Cat Attack attracted 51 teams with entries from a seven-state area. This year Pat hopes to top 60 boats and is well on his way. Current entries exceed last year’s.

This year, the boats will blast off from the South Sioux City boat ramp with waters of the Missouri and Big Sioux Rivers eligible.

Last year’s event was won by Dean and Bruce Strobman of Sioux City with a single catch — a 56.60-pound blue catfish. Second was taken by Keith Copenhaver, Sioux City, and Chris Sharp, Merrill, Iowa with 10 fish weighing 40.90 pounds.

In all, anglers weighed in 155 fish totaling 500.15 pounds, the highest weight in the history of the tournament.

This year’s event will be July 24 with anglers fishing from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event has a $5,000 guaranteed payout. Cash awards will be given for first through 6th place with additional cash placements for over 30 teams. Seventh to 15th place teams will win door prizes. Additional door prizes will be offered including a trolling motor, depth finder and rods and reels.

Entry automatically qualifies teams for the 2010 Night Tournament from 7p.m. to 8 a.m. Sept. 4.

The public is welcome to the weigh-in at the ramp. A free cookout and drinks will be available beginning at 3 p.m.

Entry fee for the event is $100 with an optional $10 for the big fish Pot. Entries are being accepted at the Bacon Creek Country Store at 2520 Gordon Dr. Entries will also be accepted, cash only, the morning of the tournament. A mandatory rules meeting will begin at 6:30 a.m.

For more information, contact Pat Carter at (712) 281-1841 or email: imcoolcatpat@yahoo.com.

Check out the web site at: www.firstclasscatattack.tk

Oh, our Summit Lake catfish?

Suffice it to say that had we been in a tournament, we would have done well.

Isn’t that how it goes?

Lake Information:

Summit Lake

Where: 4 1/2 West, 1/2 South of Tekamah

Size: 190 acres

Max Depth: 30 feet

Boat Ramps: Two

Camping: Yes

Fish: Largemouth Bass, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Walleye

Motorboats: Limited to 5 mph (no wake).

Panfish: Daily bag limit is 10; channel catfish daily bag limit is three.

ISLE Minn. — “Inch for inch, pound for pound, the gamest fish that swims.”

That’s a quote from Dr. James Henshall’s “Book of the Black Bass.”

Dr. Henshall’s book was published in 1881.

That was 129 years ago.

And you know what? It still holds true today.

The smallmouth bass is, without question, the gamest fish that swims.

Dr. Henshall, a midwestern medical doctor and devotee of bass fishing was writing at a time when trout was the kingpin of angling endeavors throughout the populated East.

Fly fishing was the method of choice and native brook trout was the quarry. German browns were soon to take over the limelight, but they were not stocked in any numbers until 1884.

Henshall’s book was the measuring stick of all books written about the black bass through the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century.

But trout fishing held sway until the mid 1950s when another writer, Jason Lucas, angling editor or Sports Afield magazine, finally swayed public opinion towards the black bass.

In the South, largemouth bass is king. In the North, the walleye holds sway.

We have excellent bass fishing up here for both largemouth and smallmouth, but for most anglers the walleye is where it is at.

That just may be why the best smallmouth bass fishing ever seen on this continent is happening right now.

And one of the best places to tangle with “the gamest fish that swims” is Mille Lacs Lake in north-central Minnesota.

It’s no accident that phenomenal bass fishing exists here.

This 132,000-acre lake (that’s slightly more than 200 square miles) has scores of shallow rock reefs adjacent to deeper water which provides an ideal home for smallmouth bass.

It is also, basically, a catch-and-release lake. All smallmouth under 21 inches must be released immediately and the possession limit is one.

Every time I get on this lake I try to spend at least part of a day fishing smallmouth. And, I have never been disappointed.

Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb., and I were there a few weeks ago fishing walleyes.

We were guests at Hunter Winfields Resort (hunterwinfields.com)

Mike and his wife Margie own and operate the resort and Mike spends a lot of time guiding guests for the great walleye fishing that exists here.

But he also has a soft spot for smallmouth and we were soon on a large rock reef at the southeast corner of the lake. We began throwing topwaters and plastics, but the bass soon told us they wanted their food on top.

We fish a half dozen reefs that morning, all within easy boating distance and caught several bass, topped by a five-pound-plus lunker that ate Gary’s topwater.

More often than not, we’d observe a bass rolling on the surface chasing minnows and we’d cast there. Usually, the bass would strike.

If you’ve never caught a smallmouth, be prepared for a strong, dogged runs powering for deeper water and explosive jumps which will send water droplets over 20 feet away.

Most smallmouth will jump several times and not quit fighting until they are in the net.

If you haven’t fished Mille Lacs, you should. Walleye fishing is fantastic right now.

Hunter Winfields is located in the southeast corner of the lake and many excellent walleye reefs and humps are nearby as well as rocky reefs, marked with buoys, for smallmouth.

Charter boat fishing is also available here.

There is excellent fishing for northern pike and muskie as well, and largemouth bass frequent the bays and weed beds.

Maximum depth is 43 feet.

I’d highly recommend getting a Lakemaster chip for your depthfinder’s GPS for this lake. It will put you right on the spot of spots.

The walleye may be king here, but “pound for pound” it is the smallmouth that rules.

WEBSTER, S.D. — It was early morning, but there was no sunrise.

We sat in the parking lot at the boat ramp on Bitter Lake, my boat still on the trailer.

Across the western horizon an angry mass of blue clouds hung like a curtain, and sharp streaks of lightening occasionally ripped across its dark tapestry. So far, the rain was light and most of it would move north, but we waited.

It was afternoon before we felt safe enough to venture out. Les Rowland, a local, and longtime friend, had joined Gary Howey, Kyle Nickolite and me for this morning adventure.

We dragged bottom bouncers and spinners across a sunken bar and I took a 17-inch walleye right off the bat. But, that was it.

We fished three more hours without a bite.

Would tomorrow be any better?

It was.

No rain greeted us the next morning and we launched the boat on Reetz Lake just south of town. It’s a small lake with restrictive walleye limits. In fact, only one walleye over 28 inches may be kept.

That means there is a lot of walleyes in the lake, and we gambled that high numbers would result in more fish in the boat, but not the livewell.

We were right.

We started banging good walleyes right off the end of a cut bank on the west side. I could see the fish on the depth finder between 12 and 14 feet, lying right on the bottom. We caught a couple, but it wasn’t until the wind came up sending two footers into the shoreline that the real action began.

We quit at noon after boating a bunch of walleyes from three to five pounds on spinners and crawlers. We also bagged a couple smallmouth and big perch.

ISLE, Minn. — It was a 14-mile run from our resort to the sand bar where Brett King had found the walleyes the day before.

As Lindy Pro Jon Thelen guided his Deep V Ranger across Mille Lacs choppy surface at 50 miles an hour we laughed about how many thousands of walleyes we were passing over to get to the “honey hole.”

Gary Howey and his cameraman Kyle Nickolite, King and I were hanging on as Jon, a former PWT pro wasted no time getting us to the north end of the lake.

Howey and I, among others, were guests of the Lindy Tackle company, LakeMaster fishing maps and Offshore Tackle for two days of fishing on the big lake. We were headquartered at Hunter Winfields Resort at Isle on the southeast corner of the lake.

King, a walleye tournament fisherman from Claremont, Minn., was guiding for the writer’s event, but his boat was on the trailer today.

He had found the fish the day before and we were on our way to reap the rewards of his efforts.

It didn’t take long.

We tied on new Lindy Spinners behind two-ounce bottom bouncers and began trolling with the bow-mounted electric motor.

Thelen showed us the bar on his Humminbird depth finder which held a LakeMaster chip containing a map of the lake.

“Here’s a rock pile we never knew was here before LakeMaster mapped the lake,” Thelen, who has guided many years here, said. “We’ll follow the top of the bar, go alongside the rock pile and then motor back for another pass.”

We started on top at 23-feet and hadn’t gone far when a 26 1/2-inch walleye gulped my spinner and crawler.

It was the biggest fish we caught that day, although both Gary and King caught fish that rivaled it.

While the bite wasn’t on fire, we did catch two to three fish on each 1/8-mile trolling bass.

Mike, who with his wife Margie, own Hunter Winfields, was fishing the same reef with Jerry Carlson, freelance outdoor writer from St. Cloud who also writes for the Journal’s Siouxland Outdoors tabloid.

When we were joined by two other boats, the walleyes seemed to drop off the top of the bar and set up in deeper water. We followed them and continued to catch fish.

Mille Lacs slot limit allows anglers to keep walleyes under 18-inches and one over 28 for a limit of four.

We caught many fish within the slot that had to be returned, but had no trouble landing enough fish under 18 inches to make our limit.

The spinners we were fishing are not yet available at tackle shops. The new spinners will be unveiled at the ICAST Show in Los Vegas in mid July.

New tackle announcements are usually highly-kept secrets until the ICAST announcement, but Thelen said I could tell Journal readers about them.

Snells are 6-feet long, 14-pound-test fluorocarbon featuring a pair of number 2 octopus hooks. The spinners are painted to highlight the major and secondary colors of baitfish. Beads are high quality glass and color coordinated with the spinner.

We fished with fathead, smelt and tullibee colors on Mille Lacs and caught fish on all of them.

We cut our trip short at mid afternoon as a storm appeared on the horizon. Jon checked the weather radar on his Blackberry and said, “We gotta get out of here now.”

We made it back minutes before the storm hit, thanks to modern technology.

YANKTON, S.D. — Scott Madison, who heads up River City Guide Service at Lewis and Clark Lake, was gassing up his big Lund when I pulled into Captain Norm’s just below the Gavin’s Point Dam at 6 a.m. last week.

Lewis and Clark Lake, the past few years has quietly assumed the position of one of the Missouri River’s best walleye fishing reservoirs.

The reservoir is the only one on the system that has a 15-inch minimum with no slot limit.

Madison says walleyes ranging from 20 to 24 inches are very common and in the fall of 2009 many fish in the eight to 12 pound range were caught and released.

But fishing is no sure thing, even on the best of lakes. This day we caught many, many fish but the bigger ones eluded us. However, the small fish are a good indicator of things to come.

The weather had been very unstable the three days prior to our arrival and that, I’m sure, contributed to our lack of success on larger fish.

We trolled six rods all armed with crankbaits and worked over a dozen spots, which had provided good fishing in the past. We marked very few baitfish or walleyes on the electronics.

The walleye bite on Lewis and Clark Lake is usually a shallow one this time of year, but the weather, I’m guessing, had sent the fish into the deeper channel.

We caught lots of white bass, for which this reservoir is also famous. It is also one of the best lakes around for smallmouth, but we didn’t try for them.

Scott and his partner Steve Gross guide anglers on full day or half-day trips both above the dam in the lake or below the dam in the tailrace.

For more information about their guide service, call Scott at (605) 665-1688 or cell 760-3646 or check out Captain Norm’s web site at www.captainnorms.com. Captain Norm’s site also offers a fishing report.

And we did just that for two days last week. In the boat were grandson Eric Fluharty, wife Fran, daughter Teri and Teri’s husband Patrick.

Patrick, Teri and Brandon live in Phoenix, Ariz., and do get a chance to fish in some of the ponds in parks around their home.

But it is not like climbing into a boat and fishing some of our Missouri River oxbows.

We put three spinning rods in rod holders out the back. One to the port side, one to the starboard side and one right out the back.

We were pulling my number one, go-to lure for this kind of fishing on any of our oxbow lakes, a Rebel F-77 Teeny Wee Crawfish. It doesn’t dive more than about three feet and if you shortline, it will go even less.

It’s one-and-a-half inches long and has a strong wobbling action that calls in any gamefish.

We used them in Chartreuse/Brown Back, Chartreuse/Green Back and Cajun Crawdad, a sort of neutral brown.

Most of the time there doesn’t seem to be a strong preference for color on the part of the fish, but on the second day, it was clear that the rod with the Chartreuse/Brown Back lure was getting all the action.

Eric ran the bow mounted trolling motor keeping our speed at about 1.5 miles an hour.

When one of the rods bent, Brandon grabbed it and landed the fish.

I’ve always been amazed at the Wee Crawdad’s ability to catch a wide variety of fish.

During the two days, we caught crappies, largemouth bass, including a couple of dandies, perch, channel catfish, white bass, bluegill and freshwater drum.

We also lost a very big fish which we think was a northern pike. The 10-pound-test line was either cut by the fish’s teeth or broke at a bad spot. I tend to think it was a northern, probably in the eight pound class.

We lost another big fish which straightened out our hook. That, I think, was probably a bass.

We released most of the fish, keeping only a couple crappies, a couple bluegills and a nice perch for a fish dinner.

We also fished Brown’s Lake for a couple of hours, catching a nice bass in the three pound class, a channel cat and a freshwater drum.

But the action was slow so we packed up and headed back to Snyder’s.

The hooks on a Wee Crawfish are size 14 which is very small. But don’t let that fool you. Small hooks dig in deeply and hang on like a bulldog.

Sometimes, however, I will replace the front hook with a quality size 10 or 12 treble, especially for walleyes.

Most of the time fish are hooked on the forward treble. The bigger hook does not seem to bother the action and if you only change out the forward hook it will not tangle with the back one.

That’s about the only adaptation I will make on this plug and a lot of the time I don’t even do that.

I tie the monofilament line, usually 8- or 10-pound test directly to the split ring provided at the lip of the lure.

The lighter line will ensure you get the greatest action from this little crankbait which weighs only 1/10 of an ounce.

It is a lure which is designed for ultra light fishing. If you are casting and cranking a 5- to 6 1/2-foot light or ultralight fishing rod with appropriate reel spooled with 4-pound-test line, that would be just right.

I’ve written about trolling with the Wee Crawfish before, but here’s a tip I have not revealed until now.

Late each fall rainbow trout are stocked in Crystal Cove Lake in South Sioux City and Bacon Creek Lake in Sioux City.

If you haven’t tried a Wee Crawfish for trout, make sure you do.

It’s been years since I first discovered how effective this little crankbait can be. I used to cast it to the shorelines on Storm Lake in April and Early May and wracked up stringers of pre-spawn walleyes.

Don’t get the idea that this is a miracle lure, however. There is no such thing.

But for a lot of our fishing the Wee Crawfish comes as close as any.

It’s safe to say that no one lure revolutionized bass fishing as much as did the plastic worm.

I remember when the first plastic worms, much like those we use today, hit the market.

They were manufactured by the Creme Lure Company. While Nick Creme started his business in 1949, cooking worms in his kitchen in Akron, Ohio, word of this new invention really didn’t reach Siouxland until about the mid 1960s.

The Creme Scoundrel was the original worm and it is still incredibly productive today.

I remember the first time I rigged a Creme worm weedless, Texas style and used it on one of our farm ponds. I simply couldn’t believe how productive it was.

Today there are so many worm manufacturers and styles of worms that the whole thing is pretty confusing.

But, suffice it to say, the soft plastic worm catches a lot of fish.

It is almost impossible to rig a plastic worm wrong and over the years many, many methods of using worms have evolved.

Let’s look at some of them.

The Spinning Worm

This method of fishing plastic worms originated in Florida years before the curly-tailed worms became popular. It was fished with a Creme Scoundrel (a night crawler look-a-like). I favored black or purple.

The worm is rigged on an Eagle Claw style 186A 1/0 or 2/0 baitholder hook. The worm is threaded down the hook until the eye is reached. Then the tip of the worm is pushed over the eye and onto the line. The point and barb are then pushed through the worm, leaving a big “hook” in the worm. This is what causes the worm to spin.

About 15 inches up the line you must tie in two size three ball bearing snap swivels. They prevent line twist and add casting weight.

The worm is fished just like a crankbait. Cast it out, let it sink a bit and then reel it in slowly. When a fish hits, don’t be too quick to set the hook. Lead him along for a bit and then set the hook.

Spoon Worms

Probably the easiest way to incorporate a spoon and a plastic worm is to hook a 6- or 7-inch worm to the single hook of a Johnson’s Silver Minnow spoon. Yet, there are many other small spoons out there which will provide just about any kind of action you want.

Simply remove the treble hook from the back of the spoon and attach a weedless bass hook to the split ring. Then thread on your worm.

This presentation is good in open water, weedbeds such as cabbage or slop weeds.

Popping Worms

Sometimes you just can’t beat a plastic worm fished on the surface.

Get your hands on some styrofoam ice fishing floats, they are often painted in bright colors, and thread one on your line before tying on your hook. Attach the hook, thread on a 6-inch or 7-inch plastic worm and dance this rig over any type of bass holding cover. The results will be explosive.

Wacky Worms

If you haven’t fished a plastic worm “wacky” style, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Rigging a wacky worm is simple. Just hook a short-shanked, wide gapped hook into the center of the worm and start casting.

It’s an extremely effective way of fish.

But the first thing you will notice is that you will be going through a lot of worms and some of the baits we fish wacky style are pretty expensive.

So here’s a solution the pros have come up with.

Buy some “O” rings and thread your worm into them. Put the hook through the “O” ring instead of the worm. You will be able to catch several fish on one worm. Another trick is to add weight to one end of the worm. There are small lead nails manufactured just for this, but if you can’t find them, simple insert a short carpenter’s nail into the worm. It will provide enough weight for some interesting action.

There are many, many other ways of rigging plastic worms, but these are some of my favorites.

If you haven’t tried them, add them to your bass fishing arsenal this year. I’ll guarantee your catch rate will go up.