And just like that, we find ourselves at the conclusion of another Champions Tour Season. This year, we head west to Starbuck, MN to fish Lake Minnewaska. After a 3 Event Season, the Champions Tour is bringing it’s Top-32 from the Angler of the Year standings to fish for a NEW Skeeter ZX200 on the infamous fishery in Western Minnesota.
“It’s an electric feeling (to be here),” Champions Tour Pro Sam Sobieck explained. “Because you have nothing to lose, and you’re only fishing for first. It seems like all year you’re trying to be consistent to get here, now you get to go swinging. We’re early 2000’s steroid era baseball baby, we’re swinging for a home run.”
The whole field of anglers is excited for their opportunity to fish to win a NEW Skeeter Boat, but everyone also know they’re going to have to beat a man who’s on a legendary run, Noah Schultz. As most Champions Tour fans know by now, Schultz has been the winner of the past 3 Championship Events, and has also won 4 of the last 5 total. When it comes to Championship time, Schultz has proven he is nearly impossible to beat.
“The Classic Bass platform has given me huge exposure to the industry leading sponsors: MinnKota, Humminbird, Northland Tackle, and so many more.” Schultz explained his appreciation for all that has come from his Championship wins. “Heck, I just filmed a Wired2Fish video the other day. That’s crazy. Obviously the money is great, but adding in the exposure and platform it’s given me, I feel like I’m living a dream right now.”
And heading to Starbuck, MN this week, there’s 31 other Anglers looking to start building their Legacy on the Champions Tour, and be the man to dethrone Noah Schultz.
We caught up with Champions Tour Pro’s; Sam Sobieck, James Chapman, Matt Holweg, and Noah Schultz to dive into our Championship venue.
As a whole, Lake Minnewaska is very diverse, but known as one of the more premier fisheries in the state. Schultz explained, “It’s a deep and clear lake, it’s kinda similar to Gull. Your primary habitat is deep coontail and weeds in general.”
Holweg also dove into the intimidation factor, that is the offshore grass on Minnewaska, “For the most part (the lake) is featureless, and there’s weeds everywhere. The key seems to be finding the “crunchy” and still fresh weeds. It’s been taking forever to find and with only 9 hours of prefishing it’s been hard to find that.”
Champions Tour Pro James Chapman, who has a lot of experience on Lake Minnewaska fishing 5 fish events, shared a bit of a different tone than Holweg and Schultz about the offshore bite. Stating it’s been hard to find a consistent bite out there, however, he’s looking at the diverse shallow cover to play more this week.
“There’s a lot of fish to be had shallow,” Chapman elaborated. “There’s only 32 guys and a lot of water to cover so there’s a lot of room for us to spread out and not be on top of each other.”
What can be gathered about Minnewaska to this point, is it’s very diverse. With offshore Coontail for miles, a plethora of shallow reeds and vegetation, healthy dock fishing opportunities, and of course the Smallmouth that roam these waters, it’s going to be interesting to see how this event plays out.
“This lake can be anyone’s wheelhouse,” Sobieck explained. “You simply just need to find the most bass.”
The X-Factor most know of on Lake Minnewaska is the Smallmouth population, and they figure to be a player for this event. “The smallmouth factor is weird because there’s not much rock, but they’re on endless flats,” Chapman stated.
Sobieck, who’s new to fishing Lake Minnewaska had some interesting thoughts on the Smallmouth, “I don’t know a ton about this lake but I think they are going to play a big role. The smallmouth are pissed right now and they’re biting. I think right away in the morning someone could really crack on them.”
Chapman sang a similar tune to Sobieck “I think someone has the potential to fire up a group of them and get a quick 20-25 lbs if you fire up the right group. But I don’t think you will be able to do it all day.”
From the conversations with our whole field, it sounds like Smallmouth are going to play a factor, you’ll have to lean on them at some point to be bringing home a Skeeter ZX200 after Tuesday comes to a close. But as most stated, Largemouth Bass are going to dominate this event. The true question is going to be, will it be offshore or shallow largemouth that bring this one home, and according to our field, it sounds like you’re going to have to do it all to bring home a win on Minnewaska.
“I think the winner is going to have it mixed: shallow and deep,” Schultz stated. “I could be wrong, odds are it’ll be won offshore, but I think a guy is going to have to make an adjustment in the afternoon to go seal the deal.”
Sobieck, Holweg, and Chapman all came to a similar conclusion as Schultz. At some point in the day the field is going to have to adapt, and that is going to be a factor to watch on Lake Minnewaska.
Now, we check in with Bass Fishing Pundit, HellaBass, to give us an idea of what to watch for on Lake Minnewaska, and what anglers he thinks may be bringing this one home.
HellaBass Forecast
Summers in the upper midwest fly by, it doesn’t seem that long ago we were kicking things off at Lake Okoboji. Three regular season events have gone by and we find ourselves with a final field of 32 Champions Tour anglers heading to Lake Minnewaska all with the goal of bringing home a brand new Skeeter ZX200. Minnewaska should make for a great venue, abundant largemouth and better than average size smallmouth mixed with options to fish from super shallow to offshore will give the anglers many options.
In the Champions Tour the Angler of the Year is not decided until the Championship event. Mathematically there are still about 10-12 anglers alive for the 2024 AOY Title. Dane Vocelka currently sits atop the points with a decent 9 point lead for returning veteran Kyle Schutta and Tommy Parker lurks just a few points back of Kyle. It feels like it is pretty much a three horse race for AOY. Lake Minnewaska is not far from where Dane calls home and I like his chances in bringing it home and locking the rest of the field out with a Top 10 finish in the final event.
But the main question everyone wants to know, who should we keep an eye on to be trailering home a brand new Skeeter Boat after this event!?
Noah Schultz had his best regular season event of the year to cement his spot in the championship. There is nothing about Noah’s fishing style or experience on Minnewaska that makes me think that this will set up good for him, but his track record is undeniable so everyone knows he will be a factor.
It has been a quiet under the radar year for Matt Peters, I would not be surprised to see him make a statement at Minnewaska. I could see Matt putting together a 1-2 punch of both species and be in the hunt at the end of the day.
Ron Mehr has knocked on the door of winning a Champions Tour event a couple times now and he is no stranger to Lake Minnewaska. Ron will definitely be putting in the work and he won’t make it easy on the field in the final event.
Kyle Schutta has to fish to win if he wants to have a shot at AOY and I think he will be able to employ his style of fishing here and find success.
For the same reason I have my eyes on Schutta, we have to watch Dane Vocelka, both of these guys need to fish to win to capture the AOY. As mentioned before, Minnewaska is not too far from where Dane calls home, expect him to be dangerous on this body of water.
