Brian Bashore & Scott Ulrich pictured
April 10th, Chamberlain, SD. Was the site of the 20th annual Cedar Shore Resort walleye tournament. With 150 teams signed up to compete for the 1st place prize of 10k plus bonuses, anglers knew they needed to land lunker to compete against this field of some of the best sticks from South Dakota and Nebraska. Brian Bashore and Scott Ulrich of The Walleye Guys teamed up to try their luck on Lake Francis Case going out of Chamberlain, South Dakota. Brian has been guiding on this 107mile reservoir for the past several years and felt confident in a pattern he had been fishing since last year in this particular area.
“I felt that we could fill out a bag with four 19” walleye and get one over 20-21” and then go trolling for a big girl” stated Brian. However, their fish came in a different order, boating a 19.25” walleye first followed up by a 24” 5.90lb. pre-spawn female that Scott hooked into. “This made the rest of the day very easy as the pressure was off” said Scott. Brian knew exactly what caliber of fish this area held and they were able to fish the same area the entire day filtering through fish until they had the right four 19”+ walleye to go with their 24” kicker.
The duo was pitching Northland Tackle Fireball jigs tipped with a minnow, working them very methodically with the current. While also pulling to rigged St.Croix rods out the back of the boat equipped with Randy’s Rigs hook tipped with a minnow. The rigged lines produced two of the 19” walleye that they weighed in. “The use of their Humminbird electronics was key to finding these fish on the side imaging as well as patience to work through the number of fish they boated” said Brian. In total the team took home a payday of over $7,500 in cash and a 2nd place plaque.
The duo fell to second place, to team Troy Eisenberg and Carroll Stewart of Sioux Falls who brought in an astonishing 21.69lb. bag breaking what I believe to be the tournament one-day biggest bag. The winning team anchored their weight with an absolute beast of 11.61lb. pre-spawn walleye going 31”. Hats off to the Fishing Crew for running a smooth tournament and taking over the duties from Cedar Shore Resort. Lake Francis Case is fishing very good this year and the year class of fish are healthy and sizes are getting bigger stated several local anglers.