LA CROSSE, Wis. (May 20, 2024) – Boater Nick Trim of Galesville, Wisconsin, caught a five-bass limit weighing 20 pounds, 6 ounces, Saturday to win the Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The tournament was the second event of the season for the BFL Great Lakes Division. Trim earned $10,718, including the $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory. Trim is on a roll on the Mississippi River. Last weekend at the 2024 Mercury B.A.S.S. Nation Qualifier out of La Crosse, he threw down a three-day wire-to-wire win. Then he followed it up with the only 20-pound-plus stringer of the tournament to win the BFL.
“I pretty much just kept it rolling,” Trim said. “We put in at Pool 8. I ran up to Pool 7 and caught like 17 pounds, and then I locked down and ended up catching my three biggest fish in Pool 8 after 1 o’clock.”
Trim weighed in a limit of smallmouths that he caught off beds using Garmin LiveScope in perspective mode. He located beds in 3- to 5-foot-deep gravel areas out of the current on the main river or just off the main river. Trim said the fish were actually in between spawning waves and catching 20-plus greatly outperformed his expectations.
“The problem was the water came up 3 feet, so all the sudden you can’t see them,” he said. “You can’t visually look at them. That’s where the LiveScope comes in. Both events were the same thing. Today (Saturday) it came down a little bit. The first fish I caught was the only good fish I caught in practice. It was a 4-2, and I could visually see it with my eyes. Every other fish I weighed in I caught looking at with my LiveScope.”
Trim caught his fish using a variety of common bed-fishing lures, including a drop-shot with a Keitech 2.8 Swing Impact FAT Swimbait, a Missile Baits D Bomb, a Yamamoto Senko and a Ned rig. His kicker fish was a 5-pounder, and after throwing “everything I had in the boat” at it, he finally caught it on the Senko.
“The 5-pounder was in an area on Pool 8 I haven’t ever really fished, but I was going along and I just saw this big fish swimming around on my graph,” he said. “It kind of settled in on this dark spot that I assumed was its bed, and I threw in there and caught her within 30 minutes.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Nick Trim, Galesville, Wis., five bass, 20-6, $10,718 (includes $7,000 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd: Clayton Weber, West Salem, Wis., five bass, 19-5, $1,859
3rd: Mark Myers, Cedar Falls, Iowa, five bass, 19-1, $1,238
4th: Dan Mohn, Lansing, Iowa, five bass, 18-9, $1,292
5th: Jackson Perry, Onalaska, Wis., five bass, 18-7, $744
6th: Parker Kratochvill, Onalaska, Wis., five bass, 17-3, $682
7th: Greg Oppegard, West Saint Paul, Minn., five bass, 16-6, $1,105
8th: Aiden Denzer, La Crosse, Wis., five bass, 16-5, $527
8th: Kory Rose, Waterloo, Iowa, five bass, 16-5, $527
10th: Chris Aswegan, Tiffin, Iowa, five bass, 16-3, $434
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Greg Oppegard of West Saint Paul, Minnesota, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 5 ounces, and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $485. Cade Luebben of West Concord, Minnesota, won the co-angler division and $1,859 Saturday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 15 pounds, 2 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Cade Luebben, West Concord, Minn., five bass, 15-2, $1,859
2nd: Chris Stelter, Chisago City, Minn., five bass, 14-7, $929
3rd: Brandon Troupe, Chicago, Ill., five bass, 13-9, $619
4th: Jason Olson, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., five bass, 13-7, $434
5th: Tim Himsl, Moline, Ill., five bass, 13-6, $372
6th: John Kimmes, Hastings, Minn., five bass, 13-1, $341
7th: Brian Billett, Elgin, Ill., five bass, 13-0, $310
8th: Hertz Skaer, Holmen, Wis., five bass, 12-15, $379
9th: Ryan Coon, LeClaire, Iowa, five bass, 12-14, $248
10th: Adam Boyce, Glenview, Ill., five bass, 12-13, $217
Gage Griffin of Lake Forest, Illinois, earned the Big Bass co-angler award of $242, catching a bass that weighed in at 4 pounds, 9 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
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