Horseshoe has over the last three years become a favorite lake for us. It has quality fish, a variety of patterns and plenty of room. The average size bass weighed in is typically around 2 pounds and this tournament was no exception at 1-15. It was a photo finish with Brad Siewert and Steve Naegele winning the event with a solid 16-6 just edging out Walser Chev Team Dale Schudi and Bill Knorr by one ounce with 16-5. Several other good weights followed.
The day started out cloudy and dead calm, ideal for topwater patterns. At about 9:00 the sun came out and brought with it 35 mph winds out of the south. Boat control was pushed to the limit if you were fishing in the wind. This was even more difficult if you were fishing thick slop. Many teams reported dead batteries.

There were 16 limits for 30 teams, bringing in 131 bass, totaling 258 pounds. Big fish honors went to Doug Stahly with a 4-10 largemouth.

Brad and Steve lean heavily on flippin' and pitchin' a jig around shallow cover and the Horseshoe Chain is a jig dude's dream lake.

"We put the trolling motor down and went fishing; covering every lake in the chain except Mud and Long," recall Brad and Steve. "Docks and wood cover held eleven bass for us only one of which was short. Horseshoe's reputation for big fish held true for us with quality two to four pounders. Most of the day we used black/blue jigs, but we did hit some 8 to 12 foot weedlines with jigworms (Berkley). By 11:30, we had a limit, but our biggest fish (4-0) hit jig at 1:30 on the dock pattern. This is the first tournament that we did not make a mistake. We missed some hooksets, but did not drop any fish. The four pounder fell off into the net as the jig went flying. We were fooled by a seven-pound catfish; taking forever to get in and thinking it was a bass the whole way. The weather did not effect our pattern, except that we did fish only the windy shorelines. For equipment, we used bass Pro Bionic Blade and Extreme rods (flippin' sticks) and Quantum EX500C reels spooled with 30 pound test Spiderwire.

If one of Dale Schudi and Bill Knorr's bass had a little bigger meal in it's tummy, they could have won the tournament. When it's this close, even the weight of a single crawfish could make the difference at the scale.

Dale and Bill had a strikingly similar day to Brad and Steve, but they did use a variety of patterns to get their fish. "In the early morning we worked the weedline using 4" worms (purple), 4" tubes (pumpkin) and spinnerbaits (chartreuse). In the late morning, we went to wood cover and docks with black/blue jigs and worms. Then in the afternoon, we fished only docks with jigs, worms and spinnerbaits, giving us a limit by 12:30. The biggest fish (4-4) came on the 3/8 chartreuse spinnerbait at 2:00 on the outside edge of a dock. Fighting the wind took hard work and patience, but that's where we caught more and bigger fish. Not having prefished, we didn't stay in one spot like we have in the past; we kept moving. When fishing shallow, we found that if the weeds aren't green—move.

Bill and Dale have been fishing together for a long time and compliment each other well. When fishing docks, Dale covers the outside with spinnerbaits and jigs while Bill skips underneath. Their systematic approach to teamwork paid off, catching their two biggest fish (4-4 and 3-6) back to back on the same dock. They would like to acknowledge Walser Chevrolet and Accent Fishing Products, the brand of quality jigs and spinnerbaits they used. Other equipment consisted of Shimano Calcutta reels, G.Loomis rods, Spidercast rods and reels with spiderwire fusion line. They wound up with nine bass including one short and one smallmouth. Also one token northern and catfish.