NPAA Members Dominate Top Ten at FLW Walleye Tour at Devils Lake, ND

Jason Feldner of Minnewaukan, ND, NPAA #399, won the FLW Walleye Tour event held July 29-31, 2010 on Devils Lake. Jason led the 62 boat field from wire to wire to capture the win. He brought in the largest 5 fish limit on the final day, weighing 15.13 pounds. Jason’s three day total of 48.14 pounds won him the FLW Walleye Tour events top cash prize of $13,522.00 and additional $4,228.00 in Optional Pot money, for total winnings of $17,850.00.

“It feels awesome – it feels awesome! Boy! I’ll tell ya, at 10 o’clock this morning I was thinking I’m going to have to do everything I can to put 17 inch and 18 inch fish in the boat, just so I can at least come in with 10 pounds. I hit my best three spots this morning. I caught one 13 inch Walleye, and began thinking, something’s off here. I didn’t know if it was the weather, ormaybe I just pressured it too much? We just kept moving. I had 7 spots, plus one I had saved for today.”

“I knew I had to go into the spot I saved at least once during the tournament, because I’ve always caught one decent fish out of there. I went in there today, and pulled several fish in the 500 yard stretch on the first pass. The first was just a hair over 20 inches and I said; Yes! Perfect! Then, I caught a 17 inch I decided we needed to keep it. The 8 fish limit tournament, gave us a little bit of leeway. I had just boated a pike that got my heart pounding and one of the rods went back, almost like it was snagged and there was that 24 incher the last fish of the first pass. We just kept going over and over that stretch and ended up boating the fish I needed for the win!”

Tried and true presentations that were dominant in years past at Devil’s Lake like, using slip bobbers in the trees, proved ineffective for most anglers at this year’s event. In fact only one of the top 10 anglers to fish the last day got there using that method. It’s what got him there, but when Chris Burns, NPAA# 966 threw the bobbers out on the final day, the fish didn’t bite. He dropped from 3rd place to 10thplace after failing to get any legal fish to bite one of the many presentations he offered them. “I tried slip bobbers, crankbaits, Slow Death, and spinners. Nothing worked for me. They just didn’t want to bite for me today”, said Chris.

The most prevalent presentation used this week would be a tossup between using spinners with small blades, or “Slow Death” hooks with a half a crawler behind a 1-2 oz. bottom bouncer at slow speeds of 1.0 mph or less. Leeches were working for some people, but most were using crawlers for their live bait presentations.

There were 82 5 fish limits caught over three days of competition, 515 fish caught, and 1,248.11 pounds of Walleye brought to the scales.

NPAA Members that made the top 15 were:

The NPAA Sponsored Youth Event that was held in conjunction with the FLW Outdoors organization was a success, once again. There were approximately 25-30 children, escorted by their parents, and everyone received a brand new rod and reel combo, NPAA Future Pro t-shirt, hat, tackle box, and other goodies that were given away by the Pros. NPAA member #169, Jason Przekurat, put on a mini interactive seminar with the children and then helped hand out the free prizes. Bill Shimota, NPAA #599, was also on hand to help out and talk with the kids.

The NPAA is a non-profit organization focused on growing the sport of fishing and increasing the professionalism of its members. Its supporting partners include Northland Fishing Tackle, Navionics, Mercury Marine, Evinrude Outboards, Lund Boats, Ranger Boats, Off-Shore Tackle, Fin-Tech Tackle, Berkley, AIM Walleye Series, Masters Walleye Circuit, FLW Outdoors, Frabill, U.S. Forest Service, Liddle Marketing, FPS Financial Planning Services, Do-it Corp., Optima Batteries, John Butts Outdoors, Pasha Lake Cabins, Oahe Wings and Walleyes Guide Service, Outdoor First Media, Advanced Tex Screen Printing, Pro Staff Gear and Worldwide Marine Underwriters.By: Patrick Neu, NPAA Executive Director