Thank you! I hope to make more fishing documentaries in the next fishing season. In the meantime, back to more fishing with other buddies and adventures. Thanks for the sub and comment!

Thank you! I don’t know if I can match this quality every time, but at least when there is a willing subject like Tom around, I can make it happen. Ha, ha!

Thanks! I appreciate you commenting your thoughts! ;)

That might be true. I have never considered it before in my lifetime. The entry fee is one thing, but the boat you need to consistently compete is worth more than most homes these days. I don’t think boats used to cost more than the average home like they do today.

@@rippinglipsadventures Its pretty telling when the story you did was about a retired DENTIST. becoming a rookie.....its a rich man sport. There a people that are 10x better than some of these "pros". But never get the shot because of the barrier of entry.

@Dbars19 I agree. There are all kinds of sports that are like that, golf, hockey, polo, anything with horses usually. I’m sure the list goes on and on. I used to race downhill mountain bikes after I tacoed my rim in one competition, I was out. That was a $400 mistake ruining that tire and rim on a $2000 bike and that was 15 years ago. Fishing can be done on the cheap, but being in competitions can’t.

Good tips! I learned about the half crawler this season. The other points I haven’t been that detailed on in my fishing. Thanks!

Best video yet. After experiencing the tournament myself as a spectator, you nailed the content. Hope to see you in Bismarck this coming April!!!???

@BrentBranning-j9d Thanks Brent! I appreciate your words! I may go check Bismarck out. That will mean I’d have to plan for a substitute teacher, though. It’s right in the heart of school. We will see how it all shakes out. Tom might be coming to do another event, but he’s never fished rivers with any regularity. So that would be another “rookie” experience I suppose.

Thank you! Thanks for the support! I would love to check it out.

Thanks, Rande! About that planning… pointed and shot footage for four days. Decided to grab some interviews at the end of the week. Not a lot of preproduction planning happened. There was definitely effort to make it all work together and a lot of crashing the computer to finish it with 50+ days of editing 4 hours and up to 15 hours in a day. Thanks for the comment and for noticing the effort. I am pretty happy with how it all turned out.

You were a great subject! You made the story man. You are a pretty cool cat!

Thanks so much, Mr. Bloemendaal!

Thanks a ton! Like I said before, it was a complete nothing-burger without you and Tom making great interview sessions to connect to what other things I could capture. The story drove it 100% and that was both of you guys. I’ll give Tom 80% of the credit and you 20%. Ha, ha!

@@rippinglipsadventures happy to be part of it!

Isn’t he such a cool cat? Gotta love Tom.

Great video! ❤

@KatarzynaBelisle Thank you, Kat! The first video you’ve ever commented on is a big deal! ;) I love you!

I thought so, too.

Thanks.

I agree.

Yes it was. I haven’t seen one on the main lake like that before. It was a first for me. Glad to have captured it on video at least.

That’s my brother. He’s a character.

It sure was! ;)

It‘s a common site out there.

Yeah, I’ve got a Helix 9 on the bow now. That Hook was what I had on the boat when I bought it in 2017 and it was probably almost a decade old. Definitely an upgrade to get into my Helix. I have another Helix 9 in an ice shuttle for Mega Live, but would have rather waited to save up for the Garmin LVS34 and a good graph for FFS. The Mega Live is ok, and almost a couple thousand cheaper, but it sure can’t beat the Garmin FFS.

Thank you! Yeah, surprisingly the fishing has picked up in late August around Garrison now. It was tough to find any walleye up until the NWT around home. The other day, we had 12 in about an hour on one spot. I was even able to call my catches as my jig was dropping twice. I didn't call them from feeling the bite, but knowing dropping amongst 15 fish two feet off the bottom was going to be a feeding frenzy. I hope there is another NWT in Garrison and you all can make it back again. Maybe next time, I'd try my luck as a co-angler, too. Thanks for introducing yourself. It was a ton of fun meeting you guys.

It was a blast meeting you, too. I'm hoping to do that edit next. I just need to buy another hard drive to fit a week's worth of footage onto it and get it going. It will be the biggest edit I'll have ever tackled in my lifetime when I get time (school teaching started two weeks ago, too). The name of the thing will hopefully come to me after I'm done with it, too. Any ideas for me? Tom G. was my friend I followed around prefishing and some of the weigh in. I mentioned "Tour Level Tom," but nothing has really stuck out yet and I definitely won't be nearly comparable to Tour Level Gold in quality and production with all their gear and team.

Water level has been decent. It did come down this summer, but it's still at -10 on the offset which is better than the -28 I've seen. Smallies are a blast when I'm targeting them with jigs and swimbait, but not when I'm using crawlers and trying to get on some eating fish. Then they're more of a nuisance. They sure were easy to catch that day, though.

The answer…. Brett was “catching” and you two were “fishing” 😂

The answer was in video format immediately pulling in a twisted line trying to fix tangled messes right on cue. Ha, ha!

Oh yeah, I have used my Ulterra well over 100 feet away for 7 years. My trolling motor maintenance has been minimal with Pledge and a wipe down here and there and stay off of gravel roads if I don't have Pledge with me to clean it off prior to use. The deploy motor is going out among other things now. So I just wanted to get away from relying on the Ulterra for launching like I have for 7 years and over 500 launches. Don't want to swim for it and this Dakota Boat Retriever gives me the ability to launch my boat faster and with more dependability than my Ulterra ever will. If you want to see how I launched my boat prior to getting my Dakota Boat Retriever, you can find it as my most popular video on my channel with over 33k views.

Thanks Don! I appreciate you saying so.

It has worked for 7 years now. I am more hesitant to use it as a launching system these days, so I bought a Dakota Boat Retriever to essentially do the same thing without electronics and potential errors. I just don’t want to risk having to swim for it if the trolling motor fails me.

I can count on you to count the numbers. You must be a tournament slayer! 🐟

Exactly my thoughts, too. It would even work to connect it to your trailer at places that don’t have docks or up to trees or fence posts. I’m loving it so far.

Not so much in flat-earth territory. But I tried for a few years at local thrift stores and pawn shops, too. So I went the route of being able to use my skis for all kinds of fun. Ha, ha. Thanks for swinging into the comment section. I agree, with you. It normally should be a thing.

I have seen you see them. :)

Also do you want open end or closed end rivet?

I would guess if you have a closed end it would be better. I just used sealant/marine grade glue in each hole, also. Got my rivets at Menards. Aluminum rivets were all I used. The ones at Traxtech looked the same from what I could tell online. No regrets yet.

We've been finding the sauger a little more frequently the last few years here. They normally are a deep fish. Fun to see.

Surprise fish fo sure. It sure didn’t put up the same fight an 18 inch walleye does, though. Maybe having a bigger fish clamp down around its midsection took away some of its drive.

I ended up not making it in the tournament. Ha! My partner said he got the nod from the postmaster that we’d have the official date stamp on the entrance application on the necessary day, but it wasn’t. So we go put on the waiting list. I’m pre fishing for next year! Ha, ha. How was SD for you?

@rippinglipsadventures oh ya I actually decided not to fish gov cup this year and focused on DWC. Well I was at the state line still on ND side but it was decent. Didn't have a ton of time to fish but used drop shot and slip bobbers and got into 5 or 6 walleyes and a pile of cats and some drum

Yeah. “It’s going to be a great cat-fishery,” as my buddy once said a year or two ago. He wasn’t wrong. Ha, ha. They’re almost too easy to catch when I’m targeting walleye shallow. Sometimes, they fool me deep. They feel so much like a nice walleye, too. It’s such a subtle difference in head shakes.

@rippinglipsadventures lol we were prefishing the DWC and had a hot calm day or we pitched slip bobbers over a rock pile and my wife got like 4 or 5 within 20 minutes

She was thick. Sure was fun to hook up on that.

Hopefully you won’t be on some MTV show if you’re the catfish guy. ;) Yep. Beat my previous record by a huge 1/4 of an inch! Onto breaking it again 1/4 inch at a time. Ha, ha!

Thanks! Yeah. It was pretty cool. I was happy to get it on video after all the battery changes I had to do all day long. Ha!

@rippinglipsadventures We will be out pleasure boating on Saturday, but giving plenty of space to the fisherman as we always do. Good luck!

I’d probably be out there myself, but we didn’t make the cut this year. A friend of mine who’s been in the Cup for a dozen or more years in a row, didn’t get the official postmark on the response from the post office the day he dropped it off. We got put on the waiting list, which means no go for us. If I do fish, I wouldn’t worry about space considering the fish are more scattered this year than I’ve ever seen in seven years. I’ve also heard that pre fishing a tournament there is never the same as the day of. It’s going to be a hot one out there. You might have to jump in for relief.

Thanks, Dan! Definitely a fun one to actually latch onto.

Thanks! It was a fun surprise after a long, long day on one of the funnest ways to catch them. Had I been in the Cup, it would have been past time to report back. Ha, ha! Thanks for checking it out and swinging into the comment section.

Thank you so much! I try to make it above par. I was in Hollyweird for a few years of my life and it may have rubbed off a little in my creative juices. I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed watching.

It always is when I'm on Brett's boat. Especially when his family is there, too. They're a hoot.

Absolutely. Thanks for letting me tag along. My final thought are that I was preoccupied with 5 camera angles and working them all to be able to focus on catching my own fish that day. Ha, ha. I’m glad I caught your attention at least with the edit.

@@rippinglipsadventures that excuse flies with me :)

I'm glad you found it interesting enough to watch all the way through, too. Thanks for letting me know! Have a great day!

My pleasure. It’s a lot easier when I’m not the guy releasing the fish. Ha, ha! Thanks for watching and swinging by in the comment section again. Enjoy your time on Brett’s boat. You’re going to love it.

Thanks for letting me tag along on your family fishing trips. I’ve always enjoyed them. One day I hope to be half the fisher person you and your boys are. In the meantime, thanks for allowing us to test our steak grilling skills. It projected us down a path of making meat taste amazing for everyone and am happy to make that a frequent tradition.

@@rippinglipsadventures best food ever hands down!!!!!!

The only thing that I’d be able to get in there would be a top water bait. It was a solid growth of 5 foot weeds with giant leaves up to 6 inches below the surface. It was pretty gnarly. If you have a different bait that works for walleye in junk like that, I’m game. Outside the weeds, it was ok, but there wasn’t much area without them. The entire lake is less than 17 fow from what I found, also.

@rippinglipsadventures casting crank baits, slip bobbers. Those fish sit in the weeds sometimes on the inside edge sometimes on the outside edge. Thats how I catch most of my fish in the pot hole lakes

@chrisleier2936 thanks for the tips. I’ll definitely try it next time.

Definitely. That thing isn't going anywhere with all those rivets. But I haven't tried it yet. Because of your comment, I am going to tie on a safety chain if I ever do it, though. Ha, ha!