Mike Stetich is Master of Bass

MIke with Lunker Bass

June 30, 2007

     3 days of rain, clouds, wind and rising waters were not enough to keep, “A Good-Man Down”. Mike Stetich in his 2^nd year of fishing the Midwest lakes has “posted notice”, to veteran anglers, in the BFL Ozarks Tournament Trail.

     The 2006 BFL Season, found Mike in a huge learning curve, from his Native Indiana lakes. Having never been on lakes like Table Rock, Truman, Grand, Lake of the Ozarks, etc, Mike has proven he can catch bass. Even with the ups and downs of the 2006 season, Mike was able to qualify for the 2006 Regional, in Ft. Madison, IA.

     Now rolling into 2007, Mike is catching his stride, prior to the Truman event; Mike was sitting in 34^th place with 410 points. After the hard won, 1^st place victory, Mike finds himself with 610 points and solidly in 21^th place.

     Mike had excellent pre-fish days and had high hopes for a great day. Mike chooses to fish the lower lake area, main lake and Secondary points, where the rising muddy water would be last to hit.

Arriving at the ramp, tournament day, over an hour prior to launch, Mike found a huge line of boats, waiting to put in, that threatened to derail his game plan right out of the gate. “I never saw so much confusion, at a launch ramp”, Mike stated. He and many others thought they had arrived in plenty of time, but the weather really messed up guys on the ramp. 

Undaunted and missing his take off spot, Mike set off to his lower lake hotspots. Arriving at his first spot, he found a boat camped. Heading to his second spot, he stopped and fished for about 30 minutes with no success. Firing up the Big Yamaha 250 HPDI, Mike drove his 521 Ranger even closer to the dam, only to find his 3^rd spot occupied!

Being of positive mind, he went to his 4^th spot and his co-angler on the very first cast boated a 4-pound largemouth. Mike’s first cast, with his 1/8 oz; Shaky Head worm landed him a fish of the same size. In the next hour, Mike had boated the 6.65 Big Bass of the day, and 4 other keepers, of which 2 were a little over 15”’s.

Making the decision to go check the spots he wanted to fish, that were occupied in the early morning hours, he only, found none of the other anglers had left, and with about 1 hour left to fish, he headed for a spot, where he did catch some larger fish, on 10” worms, that an old friend spoke of.

With in 20 minutes Mike had caught 2 more bass that totaled 9 or 10 pounds! Time to go, Mike stated to his co-angler who managed 2 keepers through the day. They headed to the weigh in, were on time, and his best 5 went a whopping 21.15 pounds!

Mike total take home from this event: Over $5,200.00

· 200 points

· Ranger Cup $1,500.00

· BFL 1^st $3,100.00

· Big Bass $ 620.00

· The Confidence that he can be a serious contender in the BFL Ozarks Division.

Congratulations Mike

Story by Kerry Kruep