James Niggemeyer – Catching Up

Hey everyone, I just wanted to catch up with you after the events in Wisconsin and ICAST

We fished the sixth and seventh event and LaCrosse was the perfect tournament for me to really do well – you know, a lot of Flippin’; a lot of frog fishing; just staying shallow; mixing it up in the mud – the stage was set for me to have a really solid event there.

Tournaments are all about making the right decisions – and I really did not make the right decisions the first day and it really cost me there at LaCrosse.

But, heading into Green Bay on the other hand, I had never cashed a check on a small mouth body of water or even a Great Lakes event.  In the past,  I came really close – just missed the cut – I think by 11 ounces on Lake Erie the last Bassmaster Elite Series we had there.

So, going into it I was, shall we say – a little apprehensive about it; just because of my track record.  But you know, there is a Scripture verse from the Bible that says “when we are weak, He is strong” – He being God and He really is strong when we are weak.

The area where I think I probably need more help – small mouth fishing on the Great Lakes – God really came through – it was an act of God for me to make the top twelve cut and finish sixth here at Green Bay and I am so glad that God acted on my behalf.

It was a wonderful week and I really had a lot of good fun; had a great time.  I got back to my Southern California roots – finesse fishing and a swim bait –  You can’t get more SO CAL style.  I was able to go back to the drop shot and even did some sight fishing

It wasn’t your typical Great Lakes style event; but just the same, I was weighing smallies every day, I had a blast. I had more than 16 pounds the first day and then almost thirteen and almost fourteen the third day and then on the final day I had my biggest bag of small mouth – was 17 and change.

So, just a great week; was able to catch them, like I said, drop shot with seven-pound-test Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon and never broke off a single fish.  That line is just incredibly strong stuff!  If you are looking to get some incredibly strong, high performance fluorocarbon – look no further than Gamma.
I used a 6’6” Legend Elite St Croix rod and caught the majority of my fish with that, I caught a few on a Strike King spinner bait and spinner bait rod Legend Tournament spinner bait rod 7’ medium heavy – and was able to swimbait my way to some quality fish there.

I used the swimbait it kind of as my “bird dog” there to draw some of those smallies out after that swimbait and then I can go back in and catch them on a drop shot bait… I can follow up with a drop shot and catch some of those fish.
So that was a really neat deal that I had going there.  I fished a swim bait on paddletail style swim bait and I fished that on a 12-pound-test Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon.

So, it was just a great week; you know, I am just really thankful that everything went really well there in Green Bay and my Yamaha VMAX SHO ran great and you know, going out on big waters like that you’ve got to have confidence in your equipment and my Bass Cat boat handled it just great – with flying colors as well.

After that, I went to ICAST and worked in my sponsors’ booths.  I spent time mainly in the Ardent Reels, Strike King, but, I also spent some time at St. Croix Rods and Gamma Fishing Line booths.  It was great to see all of the new products that my sponsors came out with and I was especially happy for St. Croix Rods to have won the Best of Show in the freshwater and saltwater rods categories.  They work really hard at building the best rods and to see them get recognized for their innovation is really cool.

Other than that, I just want to say God bless you and talk to you in about a couple of weeks or so.

www.jamesniggemeyer.com