BOSHOLD/MCNETT WIN REDSTONE 2007

Mike McNett (right above) of Lombard, IL and Tony Boshold (left) of Carol Stream, IL have been fishing as a team in the Ice Team tournament series for many years now.  In fact, they are the 2005 North American Ice Fishing Champions, and this past Sunday (2/18/07) it came to perfection on ice once again as they hauled in the top catch of 15 panfish (8 crappies & 7 bluegills) from beautiful and scenic Lake Redstone near Reedsburg, WI.    With a total weight of 6.33 pounds, Mike & Tony received the “wood” plaques declaring them 2007 Redstone victors, and 1^st place monies of some $7,000+.  Once again, the lures that helped Mike & Tony win, were FISKAS Wolfram jigs tipped with Little Atom super-soft plastic tails.  Tony basically fished a limited area, where the gills were on the lake bottom, and Tony said he caught all the gills with the FISKAS tipped with the Little Atom Original Wedgees tail in blood red color.  Tony said, “There was a time when the bite slowed, and I was tempted to switch out the Wedgees tail and put on some live bait scented and colored in Krazy Dust.  But, I decided I would just live or die by the blood red color Wedgees tail, and I’m glad I stuck with the blood red Wedgees tail, because later I picked up some more big gills on it, and now look, we won!”  

While Tony focused on the bluegill bite with his FISKAS jig tipped with only a blood red color Little Atom original Wedgees tail, Mike concentrated on landing the big crappies that would be needed to finish at or near the top.  Mike used a FISKAS Wolfram Jig tipped with only a Little Atom Nuggies tail in blue sparkle color.  Mike said, “The blue Nuggies tail was driving the Crappies crazy, many of the Crappies would come up and just hammer it!  The few light-biters also got caught as well with the help of the St.Croix Legend Ice Rods with the patented spring-bobber system we use.  We didn't miss anything.  If the fish we caught were not bigger than the fish we already had in our bucket, they went right back down the hole.  We knew we might be in a good position when we saw that we were throwing back fish that were bigger than the fish we saw other teams keeping.” 

After Mike and Tony weighed their catch they were tops on the leader board, but about 30 teams still had to weigh their catch, and during the next half-hour or so, Mike and Tony anxiously awaited to see if their catch would hold as tops for the day.   Two other FISKAS / Little Atom Pro Teams, namely the teams of Phil Morse/Jeff Morse and Myron Gilbert/Joe Pikulski had not yet weighed, and Mike and Tony worried that the Morse’s or Gilbert/Pikulski teams might take the lead.  Mike said, “There’s still two FISKAS / Little Atom Pro Teams in line to be weighed yet, Joe and Myron won here last year, and Phil and Jeff haven’t weighed yet either, so I’m worried that either one or both of those teams might have us beat.”  Phil and Jeff weighed their catch, and their catch was good but under 6.33 pounds, still keeping Tony & Mike in the lead.  After Phil & Jeff weighed, Joe & Myron weighed their catch and it was under 6.33 pounds as well.  Joe & Myron finished with a 4^th place finish after winning Redstone 2006, and Phil & Jeff Morse, the 2004 North American Ice Fishing Champions,  finished in 16^th place.   While Joe & Myron were driving to the lake on tournament day, about 4 miles out from the lake, their trailer tire went flat.  Rather than stop and change the tire, and risk being late, they instead drove with the flat trailer tire and by the time they got to the lake staging area for the tournament, their trailer tire was dragging on the rim and putting on a sparkler show.   Myron said, “I thought it [the flat tire on their trailer] might be a bad omen of things to come for the day, but everything turned out fine.  Joe & I were hoping for a top-10 finish because we knew we had problems during pre-fishing locating enough of the bigger gills in the lake, so to come away with a 4^th place finish is the best we could do today.  Of course we would have liked to win Redstone for the 2nd year in a row, but we knew that was going to be difficult going in.”