Hi all you Bass fans!
Well, another year has come and gone for the Badlands Bass Bandits.  We had another exciting year in 2008 and we would like to thank all our members and everyone that supported us this year in any way. 

Our first two spring tournaments started off poorly, with the first one on April 26th being called off shortly after it started do to very poor weather conditions.  The decision was made that it was too windy, cold and snowing to make it safe to continue.  The second one, on May 10th was held, but a few members did not make it do to 8” of snow that morning.  It did melt off by mid-morning and turned out to be a fair day.  Sheep’s Creek on June 28th turned out to be quite windy, but some nice fish were caught.  The next day on Lake Tschida, the wind died down some and the day was pleasant.  The smallmouth bite was best the first thing in the morning, and those that held on to three keepers early, came out on top.  The club camped out on Saturday night at Lake Tschida below the dam and a great time was had by all.  Some lessons were given on a kind of ‘rope & ball’ horseshoe game, that ‘Terrible Tony’ brought along.  (Not too sure he didn’t make up some the rules as we went?)  We moved on to New Johns Lake on July 19th, once again the smallmouth bite was dominant here, but there are some very nice largemouths in it as well.  This lake, the canals, and the adjoining lakes that make up the chain, could prove to be one of the best bass fishing destinations in the upper North Dakota region some day.  All types of cover and structure are available in these waters.  We moved on to Lake Audubon on August 16th and again the smallmouth bass were dominant.  We got lucky with no bad winds and it was a nice day.  We had our April make up tournament the same weekend as Audubon, so on August 17th; we fished New Johns Lake again.  Smallmouth once again dominated this lake.  Our final tournament of the year was our Classic Championship, held on Nelson Lake, September 14th.  We had a cookout and Awards for the 2008 season winners were handed out. We had some exciting times this season,
Two spring tournaments with snow!

‘Tony the Terrible’ Reinbold taking a commanding lead after the first two tournaments, that he never gave up the rest of the year, to achieve his ‘Angler of the Year’ title!  (Even though he misplaced one of his crawfish in my boat (left behind by one of his smallmouth).  Tony also won the ‘Bag Buster Award’ with 3 fish weighing 8.23 lbs. for the biggest bag of the year.
A great camping outing at our two day ‘Sheep’s Creek’ & ‘Lake Tschida’ tournaments.

The ‘Canadian Adventure’ on Boundary Waters Dam.   Our club sponsored this at the last minute and our three teams that entered came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th.  (We may try to have a regular club tournament there next year). James Francis bagging the largest Smallmouth of the year on New Johns at 3.99 lbs. Young ‘Matt Dillon’ Jahner taking it all home (1st Place & Big Fish) in the Lake Audubon shootout.  Me and ‘Kermit the Frog’, capturing 1st Place on the New Johns makeup tournament, in the last 2 hours of the day.  Paul (‘The Pres’) Reinbold taking 1st Place and Big Bass of the day (and the year) in the ‘Classic Championship’ with a largemouth of 4.87 lbs. 1st Place for the year going to ‘Tony Reinbold’.  2nd Place going to ‘Paul Reinbold’.  3rd Place going to ‘Janine Wetzel’.  Congratulations to all of you on a good year of fishing. 

Just to enlighten everyone that there are some things that prevent some of our dedicated members from being able to attend, here are a few of the things that came up during the year:The early snow storms in the spring stopped a few members from making it to our 2nd tournament of the year.
Alan Hildebrandt’s family had some health issues that he had to help with that prevented him from attending a number of events towards the end of the year.  We w sh his family the very best.
Bob Reinbold had several battles with ‘Mother Nature’ that destroyed his crops and prevented him from being able to fish as much as he’d have liked to. James Francis is in the United States Air Force and had to miss some tournaments because of his duties. As for me, I got in a fight with my riding lawn mower while sharpening the blades, and severed the tendons in my right hand and could not fish the Classic Championship. 

In all, we had a very good year and had a lot of fun.  We are looking forward to next year and already making plans for when a where we will be fishing.  Come and join us!  We’d love to have you!
Terry Piper