It would not be a Badlands Bass Bandits event if the wind did not blow a little right? Well the wind blew HARD and changed plans for the BBB Classic which was to be held on Lake Sakakawea, launching from Ft. Stevenson state park day 1 and fishing Audubon day 2. With a backup tournament permit in hand and for obvious safety reasons with the wind forecasted, Day 1 of the BBB Classic was switched to the north arm of lake Audubon famously known as “Nobon”.
Day 1 kicked off with an “Idle Only Speed” launch from the Nobon landing by regulations per the state of North Dakota on WMA’s (wildlife management areas), it resembled a herd of turtles taking off! But after the anti-climatic boat launch, anglers were having no issues getting on the plentiful smallmouth present in Nobon coming in with a group average of 3.12 pounds a fish being weighed in. At the conclusion of day 1, only 1.35 pounds separated the leaders from most of the field.

Day 2 started with howling winds (20+ mph) out of the northwest as the bandits met at the Cabin Sites ramp on Lake Audubon. Once launched, anglers not only dealt with wind but rain as well, an all too familiar sight to this group on tournament day. Although the weather was not “ideal” for comfort, the bass were feeding and those who got on the fish forgot about the cold-windy conditions. At weigh in on day 2 there was a little more separation of weights which made the 2-day totals only hundredths separated some teams who placed.

Your 2020 Badlands Bass Bandits Classic champion this year is team Paul Reinbold and Eric Vossler with a 2-day total of 28.05 pounds, they also took home big bass award with a whopper at 4.08 pounds! In second by a margin of 0.03 pounds is team Ron & Cody Arth with 27.43 pounds of smallies and right on their heels were team Colton Blomberg and John Lancaster coming in third with 27.40 pounds! During our “spill the beans” session after weigh in, it was found that if you could find the bass, you could catch the bass the way you like to fish as successful angles shared winning tactics came from both power and finesse approaches. Tubes, Ned rigs, jerk baits, and spinnerbaits were used from the top three teams to catch their winning bags.

As done every year previous, end of the year awards was presented at conclusion of the BBB Classic weigh-in.

Angler of the year went to Colton Blomberg, a well deserved award as Colton put a lot of time on the water this year to earn his title, and not without competition as team Bullinger were hot on his tail all season making him work for the AOY.

Rookie of the year goes to team Dan & Alex Martel, this father-son duo had a great first year with the bandits and proved that they can catch fish on bodies of water they have never been on before, watch out for these guys come 2021!

The Horizon Award goes to team Bullinger (Scott, Brandon, and Logan), who happened to be our horizon award recipients from last season. But again, this was a well deserved title as they improved even better vs last year with their average pounds caught in each tournament!

Bag Buster award also goes to team Bullinger from their win on Nelson lake during our social distancing fishing challenge with a commanding 96”(est. 20.81 pounds) of largemouth.

Biggest Largemouth goes to Scott Bullinger of team Bullinger with a 21.25” behemoth (est. 5.71 pounds) caught during our Nelson Lake social distancing fishing challenge.

Biggest Smallmouth goes to Alex Martel with his 4.79 pound football caught in the last 5 minutes during our New Johns tournament in our loading area, this is a stark reminder to all of us that if you fish every moment possible you will be rewarded!

This concludes the Badlands Bass Bandits 2020 season, with all the roadblocks that this year brought, we all had an extraordinarily successful year! A big thank you to each angler that came to fish with us this season to make it the best season yet!