As the boats started to gather at the Spiritwood Resort landing it was shaping up to be a special day. Not a breeze of wind with moderate temperatures vs the weeks of 80-90’s we had be experiencing prior to tournament day and at launch 14 teams set forth to explore the waters of Spiritwood. Even though days in ND are rare, they are still enjoyable, but it made the bandits work hard to earn their fish as the bite was not as active with slick calm conditions. But as the story goes, we always have anglers who can get the job done and come with heavy bags.

Coming in at the top of the pack was team Tanner Mallams and Tony McKay with a 3-fish, 11.91-pound bag! And to top their victory Tanner earns the tournaments big bass award with a 4.14 pounder! In second place was Team Alex and Dan Martel with a commanding 10.48-pound limit and not far behind in third was team Ryan and Amber Todd with 10.36 pounds of smallmouth.

When the top three teams spilled the beans there were some consistencies in their winning tactics and that was slow, shallow, green pumpkin. They spent their time sight fishing and slowly putting their presentations of tube jigs, hula grubs, and senko’s in front of the bass coaxing them to bite.

This did end up being a record setting tournament with our top three teams weighing the new 2nd, 4th, & 5th largest limits to be brought across the scales during a badlands bass bandits tournament on Spiritwood. Tanner also earned himself the 4th largest smallmouth caught during a Spiritwood tournament. A big day for our club and our winners!