An un-seasonably warm and dry winter has set up for a Badlands Bass Bandits Ice Bowl that does not feel deserving of the name. Instead of snow-covered boat ramps, blistering cold temps, and a giant temperature gradient from one end of the lake to the next; anglers had 65, sunny, and relatively warm temperatures across the entire lake!

26 anglers in 13 boats came to compete. In typical Ice Bowl format, boaters and co-angers were paired at random from different boats to for a two-person team that combined their longest 5 bass competing for the Ice Bowl traveling trophy. Although the weather was perfect for a day on the water, many of the competing anglers had to work hard to fill a 5 fish limit. When the dust settled at the close of the tournament those 26 anglers registered 87 largemouth bass via the Fish Donkey app.

Coming in third place was team Brandon Bullinger & Mat Rose with 82.25” in cumulative length for their 5 largest. In second, Justin Kanges & Daniel Martel with 83.75” and in first was Justin Enney & Kyle Okke with an 85” bag! Bandits’ newcomer Justin Steele caught the big bass of the day at 19.5”! All anglers shared that finesse was providing the better bite with baits like worms, stick baits, and tubes all worked slowly providing the best bite.

The official start to the Badlands Bass Bandits 2021 season is April 10th, all are welcome and pay attention to our social media pages for more details as we close in on our first tournament of the season!