Juls
10-04-2008, 07:34 PM
Greg Yarbrough and Jeff Manz Win the Cabelas MWC Championship!
Greg Yarbrough and Jeff Manz were the second to last team to weigh in this afternoon. They brought their 5 fish limit to the scale hoping to have enough to take over the lead. They also wanted to make sure they had enough weight to keep the last team to weigh in from taking the lead away from them.
They needed 20 pounds and a few ounces to take the lead from the Minnesota Father and Son team of Don and Mike Olson, who were currently sitting in first with a weight of 48.48 pounds.
Greg and Jeff had a stunned look on their faces as the fish weighed in at 21.90 pounds. Enough to take over the lead, but was it enough to hold the lead as the last team weighed in?
Normally, they wouldn't have worried too much, but the last team to weigh in was their teammates and good friends, Scott Rhodes and Jeff Koester...a team that is no stranger to winning tournaments on Lake Erie, or any other place come to think of it.
As Scott and Jeff came to the stage, Jeff and Greg were standing off to the side, waiting to see what fate would bring them. Scott and Jeff needed 29 pounds to take the lead away from the new leaders, but as the fish were being pulled from their livewell and put into the basket, it was clear that their fish would weigh in short of that number. When MWC Tournament Director, Kristine Houtman, announced their weight at 20.17 pounds, both teams faced each other and hand shakes and hugs started flying!
Question: How does it feel to be the 2008 Cabelas MWC Champions?
Greg Yarbrough: It feels GREAT! Jeff and I were very nervous the last two days, and extremely nervous this afternoon. It feels awesome to finally win a championship! The Cabelas Masters Walleye Circuit is a great circuit to compete on. The MWC has been around for a long time and there some great anglers that have fished this circuit, and up until this day a lot of the touring Pros from some of the other circuits continue to fish the MWC. It's really a tough competition.
We won the overall "Team Of The Year" title a couple years ago...and, the "Eastern Team Of The Year" title, but this is a great honor to take a championship as well. We're very excited.
Question: Do you think having a good familiarity of this body of water helped you win this event?
Greg: Yeah, I do think it helped a little bit. We tend to fish the Canadian water quite a bit...when there are tournaments that allow us to run over there, but there's a lot of good areas in Lake Erie. It really is the premiere Walleye fishery in the world, and we really enjoy fishing Erie anytime we get the opportunity.
Question: Were you able to upgrade any fish today, or did you only get 5 bites?
Greg: We were able to upgrade a couple fish late in the afternoon. We ran North, and we picked up one that was about 3 1/2 pounds, that kicked out a 2.2 for us. Then, late in the day, with about a half hour to go we pulled a nice 4.11 pound fish, and that kicked out one of the three pounders, so that made the difference for us.
Question: How does it feel to beat your teammates?
Greg: Again, it feels great! Scott Rhodes and Jeff Koester are fantastic fishermen, and anytime you go against them you know it's going to be a slugfest. Fortunately, they are our friends, and they pretty much owned Lake Erie the past couple of years here, but this weekend it was our time to be on top, so we're pretty excited. (Which is very noticeable by the huge smiles being worn by both teammates tonight).
Question: Do you think there was any secret to why you two came out on top...anything special that you did different than the other guys?
Greg: I don't know...we just tried to stay focused and fish a limited number of spots that we knew would be productive. We didn't get fancy...we didn't try to run a bunch of different programs...we stayed with spinners the entire time, (primarily perch patterns), and I think that was probably the key to our success.
Question: How were you running your spinner set ups?
Greg: We ran them behind Church Tackle In-Line Planer Boards...the TX-22's...with the double action flag on it. That really helps, because when you have a fish that is just nipping at it, you can dump the spool and feed it back to the fish, and when he takes it you know it's going to be there. That really helps when you're in an area where there is a lot of Perch and White Perch nipping at your baits. Just experiment with blade and bead color combos until you find something the fish wants. It's nothing fancy or tricky...keep it simple.
It was a long weigh in for Don and Mike Olson who held the lead from early on in the weigh in process. They were one of the first teams to weigh in, so it was a long wait to see if they would be knocked off of the top spot. After only a 6.14 pound basket on day one, they bounced back with 18.57 pounds the second day and 23.77 pounds today for a total of 48.48 pounds.
Question: Well, that was quite a run you two made at the title. You came from behind to get to second place, that's got to feel pretty good.
Don: I tell ya, Mike and I worked so hard at it. We had been all over this lake, and we happened to get on a big pod of fish that was about a mile wide and three miles long. That's big!
There's certain spots where there are big fish and we did get into them... that 8 pounder today really helped us a lot!
The thing about this spot though, is that there are so many weeds there. It was our first spot to go to, but we couldn't even fish it yesterday, so we pulled up and went to our second spot. When we got there we found the water cleaner, but the fish were a little bit smaller. We pulled through there and got our limit. We dropped a nice 6-7 pound fish right behind the boat too, that would have probably won the tournament for us, but everyone probably has stories like that, where they miss a few important fish, right? (He shrugs it off).
My son, Mike, figured something out that really made the difference for us today. On Lake Erie you can only have one hook here, on a line or a slider, and...(he hesitates and looks around for Mike)...Maybe I shouldn't say this? (He wonders, but then continues). We put a cross-lock on that, put a crawler on, and put a treble on the back of that. All that did was hold that crawler up. The Walleye's were biting behind the spinner and we kept missing a whole bunch, because of that single hook before, so when we changed it, that was the key. That made all the difference in the world.
The second key was when we went back to our number one spot today, and it was still weedy, Mike suggested we put a snap on there about 8 foot ahead of the bait. He figured that would collect the weeds and keep our baits clear. It worked absolutely fabulous! It kept the baits clean and that allowed us to keep our baits in the water...and, we caught a lot of fish today!
In third place is the team of Jerry Plourde of Cornell, MI and Dan Stier of Clearwater, MN who brought in a 5 fish limit weighing in at 23.91 pounds for a total weight of 47.87 pounds.
In fourth place is the Wisconsin team of Kevin Carstensen of Merrill, and Rich Olds of Stevens Point. Their 5 fish weighed in at 28.94 pounds and was the largest basket brought in over the past three days! That limit brought their total weight up to 47.65 pounds.
Rounding out the top five is the team of Rob Krause and Dave Dretske of Berlin, WI. They zeroed on day one, but came back on day two with 26.10 pounds and 21.35 pounds today for a total weight of 47.45 pounds.
For the "Rest of the Best" results please see the Live Leaderboard at http://www.liveleaderboard.com and click on the MWC Championship links.
Congratulations to all the teams who fished this week! You've fished through some tough conditions and made it all happen.
Each and every one of you proved you deserved to be in the Championship, and no matter what place you ended up in, you should be very proud!
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for joining us here on Walleye Central for the final tournament of the MWC season! It's been a pleasure bringing you live coverage of their events all year, and we hope to do it again next season!
Greg Yarbrough and Jeff Manz were the second to last team to weigh in this afternoon. They brought their 5 fish limit to the scale hoping to have enough to take over the lead. They also wanted to make sure they had enough weight to keep the last team to weigh in from taking the lead away from them.
They needed 20 pounds and a few ounces to take the lead from the Minnesota Father and Son team of Don and Mike Olson, who were currently sitting in first with a weight of 48.48 pounds.
Greg and Jeff had a stunned look on their faces as the fish weighed in at 21.90 pounds. Enough to take over the lead, but was it enough to hold the lead as the last team weighed in?
Normally, they wouldn't have worried too much, but the last team to weigh in was their teammates and good friends, Scott Rhodes and Jeff Koester...a team that is no stranger to winning tournaments on Lake Erie, or any other place come to think of it.
As Scott and Jeff came to the stage, Jeff and Greg were standing off to the side, waiting to see what fate would bring them. Scott and Jeff needed 29 pounds to take the lead away from the new leaders, but as the fish were being pulled from their livewell and put into the basket, it was clear that their fish would weigh in short of that number. When MWC Tournament Director, Kristine Houtman, announced their weight at 20.17 pounds, both teams faced each other and hand shakes and hugs started flying!
Question: How does it feel to be the 2008 Cabelas MWC Champions?
Greg Yarbrough: It feels GREAT! Jeff and I were very nervous the last two days, and extremely nervous this afternoon. It feels awesome to finally win a championship! The Cabelas Masters Walleye Circuit is a great circuit to compete on. The MWC has been around for a long time and there some great anglers that have fished this circuit, and up until this day a lot of the touring Pros from some of the other circuits continue to fish the MWC. It's really a tough competition.
We won the overall "Team Of The Year" title a couple years ago...and, the "Eastern Team Of The Year" title, but this is a great honor to take a championship as well. We're very excited.
Question: Do you think having a good familiarity of this body of water helped you win this event?
Greg: Yeah, I do think it helped a little bit. We tend to fish the Canadian water quite a bit...when there are tournaments that allow us to run over there, but there's a lot of good areas in Lake Erie. It really is the premiere Walleye fishery in the world, and we really enjoy fishing Erie anytime we get the opportunity.
Question: Were you able to upgrade any fish today, or did you only get 5 bites?
Greg: We were able to upgrade a couple fish late in the afternoon. We ran North, and we picked up one that was about 3 1/2 pounds, that kicked out a 2.2 for us. Then, late in the day, with about a half hour to go we pulled a nice 4.11 pound fish, and that kicked out one of the three pounders, so that made the difference for us.
Question: How does it feel to beat your teammates?
Greg: Again, it feels great! Scott Rhodes and Jeff Koester are fantastic fishermen, and anytime you go against them you know it's going to be a slugfest. Fortunately, they are our friends, and they pretty much owned Lake Erie the past couple of years here, but this weekend it was our time to be on top, so we're pretty excited. (Which is very noticeable by the huge smiles being worn by both teammates tonight).
Question: Do you think there was any secret to why you two came out on top...anything special that you did different than the other guys?
Greg: I don't know...we just tried to stay focused and fish a limited number of spots that we knew would be productive. We didn't get fancy...we didn't try to run a bunch of different programs...we stayed with spinners the entire time, (primarily perch patterns), and I think that was probably the key to our success.
Question: How were you running your spinner set ups?
Greg: We ran them behind Church Tackle In-Line Planer Boards...the TX-22's...with the double action flag on it. That really helps, because when you have a fish that is just nipping at it, you can dump the spool and feed it back to the fish, and when he takes it you know it's going to be there. That really helps when you're in an area where there is a lot of Perch and White Perch nipping at your baits. Just experiment with blade and bead color combos until you find something the fish wants. It's nothing fancy or tricky...keep it simple.
It was a long weigh in for Don and Mike Olson who held the lead from early on in the weigh in process. They were one of the first teams to weigh in, so it was a long wait to see if they would be knocked off of the top spot. After only a 6.14 pound basket on day one, they bounced back with 18.57 pounds the second day and 23.77 pounds today for a total of 48.48 pounds.
Question: Well, that was quite a run you two made at the title. You came from behind to get to second place, that's got to feel pretty good.
Don: I tell ya, Mike and I worked so hard at it. We had been all over this lake, and we happened to get on a big pod of fish that was about a mile wide and three miles long. That's big!
There's certain spots where there are big fish and we did get into them... that 8 pounder today really helped us a lot!
The thing about this spot though, is that there are so many weeds there. It was our first spot to go to, but we couldn't even fish it yesterday, so we pulled up and went to our second spot. When we got there we found the water cleaner, but the fish were a little bit smaller. We pulled through there and got our limit. We dropped a nice 6-7 pound fish right behind the boat too, that would have probably won the tournament for us, but everyone probably has stories like that, where they miss a few important fish, right? (He shrugs it off).
My son, Mike, figured something out that really made the difference for us today. On Lake Erie you can only have one hook here, on a line or a slider, and...(he hesitates and looks around for Mike)...Maybe I shouldn't say this? (He wonders, but then continues). We put a cross-lock on that, put a crawler on, and put a treble on the back of that. All that did was hold that crawler up. The Walleye's were biting behind the spinner and we kept missing a whole bunch, because of that single hook before, so when we changed it, that was the key. That made all the difference in the world.
The second key was when we went back to our number one spot today, and it was still weedy, Mike suggested we put a snap on there about 8 foot ahead of the bait. He figured that would collect the weeds and keep our baits clear. It worked absolutely fabulous! It kept the baits clean and that allowed us to keep our baits in the water...and, we caught a lot of fish today!
In third place is the team of Jerry Plourde of Cornell, MI and Dan Stier of Clearwater, MN who brought in a 5 fish limit weighing in at 23.91 pounds for a total weight of 47.87 pounds.
In fourth place is the Wisconsin team of Kevin Carstensen of Merrill, and Rich Olds of Stevens Point. Their 5 fish weighed in at 28.94 pounds and was the largest basket brought in over the past three days! That limit brought their total weight up to 47.65 pounds.
Rounding out the top five is the team of Rob Krause and Dave Dretske of Berlin, WI. They zeroed on day one, but came back on day two with 26.10 pounds and 21.35 pounds today for a total weight of 47.45 pounds.
For the "Rest of the Best" results please see the Live Leaderboard at http://www.liveleaderboard.com and click on the MWC Championship links.
Congratulations to all the teams who fished this week! You've fished through some tough conditions and made it all happen.
Each and every one of you proved you deserved to be in the Championship, and no matter what place you ended up in, you should be very proud!
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for joining us here on Walleye Central for the final tournament of the MWC season! It's been a pleasure bringing you live coverage of their events all year, and we hope to do it again next season!