The NWT Championship is happenin’ right now on Lake of the Woods — first flight’s due at 3pm CST and they’re live streaming the weigh-in. Don’t worry…your boss will be watching it too lol.

Dylan Nussbaum, who won the last NWT event at Devils Lake, ND, nailed it when he said the hardest part about prefishing Lake of the Woods is you can drive around and literally mark fish anywhere/everywhere…so how do you know where to stop?

If it were me, I’d stop right where Keith Kavajecz did:

Keith isn’t the only walleye nut from The Next Bite crew leaning into a few — by the looks of it Gary Parsons had the time of his life prefishing…even let Chase catch one:

Lake of the Woods has a slot limit where walleyes 19.5-28″ must be immediately released…so the key’s gonna be getting 1 big ‘over’ each day to go with 4 chunky ‘unders.’ The good news: there’s plenty to be had….

NWT pro Brian Bashore was riding the rollers [!] with Northland Tackle spinner rigs [?] when he landed this mud melon:

Fish Addictions TV host Mike Olson’s been giving his Okuma line-counters a workout:

Fish-head John Hoyer’s been getting his downrigger on in a big way:

Only clue Robert Blosser gave on how he’s stickin’ em is by tagging Off Shore Tackle:

Normally I’d guess running planer boards ^^^ but you can only run 1 line per guy in MN, so would guess he’s using Tadpoles to get his cranks to run even deeper-er. Slick alternative to downrigging.

Whole field fishes today and tomorrow, with the top 10 pros/cos going out on Friday. Will have more info on how the bigguns are being caught after that….

– What Jason Rylander said about the newest trend in tackle storage: Fanny packs.

Lets him access fishin’ tools quickly…and without any extra exercise…. Lol seriously:

Love it or hate it, you gotta admit it’d be handy. NWT pro John Hoyer secretly rocks a Simms Hip Pack while prefishing…right John?

Asked Nick Lindner (guy who shot the vid ^) if he had one yet and he was all:

Know half of you reading this right now are like:

Considering it took me a year to finally wear Crocs in public, not sure I could pull one off. Although unlike Crocs, fanny packs do appear to be Chuck Norris-approved:

Did you know baits could be trolling at a different speed than your boat’s running? That’s why some guys measure lure speed at trolling depth, instead of watching the boat speed. Makes my brain hurt too (lol) so gonna bust out a quick example:

Ever noticed when you’re pulling a tuber/skier/wakeboarder/etc behind the boat, how when you make a turn you can whip ’em super fast outside the wake? Or how they’ll slow waaaay down when you turn the other way and they stay inside the wake??

Same thing happens to your baits underwater. Can also happen from currents, thermoclines, wind, etc.

Company called Fish Hawk actually makes speed and temp probes just for that. Check out this Gerry Bourgoin shot of his Fish Hawk X4 where the boat’s going 3.8 mph, but the lure’s running 2.5 mph at depth:

Now you know.

…when an Onyx Inflatable Life Jacket goes off?

Same PFDs that guys like Al Lindner and Jason Mitchell run. Love that life-savers are becoming cool:

Al and Jason will both be at the Fishing Careers Workshop this Oct — You signed up yet? Still trying to figure out how I got the invite…but I’ll take it!