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Biggest bag in three days goes to RCL Tour leader Bruce Hill on Devils Lake

DEVILS LAKE, N.D. – Doling out the biggest basket to date, Devils Lake delivered a five-fish semifinals limit worth 29 pounds, 11 ounces to Ranger pro Bruce Hill of Forest Lake, Minn. Hill’s catch comes on a day when all but one of the top 10 weighed a limit and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the lower tier of the top 20 weighed 15 pounds, 14 ounces or less.

To double up on the 10th-place semifinalist, Nick Johnson of Elmwood, Wis., with four fish for 15 pounds, 15 ounces, Hill parlayed a lot of looking in the practice period into a perfect patch of trees, where he has remained for the last three days.

“It took a lot of running and hitting a lot of stumps to find it,” says Hill, who attributes his success to the ideal union of food, cover and, therefore, walleye. “Mainly I’m looking for shrimp, which the perch eat, and they bring the walleye.”

That’s the ticket for Hill having surpassed the second-place semifinalist, Phillip Milliser of Plymouth, Ind., by 4 pounds, 14 ounces, a significant lead going into the finals when the competitors’ third-day weight carries into the finals.

Now nine finalists are chasing Hill heading into a day when the wind is supposed to howl – perhaps their only chance of catching him when it would take a significant stumble on Hill’s part for the remaining pros to close the gap.

Bobber brigade

Nevertheless, the finalists are attempting to get it done in the spots that have gotten them to the big dance.

Take third-place Lund pro Jerry Hein of Stillwater, Minn., who weighed a five-fish limit of 24 pounds, 4 ounces.

As a matter of course on Devils, Hein – a finalist in last year’s Championship on the Mississippi River – fished the copious trees. After all, the lake has tripled in size since the early 1990s with the momentum of record rainfall that has swallowed the surrounding woodlands.

For Hein, his catch came together near Graham’s Island, fishing slip bobbers and casting jigs with custom-made jigs with snag guards to trees adjacent to deep water. His work was done in 7 to 14 feet of water, with greater depths not far away.

“Every time there was a point, I fished the windward side of the snags whenever there was 20 feet nearby,” says Hein, who finished sixth here last year and therefore practiced in his tournament-producing area for just one hour, the time it took to weigh what Hein approximates at 30 pounds for five fish.

For further ingredients, Hein fished leeches on all his rods, leaving three bobbers out and casting one between the trees. Despite the labyrinth of snags, Hein says he has lost but one jig – to a line-slashing northern pike – throughout a week of practice and tournament fishing. Among Hein’s best colors has been a baby-blue jig.

Another pro doing the bobber deal, Crestliner pro Shannon Kehl of Menoken, N.D., slid into fourth with a limit of 24 pounds, 4 ounces. For Kehl’s part, he got them early and often for the first half-hour he spent fishing.

“They don’t start till 8 o’clock, and by 8:30 we had our limit,” Kehl says. “We could have had a limit earlier but we lost three of them.”

Even if the walleye came frequently for Kehl, many of the bites were subtler Friday, barely budging the bobber. Truth be told, experiencing light bites was a sommon refrain among the semifinalists.

Closing the gap?

Of those semifinalists who made the day-three cut, three are in the best position to make a run at Hill: Milliser, Hein, Kehl and Troy Morris of Bismarck, N.D., who weighed a 22-pound, 9-ounce limit, good for fifth place.

If Hill stumbles, however, 20 or more pounds from the semis, plus a big bag in the finals, could help narrow Hill’s considerable margin.

Gliding into seventh, with a 19-pound, 9-ounce limit, was Crestliner pro Jeff Koester of Brookville, Ind. Koester bobber fished entirely until he broke of a jig, then he or his co-angler partner, Tim Rutten of Devils Lake, picked up a Rapala Shad Rap and cast it more to keep four lines in the water than anything else.

“Every time we broke off a jig, the other guy was casting a crank,” Koester says. “We got two fish that way today.”

They were two of 14 brought to the boat by Koester and Rutten, most in the last spot Koester tried, a place that he expects will be sheltered should high winds howl on Saturday.

Of the last 10, between 11th and 20th, just three weighed their limit, a far cry from Milliser, Hein, et al. and their productivity. Productivity, though, could be an issue if the wind blows more than 30 mph as forecast.

“If there’s more than a foot of chop, I’m done,” Hein says.

Hill, meanwhile, has a backup spot for a limit, though not a large one, in the wind should he need to cushion his landing – a definite possibility given his considerable lead.

The top 10 take off at 7 a.m. Central on Saturday from Spirit Lake Resort and Casino.