All your favorite teams and sources in one place

Build your feed

Your Teams.
All Sources.

Build your feed

© 2024 BVM Sports. Best Version Media, LLC.

No results found.
Lake Winnebago is challenging all anglers as they look towards the NPFL Championship
This is the first full season the NPFL has had and it has been a complete success so far. (Courtesy: NPFL)

Lake Winnebago is challenging all anglers as they look towards the NPFL Championship

OSHKOSH, Wis. (BVM) — The first full season of the National Professional Fishing League (NPFL) is more than halfway done as day two of their fifth event gets underway in Oshkosh.

With only one more event before the championship, the 110 anglers that were out on Lake Winnebago are trying to position themselves for the championship or the $50,000 first-place prize for winning this event. 

“These guys are trying to qualify for the championship,” NPFL analyst Fat Cat Newton said. “You have guys in this tournament that are just swinging for the fences and they want to bring home the chrome, they just want to win this tournament. Then you have guys that are strictly fishing for points.” 

Since only the top 25 in the Progressive Angler of the Year (AOY) standings make the championship, combined with the challenges that Lake Winnebago presents to any angler, there is a lot of strategy that goes into how everyone approaches the three days competition.

“It’s like shooting pool,” Fat Cat said. “When you break the rack of balls you’re not just looking at your next shot, you’re looking six or seven shots ahead and that’s what these guys are doing.” 

Especially when out on Lake Winnebago. 

“We travel all over the country and Lake Winnebago is one of the more challenging spots,” NPFL’s Patch Baker said. “The fish aren’t monsters here; it’s got all the different variables in fishing and it gives a challenge. … As we get later on in the season, you want to give the guys more and more challenging spots.” 

From the size of the lake to the weather conditions and the public use of the body of water, the anglers have to be prepared for everything during the three-day event.

Lake Winnebago posses both challenges and opportunities for the anglers. (Courtesy: NPFL)

“The size of Winnebago can be overwhelming,” Fat Cat said. “These guys have access to over 400,000 acres of water, so just trying to find a location that you have confidence in because what seems to happen on bodies of water this big is 80% of your fish will be in 20% of the lake.” 

Along with that size comes a diverse ecosystem full of many different species of fish. This means the anglers, when doing underwater graphing, need to be certain they are looking at a bass rather than a different species of fish that school similar to bass. 

The size also means that the weather can affect the lake drastically. On Saturday, the weather forecast calls for 10-15 mph wind gusts which out on the lake could be up to 25 mph. 

“Once this body of water gets windy like that the main lake is no fun it turns into the ocean,” Fat Cat said. “It’s a huge body of water, it’s not very deep and those waves don’t have anywhere to go so they just get bigger.”

Along with that, Winnebago is a popular leisure boating lake, meaning there will be a lot of extra boats out on the water. The extra boats and the weather will likely push anglers to want to fish the rivers that feed into Winnebago like the Wolf and Fox river. However, both water systems have no wake zones on Saturday which affects the distances the anglers can travel upstream and still be able to get back before the deadline.

With all these challenges, there are benefits to fishing Lake Winnebago. 

“You have guys that are finesse fisherman that are fishing eight to ten pound test with small lures on spinning rods,” Fat Cat said. “Then you have guys that are powerfishing that are using frogs on heavy rods. A good thing about Lake Winnebago is this place offers structure for all anglers. We’ll have guys offshore finesse fishing and we’ll have guys up in the thick nasty stuff power fishing.” 

Entering the event, anglers believed it would take 45 pounds, 15 pound bags each day, to win here in Oshkosh. After day one, that looks to be accurate as Keith Carson is at the top of the leaderboard with a day one bag of 15 pounds, 4 ounces. 

Along with the competition, the NPFL is taking advantage of being right in the middle of Oshkosh to showcase the league to the local community. There are live weigh-ins at the end of each day at Menomonee Park that feature the boats and anglers being brought up to the weigh-in stage by their trucks, all of which are artistically covered in sponsorships. It’s quite the spectacle and one fan even compared it to “NASCAR on the water.”

On Saturday, Hero Beverage Company will be hosting Hero Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT.

The day will see local Oshkosh service members and members from each branch of the military honored as well as local community members receiving hero trophies. With many of the anglers and NPFL leadership veterans, former service members and current service members, it’s an event they are proud to be a part of. 

It is another exciting moment in their first full season, and so far everyone in the NPFL is thrilled with how the season has been going. 

“I’ve been astronomically pleased with the outcome so far,” Baker said. “There are a lot of eyeballs on us. There’s a lot of people that are seeing that we’re doing things a little differently.” 

After day one on Lake Winnebago many of the expectations heading into the event were proven to be true. (Courtesy: NPFL)

With the help of sponsors like Progressive and Hero Beverage Company, the NPFL has been making headway and accomplishing its goal of educating people about what it takes to be a professional angler. 

“We’re working really hard on educating the audience as part of the broadcast and that’s a big deal,” Baker said. “If you’re in the fishing world you know all that stuff but if you’re new to the fishing world it’s hard to pick up everything that’s going on, so we’ve gone out of our way to educate as we go.” 

It’s all in an effort to reach a younger audience and make professional angling a family sport.

“We’re trying to make it more of a family thing and reaching out to the younger audiences, bridging the gap between dads and kids,” Baker said. “It’s a big part of who we are as a league. That’s a big deal to us and the anglers too.” 

There are still two more days of competition in Oshkosh and a lot can happen during that time both on and off the water. However, at the end of the day this event in particular gives the NPFL a chance to showcase what they are all about. A family friendly event that looks to showcase the amazing sport that they love so much. 

“People don’t understand that this is a really energy intensive sport,” Baker said. “People think that it’s just somebody casting a line in the water and that’s it. They don’t understand how much goes into it, the science, the art, the skill and the tens-of-thousands of hours these guys spend in the water. … It’s pretty amazing.”