Day 1: Overstreet at La Crosse

The first angler we caught up with this morning was Chad Morgenthaler idling through a long no wake zone.

Billy McCaghren started his day fishing a sandbar on the main river channel.

Travel mates J. Todd Tucker and Randy Allen were fishing side by side.

Tucker was the first of the pair we saw hook up with a fish…

…but despite the large splash the fish proved too short to keep.

Brandon Palaniuk sped by and took a look at the pair as he headed up river.

Meanwhile, Randy Allen had trolled down river a bit and fished close to what appeared to be a small moose.

Just up from where we left the pair of Tucker and Allen, Clent Davis was fishing just below a bridge that crossed the river.

Brandon Palaniuk said his plan was to lock through the dam he was fishing below, but a barge had beat him to the lock and was going to create about a two-hour delay.

Luckily Palaniuk knew the area below the dam well and was trying to make good use of his time while he waited.

Palaniuk went on a bit of a fish catching flurry after putting this fish in the boat.

The fish was his first keeper of the day.

Clent Davis had eased down river a bit closer to Palaniuk…

…while Randy Allen continued to move around the area, too.

Palaniuk had settled in and was fighting another fish to the boat.

He was changing baits often…

…and it paid off in the form of fish No. 2.

He made another cast and was hooked up again…

…with this acrobatic smallmouth…

…and put fish No. 3 in the live well.

Casey Scanlon was fishing a tree that had fallen in the water…

…picking it apart from several different angles.

Bill Lowen said his morning had been a struggle…

..the renowned river fisherman was still looking for his first keeper bite.

Jonathon VanDam came past Lowen at a high rate of speed.

We found Fletcher Shryock fishing a large flat he had all to himself.

He was fishing the edge of what many fishermen up north refer to as ‘cheese’. Or maybe that’s a Wisconsin thing.

Call it what you will, it leads to the trolling motor prop needing to be cleaned fairly often.

We only witnessed Shyrock catch one fish…

…that was too short and had to be released.

Cliff Pirch was sharing an area with…

…with Aaron Martens that we immediately saw…

…make a nice cull.

Martens boated another fish just after culling and everybody was loving it. We think.

Chris Lane said the morning bite had been slow for him, and that the had about 10 pounds in the live well.

He was grinding away cycling through several different baits.

Chad Morgenthaler found one of the few areas anybody seemed to have to themselves.

Some early fall colors were already present in the trees Britt Myers fished around.

We caught up with Kevin VanDam long enough to see him make a few casts…

…before he made a move.

Several anglers moved into completely different areas in the afternoon, including Alton Jones and Clent Davis.

However, the vegetation seemed to be everywhere.

This guy had a spot all to himself, too.

Jonathon VanDam needs a high finish this week to assure he requalifies for next year’s Elite Series.

Alton Jones started showing up early amongst the leaders on BASSTrakk.

Jones boated this quality fish but said it wouldn’t cull anything he already had in the live well.