The Nixon’s Marine Moses Lake Invitational is the most prestigious team tournament in Washington. It attracts the best teams in the region, produces giant bags and features a top prize of $10,000 to the winners. It is the event that bass anglers in the state pay attention to every year. This year was the 10th edition of the event and as always, Moses Lake did not disappoint.
Origin of the Nixon’s Marine Invitational
The event began as a way to thank customers of Nixon’s Marine and has grown into an event with a unique format and big time bragging rights.
“We started off with this event trying to make it a little different than everything else. We cut to the top-10 after the first day and then zero the weights for Day 2,” said Jeff Priester of Nixon’s Marine. “That also plays into the strategy, because you don’t want to burn all of your fish the first day and you also don’t want to leave any out there and not make the cut.”
Now the event draws teams from all over the region and this year the tournament had 71 teams competing for the top prize.
“It is a thrilling event and a great show for the anglers,” added Priester. “We usually always have one good day of weather and one bad one and that is what happened this year, but the fishing was still excellent.”
Fishing Moses Lake
Moses Lake is home to big largemouth and smallmouth and fishing for either species can produce bags over twenty pounds. In fact, 20-pounds might not even get you to the next day as this year, 18th place was 20.01.
Many teams who do not have bags in the high teens don’t even bother to weigh in as these weights are commonplace at Moses Lake in the spring.
This year’s event set up perfectly with excellent weather and an optimal moon phase leading up to the event. The result was bedding smallmouth throughout the lake with spawning largemouth in some areas. Both of the first and second place teams used this strategy and each weighed in mixed bags during the event.
The team claimed the $10K grand prize.
Click for Final Results of the 2017 Nixon's Marine Moses Lake Invitational
1st Place – David Kromm and Aaron Echternkamp
This duo of anglers is a threat to win on any body of the water in the northwest and each has proven themselves fishing individually in different regions. Combined they are a force, especially on Moses Lake, the lake that Echternkamp lives on. In this event, they have now won four times, after making the cut in five of the events.
They started their tournament fishing for bedding largemouth and then after they had their limit they moved to smallmouth. On Day 1, they weighed 23.65 with a bag that contained four largemouth and one smallmouth.
“We had our fish by 11:00 a.m. on Saturday and then tried to cull with smallmouth,” said Echternkamp. “We caught one right away that helped but everything else we caught that day was smaller.”
On the second day, they again targeted largemouth and again had most of their weight by 11:00 a.m. The bag was helped by a 5.99 largemouth that proved to be the difference-maker.
“Dave was fishing for one on a bed and I looked around and said to myself ‘Where would I be if I was the female?’ and made a cast out deeper and caught it,” he recalled.
They weighed in 22.16 and edged out the second place team by just 0.19.
2nd Place – Mike Wolsky and Ron Hobbs, Jr.
Wolsky and Hobbs are another team that is always near the top of the standings every tournament they fish in Washington. They have a great track record here with two wins in this event for Wolsky, one with another partner and one with Hobbs, Jr.
They have made the cut multiple times to fish Day 2 and have a unique strategy, not putting anything less than 3 1/2- pounds in their livewell as anything less won’t be enough to help them compete.
They led the first day with a 23.98 bag of all smallmouth. They targeted spawning fish, but were not looking at them on the beds.
“We were casting to individual boulders and dark spots to catch them,” said Hobbs, Jr. who estimated that they caught 40 bass on Day 1 and then 20 on the second day.
After leading the first day, they tried for largemouth and were able to catch two over four-pounds, before going back to the smallmouth. They weighed 21.97 and barely missed taking home another Nixon’s Marine Invitational title.
The Nixon’s Marine Moses Lake Invitational is the event to win in Washington as it attracts the best teams and at one of the state’s premier fisheries at the prime time of the year. Kromm and Echternkamp winning a 4th time is an impressive feat and everyone will be gunning for them next year.
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