One of the hardest things to do in professional fishing isn’t winning a tournament.
It’s proving the win wasn’t a fluke.
After capturing my first National Walleye Tour victory on Green Bay earlier in the season, I arrived in Sault Ste. Marie with confidence—but also with a renewed sense of pressure. The field wasn’t going to overlook me anymore, and the St. Marys River presented an entirely different challenge than Green Bay.
The National Walleye Tour had never visited Sault Ste. Marie before, making the event a true unknown for nearly every competitor. Between the St. Marys River, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, countless current seams, reefs, shoals, and expansive weed beds, there was an overwhelming amount of water to break down.
That’s both exciting and intimidating.
As tournament anglers, we spend practice searching for patterns rather than individual fish. When those patterns emerge, everything begins to make sense. During practice, I found exactly the kind of bite I was hoping for—an aggressive group of walleyes relating to healthy cabbage weeds.
Instead of relying on traditional live bait presentations, I committed to fishing a swimbait.
That decision proved to be the right one.
Throughout the tournament, I caught every one of my weigh fish on a Berkley PowerBait® The Champ Swimmer. The bait allowed me to efficiently cover water while triggering reaction strikes from active fish buried in the vegetation. My most productive colors were Black Crappie, Blueback Herring, and Yellow Perch—patterns that closely matched the forage those fish were feeding on.
There’s something special about watching a walleye absolutely crush a swimbait.
It’s an aggressive bite that keeps you engaged on every cast, and throughout the event I trusted that pattern completely.
When the scales closed after Day One, I was firmly in contention. But everyone on tour knows that Great Lakes fisheries can change overnight. Wind direction, current, water clarity, and fish movement all have the potential to reshuffle the leaderboard.
The challenge on Day Two wasn’t finding fish—it was finding enough quality fish to keep pace with one of the best Great Lakes anglers in the country.
Michigan’s David Kolb put together an outstanding tournament, capitalizing on an offshore pattern that ultimately earned him the victory. I was proud of the way our team executed throughout both days, bringing ten fish to the scales for a two-day total of 50.82 pounds.
When the final standings were announced, I finished in second place.
Of course, every competitor wants to win.
But tournament fishing is a long season, and consistency is what separates a good year from a great one.
Looking back, this event was incredibly important.
Following a victory at Green Bay with a runner-up finish against one of the strongest fields in professional walleye fishing proved that our preparation, decision-making, and equipment were working exactly as intended. Just as importantly, it provided valuable points in the race toward the National Walleye Tour Championship.
Those points would become even more meaningful later in the season.
Professional fishing is often portrayed as a series of trophies and highlight reels, but success is usually built on something much less glamorous: making sound decisions day after day, tournament after tournament.
Sault Ste. Marie reinforced that mindset.
The fishery demanded versatility. The conditions required confidence. And the results reminded me that momentum isn’t built from one spectacular week—it’s earned through consistent execution over an entire season.
As we packed up and headed toward the final events of the year, there was a growing belief that something special was happening.
The confidence from Green Bay hadn’t disappeared.
If anything, it had grown stronger.
The 2019 season still had one more chapter to write, and with two Top-2 finishes already on the résumé, the focus shifted toward the biggest prize in professional walleye fishing: the National Walleye Tour Championship.
