70 degree temperatures on Wednesday followed by 40’s on Saturday….mix in 30 mph winds, rain, snow, sleet…top that off with below freezing temps at takeoff, followed by high bright skies. Sound like a recipe for a tough tournament day? You bet! Want to make it worse? Throw in a lake that’s 13 feet high and rising, dirty, cold water, and you’ve got the absolute worse fishing conditions one could imagine. The typical tournament write-up would say that somebody always figures them out, the cream rises to the top, savvy anglers always come through. Not true for the kickoff of the Joe Bass Truman Division as the field struggled to produce bites as 54 teams brought only 34 bass to the scales. However, for those fortunate enough to weigh in a fish, the season quest for qualifying points for the Joe Bass Team Trails Championship at Truman Lake in October got off to a decent start.
Proving that experience matters, John Bennett and Darrell Reach produced the day’s only five fish limit. Darrell shared their Sport Boats USA Key to Success was to run to familiar waters in the mid-Osage area and pound away with spinnerbaits and jigs. Slow-rolling heavy blades produced most of their bites, giving them a 13.57 weight to take first place honors. John noted they boated only six fish all day, all keepers.
Darrell let me know that they were Atlas members and qualified for the bonus from TH Marine.
Another veteran team in the Truman bass wars, Kevin Johnston and Roger Waters fished familiar waters to bring a four bass bag weighing 12.54 pounds to the scales. The interviewer didn’t bother to ask about bait selection, as it would be crazy to believe they tossed anything other than black and blue jigs! Similar to the winners, Kevin noted they only had four bites for the day, the four fish they weighed in.
Rounding out the top three was yet another Truman veteran team, Wayne Garrison and Robbie Plowman. Wayne noted they spent the day cranking shallow cover to get three bites total, two of which kept. Their 7.62 pound weight also brought them the Sport Boats USA Highest Finishing Skeeter award as they fished from Wayne’s 2017 ZX250.
Big Bass accolades went to Danny and Chris Carter. If you’re only going to get one bite, you might as well make it a good one! Their 6.73 pound lunker was a runaway for the Ozarks Chevrolet Big Bass award on top of their fifth place overall finish. They also spent the day cranking shallow cover, getting only one bite for the thousands of casts they made.
The second event in the Truman Division will be on April 28th at 6:30 am, Shawnee Bend Ramp.
There is a new Save A Receipt sponsor in the Warsaw MO area. Lakes Inn has joined the ever growing list of businesses supporting Joe Bass Team Trail. In addition to being a Save A Receipt sponsor they are offering discounted rates to Joe Bass Team Trail members. Nightly stays will be $69 including complimentary breakfast. Their newly remodeled rooms with refrigerators, microwaves, and large flat screen tv’s are very nice upgrades. Boat plug ins for every room. Reservations can be made by phoning 660 438-2882. Be sure to mention Joe Bass Team Trail for the discounted rates.
Photos
Results
Place | Team Members | Fish | B/F | TotWgt | Pts | Payout | |
1 | John Bennett – Darrell Reach | 5 | 3.17 | 13.57 | 110 | $2,030.00 | |
2 | Kevin Johnston – Roger Waters | 4 | 5.79 | 12.54 | 109 | $1,440.00 | 2nd BB |
3 | Wayne Garrison – Robbie Plowman | 2 | 5.43 | 7.62 | 108 | $1,400.00 | Top Skeeter |
4 | Larry Wright – Doug Wallace | 2 | 4.34 | 6.87 | 107 | $600.00 | |
5 | Danny Carter – Chris Carter | 1 | 6.73 | 6.73 | 106 | $800.00 | 1st BB |
6 | Lyle Armstrong – Mitchell Armstrong | 3 | 2.68 | 6.29 | 105 | $400.00 | |
7 | Brett Fickle – Joseph Hull | 2 | 3.23 | 5.97 | 104 | $300.00 | |
8 | Shawn Crabtree – Reece Crabtree | 2 | 3.13 | 5.76 | 103 | $250.00 | |
9 | Steven Dickerson – Samantha Dickerson | 1 | 5.13 | 5.13 | 102 | $200.00 | |
10 | David McCormick – *fished aalone | 1 | 4.12 | 4.12 | 101 | $160.00 | |
11 | Dan Hirstein – Chris Hirstein | 1 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 100 | ||
12 | Mark Thompson – Mark Thompson II | 1 | 2.84 | 2.84 | 99 | ||
13 | Jeremy Fly – Marc Czachowski | 1 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 98 | ||
14 | Greg Askew – Terry Case | 1 | 2.52 | 2.52 | 97 | ||
15 | Timmy Newberry – Rusty Darnell | 1 | 2.36 | 2.36 | 96 | ||
16 | Troy Hendrick – Chad Hendrick | 1 | 2.29 | 2.29 | 95 | ||
17 | Eric Zuk – Ben Zuk | 1 | 2.23 | 2.23 | 94 | ||
18 | Justin Hosler – *Shaun Dugan | 1 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 93 | ||
19 | John Krewson – Tony Powers | 1 | 2.08 | 2.08 | 92 | ||
20 | James McCutchen – Lowell Wascher | 1 | 1.87 | 1.87 | 91 | ||
21 | *Brandon Brown – Steve Prince | 1 | 1.71 | 1.71 | 90 | ||
22 | Bryan Baker – Darren Baker | 0 | 10 | ||||
Lennie Becker – Elmer Becker II | 0 | 10 | |||||
Corey Besgrove – Eddie Brown | 0 | 10 | |||||
Sean Bowling – *fished aalone | 0 | 10 | |||||
Chris Callahan – Justin Wasmer | 0 | 10 | |||||
Rich Campbell – Marvin Decker | 0 | 10 | |||||
Kevin Carl – Desmon Carl | 0 | 10 | |||||
Levi Cline – Jason Shifflett | 0 | 10 | |||||
Kevin Duer – Dustin Young | 0 | 10 | |||||
Jonathan Evans – *Ray Johnson | 0 | 10 | |||||
Junior Fiedler – Chris Fiedler | 0 | 10 | |||||
Tony Habiger – John Shields | 0 | 10 | |||||
Jared Knuth – David Knuth | 0 | 10 | |||||
Nicholas Leggett – Alec Mueller | 0 | 10 | |||||
Keith Livingston – Steve Livingston | 0 | 10 | |||||
Kevin Love – | 0 | 10 | |||||
Sam Maggie – Troy Ladenhoff | 0 | 10 | |||||
Glen McCrary – Sondra McCrary | 0 | 10 | |||||
*Kevin Lafavor – Kevin Smith | 0 | 10 | |||||
Tom McGovern – Chris McGovern | 0 | 10 | |||||
Edward Nelson – Tony Zaharsky | 0 | 10 | |||||
Randy Oliphant – Scott Oliphant | 0 | 10 | |||||
Russell Oliphant – Adam Pritchard | 0 | 10 | |||||
Bryce Rieder – Mike Edrington | 0 | 10 | |||||
Ronnie Rush – Rick Rush | 0 | 10 | |||||
Karl Schmidt – Matt Scoma | 0 | 10 | |||||
Phillip Schwartz – Colby Schwartz | 0 | 10 | |||||
Michael Simons – Jacob Simons | 0 | 10 | |||||
Stephen Smith – Garren Hunt | 0 | 10 | |||||
Charley Thomas – Chris Thomas | 0 | 10 | |||||
Marty Watson – Doug Long | 0 | 10 | |||||
John Williams – James Brown | 0 | 10 | |||||
Jack Young – Bill McAvoy | 0 | 10 |
*alternate