Fast Rising Water Challenges Mark Twain Anglers
The Sunday prior to the second Mark Twain Lake event the lake was at a level of 609 elevation about 3 feet above normal pool. Then the rains came though out the week and by Sunday the lake level had risen more than 10 feet to over 619 elevation. To say this had the bass and the fishermen in a foul mood is an understatement, as only one 5 fish limit crossed the scales in the 30 boat field and half of the field failed to bring in one keeper fish. However, as the saying goes, “Somebody’s gonna figure them out”.
Taking the top spot today in the 154 Marine sponsored Mark Twain division was the team of Jim Brown and Gary Dingledine. Jim and Gary came into the tournament day wondering if they would even boat a keeper fish, having fished a club tournament the day before with nothing to show for their efforts, so they punted and re focused their efforts on the new day. Jim and Gary started their day in the mid-lake area fishing small grassy flats off channel swings, slowly and methodically working a Bullseye Bait and Tackle Brush jig through the sparse grass and brush on the flats in less than 2 feet of water boating 2 keepers from their first stop including the Ozark Chevrolet Big Joe Bass weighing 5.49 pounds. Thinking they were onto a pattern they moved around to some creeks close by and did manage another keeper fish. With time becoming a factor, Jim and Gary decided to make one more pass through their productive starting spot and managed to catch another keeper in the 3 pound range. Back at the ramp the team was concerned that coming in one fish shy of a limit would cost them the win but when it was all said and done Jim and Gary finished on top with 4 bass weighing 13.58 pounds. Jim also walked away as the highest finishing Skeeter Owner fishing out of his 2007 ZX200.
Taking the second spot today was the Father and son team of Brian and Dean Jones. After catching no bass during Friday and Saturday morning practice, Brian and Dean had to run to Lake of the Ozarks to give Skeeter Demo rides to a bass club. Feeling very defeated during the drive, they discussed and decided with the warming/stabilizing water the bass just had to be shallow. They started by throwing spinnerbaits and chatterbaits to shallow water cover but soon realized that wasn’t working. Fairly early in the morning, Deans keen eye noticed some movement in the submerged grass and he decided to throw a jig tipped with a Strike King Menace for a subtle approach. He quickly landed their biggest keeper of the day and that ended up being the key to their success as Brian landed another fish shortly after. Brian’s bait of choice was a Pattern Tackle 3/8 oz tungsten wobble head rigged with a ZMan Palmetto Bugz. They quickly had 4 keepers then struggled to find the 5th. With only a few hours remaining in the day, they decided to run to another similar spot they found in practice and quickly started landing more fish. They caught their 5th keeper then culled 3 more fish but only added about 1/2 pound to their limit. Their fish were in inches of water and only in clear areas–no floating debris or brush. A frustrating practice, five hours of driving on Saturday afternoon/evening and much discussion led them to an educated guess but Deans attention to a subtle cue led them to a second place finish and the only limit of the tournament weighing 11.56 lbs. Brian and Dean are sponsored by: Pattern Tackle, Skeeter Boats, Yamaha Outboards, St. Croix Rods, Daiwa Reels, ZMan, DUO Realis, Huk, Vicious Fishing, Interstate Batteries, Fish Monkey Gloves, Costa and TH Marine.
Taking the third position today was the team of Jason Huskey and Bryan Hulsey the Flooring Systems Inc. and Karrebrock Excavating sponsored team was a little more optimistic than Most having won the benefit tournament the day before. However their morning started off a little slow I mean about 20 minutes slow as the team thought the 6am take off was at 6:30. Determined not to get ruffled by their error, Jason and Bryan went to their starting spot and put a keeper in the boat within the first hour of the day. Fishing the mid-lake area, Bryan and Jason fished A Chatterbait and a Creature style bait on flats half way back in the creeks, the bite was very slow but most areas would have more than one bite in them if they really worked the area hard.
At the end of the day Jason and Bryan brought 4 keepers to the scales weighing 10.04 pounds.
Our next Mark Twain Division event will be Sunday June 2nd. 6am take off Jason and Bryan!
30 teams, 40 fish weighed, 100% live release, total weight 103.97 pounds
Photos
Results
Place | Team Members | Fish | B/F | TotWgt | Pts | Payout |
1 | Jim Brown – Gary Dingledine | 3 | 5.5 | 13.58 | 110 | $2,010.00 |
2 | Brian Jones – Dean Jones | 5 | 3.4 | 11.56 | 109 | $700.00 |
3 | Jason Huskey – Bryan Hulsey | 4 | 10.04 | 108 | $610.00 | |
4 | Terry Jones – Brad Dooley | 4 | 8.92 | 107 | $300.00 | |
5 | Keith Hendrix – Greg Zumwalt | 4 | 8.2 | 106 | $310.00 | |
6 | Todd Hessling – Tom Darnell | 3 | 7.15 | 105 | $160.00 | |
7 | Wayne Werle – Jim Lomax | 3 | 6.38 | 104 | ||
8 | Kenny Grothoff – Donnie Palmatory | 2 | 3.9 | 6.18 | 103 | |
9 | David Kampschroeder – Dustin Kampschroeder | 2 | 5.47 | 102 | ||
10 | Roger LaBarge – Rick McGuire | 1 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 101 | $120.00 |
11 | Mike Tucker – Cory Kunkle | 2 | 5.14 | 100 | ||
12 | Bill Kayser – Donnie Seabaugh | 1 | 4.2 | 4.15 | 99 | |
13 | Dave Strutman – Denny Lambert | 1 | 3.5 | 3.52 | 98 | |
14 | Tom Herndon – Jason VanBeers | 1 | 2.8 | 2.76 | 97 | |
15 | Dominic Perotti – Jim Sexton | 1 | 1.9 | 1.94 | 96 | |
15 | Steve Weber – Sam Phillips | 1 | 1.9 | 1.94 | 96 | |
17 | Gary Koenig – Robin Hessling | 1 | 1.7 | 1.69 | 94 | |
18 | Jim Coyner – Keith Ostrander | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Rob Crangle – Bryan Loseman | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Randy Dameron – George Harrington | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Chad Denningmann – Kurt Denningmann | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | John Knudsen – Tom Williams | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Charlie Kunkle – Keith Williams | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Keith LaBarge – Rich Labarge | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Roland Leone – Derek Leone | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Jeff Mooneyham – Robert Brothers | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | John Shanahan – Larry Thompson | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Brain Wilbert – James Kent | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Bob Wille – Bev Wille | 0 | 10 | |||
18 | Phil J Zimmerman – Phil M Zimmerman | 0 | 10 |
*alternate