Conditions continue to change on Truman Lake. After a stellar April tournament with high weights and tons of limits brought to the scales, lake levels 20+ feet above normal inundated thousands of acres of cover, allowing the post spawn bass to spread out, increasing the challenge for the 65 teams that launched from the high water ramp at Shawnee Bend. Pretournament talk focused on the difficulty of finding the quality fish. The tournament results bear that out, as weights were down considerably from the prior month. Still, almost half of the field weighed a five bass limit as they battled for qualifying points for the Joe Bass Team Trails Championship at Truman Lake in October got off to a decent start.
Sticking with the season long theme that experience matters, Charley and Chris Thomas came out on top on a difficult day. Their best five bass pushed the scales to 13.82. The pair shared their Sport Boats USA Key to Success centered on flipping brush hogs to cull through 10 keepers. Their key areas were in the 4-6 foot range, with “finding the bank” the key to their win. They also noted the bite was somewhat fickle, as they lost another five keepers throughout the day.
Another set of long time Truman anglers, Jared and David Knuth flipped bushes to take second place. Their five fish limit weighed in at 13.63 pounds. Jared noted he keyed on the 2-5’ range as well. Again, “finding the bank” was the key as he presented a Missile Baits D Bomb to the flooded cover.
Rounding out the top three was Brett Fickle and Joseph Hull. Weighing in 13.29 pounds, Joseph explained they focused on pitching worms to shallow cover, again in the 5-6’ range, on rock and mud banks where the cover was a bit more sparse. Anchoring their bag was the Ozark Chevrolet Big Bass of the event, a stout 6.60 monster!
Sean Bowling and Brandon Brown padded an 8th place overall finish with the Sport Boats USA Highest Finishing Skeeter award as they put 12.16 pounds of Truman bass into their Skeeter ZX202.
The fourth event in the Truman Division will be on June 23rd. Note the takeoff time is 6:00 am at Shawnee Bend Ramp, assuming the lake returns to a normal level.
Everharts Outdoor Store is the Truman Division sponsor located in Clinton MO.
Photos
Results
| Place | Team Members | Fish | Pnlty | B/F | TotWgt | Pts | Payout | |
| 1 | Charley Thomas – Chris Thomas | 5 | 2.77 | 13.82 | 110 | $2,340.00 | ||
| 2 | Jared Knuth – David Knuth | 5 | 3.28 | 13.63 | 109 | $1,470.00 | ||
| 3 | Brett Fickle – Joseph Hull | 4 | 6.6 | 13.29 | 108 | $1,480.00 | 1BB | |
| 4 | Greg Askew – Terry Case | 5 | 2.9 | 12.73 | 107 | $600.00 | ||
| 5 | Bryce Rieder – Mike Edrington | 5 | 2.93 | 12.46 | 106 | $500.00 | ||
| 6 | Bob Jany – *Kyle Triplett | 5 | 3.21 | 12.43 | 105 | $400.00 | ||
| 7 | Jerry McCutchen – Kevin Smith | 5 | 3.89 | 12.35 | 104 | $350.00 | ||
| 8 | Sean Bowling – Brandon Brown | 5 | 3.58 | 12.16 | 103 | $550.00 | Top Skeeter | |
| 9 | John Krewson – Tony Powers | 5 | 2.82 | 12.11 | 102 | $250.00 | ||
| 10 | Don Heiser – Jim Sells | 5 | 2.93 | 11.9 | 101 | $220.00 | ||
| 11 | Jimmie Snodgrass – Jim Waggoner | 5 | 1 | 2.73 | 11.62 | 100 | $200.00 | |
| 12 | Robert Hime – Paul Huse | 5 | 2.49 | 11.36 | 99 | $180.00 | ||
| 13 | Timmy Newberry – Rusty Darnell | 5 | 3.83 | 11.2 | 98 | $160.00 | ||
| 14 | Michael Simons – Jacob Simons | 5 | 2.4 | 11.19 | 97 | |||
| 15 | John Williams – *fished aalone | 4 | 5.4 | 10.93 | 96 | $250.00 | 2BB | |
| 16 | Wayne Garrison – Robbie Plowman | 5 | 2.26 | 10.36 | 95 | |||
| 17 | Matt Gunter – *Kelly Nunn | 5 | 2.41 | 10.15 | 94 | |||
| 18 | Randy Oliphant – Scott Oliphant | 5 | 0.5 | 3.27 | 10.05 | 93 | ||
| 19 | Chet Douthit – Bill Hendrick | 5 | 1.99 | 10.02 | 92 | |||
| 20 | Donnie Reynolds – Mark Reynolds | 5 | 2.54 | 9.97 | 91 | |||
| 21 | Mark Patterson – Brandon Patterson | 5 | 3.5 | 9.76 | 90 | |||
| 22 | Jay Roe – John Bollinger | 5 | 2.4 | 9.76 | 89 | |||
| 23 | Kevin Love – | 5 | 0.5 | 2.36 | 9.53 | 88 | ||
| 24 | Stephen Smith – Garren Hunt | 5 | 2.49 | 9.52 | 87 | |||
| 25 | Mark Riegel – JR Shinn | 4 | 3.35 | 9.48 | 86 | |||
| 26 | Tim Hintenach – Dustin Hinkle | 5 | 2.12 | 9.48 | 85 | |||
| 27 | Marty Watson – Doug Long | 4 | 9.26 | 84 | ||||
| 28 | James McCutchen – Lowell Wascher | 5 | 2.65 | 9.22 | 83 | |||
| 29 | John Bennett – *Paden Bennett | 4 | 2.86 | 9.15 | 82 | |||
| 30 | Corey Besgrove – Eddie Brown | 5 | 2.59 | 9.02 | 81 | |||
| 31 | Jack Young – Bill McAvoy | 5 | 2.18 | 8.94 | 80 | |||
| 32 | Eric Zuk – Ben Zuk | 5 | 2.16 | 8.57 | 79 | |||
| 33 | Matt Garrett – Kaleb Rook | 5 | 1.91 | 8.06 | 78 | |||
| 34 | Jeremy Fly – Marc Czachowski | 5 | 2.42 | 7.4 | 77 | |||
| 35 | Chris Callahan – Justin Wasmer | 4 | 2.76 | 7.22 | 76 | |||
| 36 | Wes Reger – Kirby Ricketts | 5 | 7.01 | 75 | ||||
| 37 | Bryan Baker – Darren Baker | 4 | 2.49 | 6.96 | 74 | |||
| 38 | Tony Habiger – John Shields | 2 | 4.59 | 6.79 | 73 | |||
| 39 | James Macleod – Danny Johnston | 4 | 2.22 | 6.78 | 72 | |||
| 40 | Tom McGovern – Chris McGovern | 5 | 6.49 | 71 | ||||
| 41 | Larry Wright – Doug Wallace | 2 | 3.84 | 6.23 | 70 | |||
| 42 | Kevin Duer – Dustin Young | 3 | 2.33 | 5.5 | 69 | |||
| 43 | Ozzie Wallace – Brian Vanderzeil | 3 | 2.82 | 5.44 | 68 | |||
| 44 | Ron Peek – *Greig Engel | 3 | 2.32 | 5.03 | 67 | |||
| 45 | Dan Hirstein – Chris Hirstein | 2 | 4.86 | 66 | ||||
| 46 | Mark Thompson – Mark Thompson II | 2 | 4.7 | 65 | ||||
| 47 | Brad Jones – Blaine Bair | 2 | 2.34 | 4.63 | 64 | |||
| 48 | Rocky Carden – John Hardin | 2 | 2.77 | 4.6 | 63 | |||
| 49 | Justin Hosler – Kyle McAdams | 2 | 3.42 | 62 | ||||
| 50 | Lyle Armstrong – Mitchell Armstrong | 1 | 3.15 | 3.15 | 61 | |||
| 51 | Gary Arterberry – Gus Adkinson | 1 | 2.89 | 2.89 | 60 | |||
| 52 | Troy Hendrick – Chad Hendrick | 2 | 2.82 | 59 | ||||
| 53 | Karl Schmidt – *fished aalone | 1 | 2.38 | 2.38 | 58 | |||
| 54 | Mike Thomas – Jeff Lane | 1 | 1.88 | 1.88 | 57 | |||
| 55 | Glen McCrary – Sondra McCrary | 1 | 1.36 | 1.36 | 56 | |||
| 56 | Lennie Becker – Elmer Becker II | 0 | 10 | |||||
| Rich Campbell – Marvin Decker | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Jonathan Evans – Bradley Dillon | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Junior Fiedler – Chris Fiedler | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| *fished aalone – Ray Holt | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Kevin Johnston – Roger Waters | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Nicholas Leggett – Alec Mueller | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Keith Livingston – Steve Livingston | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| David McCormick – Gary Shartzer | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Ronnie Rush – Rick Rush | 0 | 10 |
*alternate