Once again the 60 teams that assembled for the penultimate tournament of the Joe Bass Truman Division season faced an ever-changing lake. Whereas less than a week prior it appeared the event would set up as a typical Truman July event with hot humid temperatures, normal lake levels, and tepid water temps, a monsoon-like front earlier in the week lowered air temps 20 degrees and dumped 7-9” of rain on the upper watershed, resulting in a 3’ rise over the weekend. However, in a quest of daily bragging rights and qualifying points for the Joe Bass Team Trails Invitational at Table Rock Lake in October, the savvy Ozark anglers decoded the mystery as 24 limits were brought to the scales.
Leveraging years of experience on Truman Lake, Bryce Rieder and Mike Edrington smashed the field with an incredible 21.84 stringer. Mike explained their Sport Boats USA Key for Success was abandoning the shallow water approach they tried in practice, exchanging it for big worms and brush hogs in deep trees. They found their fish in the lower portion of the lake a few feet deep over trees in 20’ of water. Although they garnered a small number of keeper bites, the quality made their efforts worth while!
Coming in a distant second was another veteran Truman team, Blake Felix and Keith Nickell. Also relying on their experience, they too found their fish suspended. The local duo targeted trees in the lower Grand and Tebo arms, with the bite coming 3’ down over trees in 20+ depths.
Rounding out the top three was Ronnie Kane and Cory Steckler. Although big worms were also the ticket to their success, they deviated from the presentation of the first and second place teams. Instead, Ronnie and Cory targeted pole timber on steep banks in the Osage with the bass locked on the bottom around trees in 12-15’ depths. Ronnie and Cory sweetened their take-home checks with the SportBoatsUSA Skeeter Bonus as they fished from Ronnie’s ZX250 Skeeter bass boat.
The Ozark Chevrolet big fish of the event was weighed another long time Truman team, Troy Hardie and Tommie Hutchenson. After abandoning a shallow water pattern up on the creek arms, they tricked the 5.52 pound lunker into a biting a jig in 10’ of water along a channel swing bank.
The final event in the SportBoatsUSA Truman Division is August 27th at 6:00 am, Shawnee Bend Ramp.
Photos
Final Results
| Place | Team Members | Fish | Pnlty | B/F | TotWgt | Pts | Payout | |
| 1 | Bryce Rieder – Mike Edrington | 5 | 5.41 | 21.84 | 110 | $1,600.00 | ||
| 2 | Blake Felix – *Keith Nickell | 5 | 5.47 | 16.22 | 109 | $1,240.00 | 2BB | |
| 3 | Ronnie Kane – Cory Steckler | 5 | 4.38 | 16.13 | 108 | $1,360.00 | Top Skeeter | |
| 4 | Charley Thomas – Chris Thomas | 5 | 4.36 | 15.29 | 107 | $700.00 | ||
| 5 | Tony Powers – John Brewer | 5 | 4.68 | 14.99 | 106 | $500.00 | ||
| 6 | Greg Askew – Terry Case | 5 | 3.61 | 14.97 | 105 | $250.00 | ||
| 7 | Ed Matthews – *John Stewart | 5 | 3.52 | 14.7 | 104 | $230.00 | ||
| 8 | Charles Sersch – Rene Sersch | 5 | 4.07 | 14.39 | 103 | $220.00 | ||
| 9 | John Bennett – Paden Bennett | 5 | 3.61 | 14.01 | 102 | $200.00 | ||
| 10 | Brad Jelinek – *Brett Fickle | 5 | 13.88 | 101 | $180.00 | |||
| 11 | Greg Miller – Mike Rowland | 5 | 3.82 | 13.85 | 100 | $150.00 | ||
| 12 | Wesley Myers – *Justin Borum | 5 | 3.42 | 13.68 | 99 | $130.00 | ||
| 13 | Kevin Smith – Jerry McCutchen | 5 | 3.01 | 13.36 | 98 | |||
| 14 | Doug Wallace – Ozzie Wallace | 5 | 3.68 | 13.13 | 97 | |||
| 15 | Chris Bridges – Steve Prince | 5 | 3.61 | 13.05 | 96 | |||
| 16 | Todd Miller – Cameron Miller | 5 | 0.5 | 12.41 | 95 | |||
| 17 | Mark Thompson – Mark Thompson II | 5 | 3.91 | 12.35 | 94 | |||
| 18 | Timmy Newberry – Rusty Darnell | 5 | 3.36 | 12.17 | 93 | |||
| 19 | Edward Robinson – Kyle Morse | 5 | 0.5 | 3.62 | 12.1 | 92 | ||
| 20 | Eric Zuk – Ben Zuk | 5 | 3.71 | 12.05 | 91 | |||
| 21 | Kevin Carl – Desmon Carl | 5 | 4.26 | 12.01 | 90 | |||
| 22 | Kevin Johnston – Roger Waters | 5 | 3.95 | 11.59 | 89 | |||
| 23 | Mark Riegel – JR Shinn | 5 | 11.21 | 88 | ||||
| 24 | Justin Miller – Mathew Miller | 4 | 3.5 | 10.76 | 87 | |||
| 25 | Stephen Smith – Garen Hunt | 5 | 2.8 | 10.76 | 86 | |||
| 26 | Chris Callahan – Justin Wasmer | 3 | 4.74 | 9.63 | 85 | |||
| 27 | Sean Bowling – Brandon Brown | 4 | 3.78 | 9.57 | 84 | |||
| 28 | John Krewson – *Hunter Bowling | 3 | 5.23 | 8.85 | 83 | |||
| 29 | David McCormick – *fished alone | 4 | 8.37 | 82 | ||||
| 30 | Phillip Schwartz – Colby Schwartz | 4 | 8.33 | 81 | ||||
| 31 | Wayne Garrison – Robbie Plowman | 4 | 7.86 | 80 | ||||
| 32 | Troy Hardie – Tommie Hutchenson | 2 | 5.52 | 7.44 | 79 | $400.00 | 1BB | |
| 33 | Danny Carter – Chris Carter | 3 | 7.28 | 78 | ||||
| 34 | Lennie Becker – Elmer Becker | 2 | 5.15 | 7.24 | 77 | |||
| 35 | Ron Peek – *Pat Deaton | 4 | 6.48 | 76 | ||||
| 36 | Jonathan Evans – Bradley Dillon | 2 | 2.97 | 5.87 | 75 | |||
| 37 | Edward Nelson – Tony Zaharsky | 3 | 5.85 | 74 | ||||
| 38 | Justin Hosler – Kyle McAdams | 2 | 3.36 | 5.76 | 73 | |||
| 39 | Jack Young – Bill McAvoy | 3 | 2.65 | 5.56 | 72 | |||
| 40 | Mark Simmons – Terry Lawhon | 2 | 4.47 | 71 | ||||
| 41 | *Jim Buttres – Charles Cadenhead | 2 | 4.24 | 70 | ||||
| 42 | Junior Fiedler – *Virgina Fiedler | 2 | 4.12 | 69 | ||||
| 43 | Shawn Crabtree – *Dallas Crabtree | 2 | 4.06 | 68 | ||||
| 44 | Bryan Baker – Darren Baker | 2 | 3.94 | 67 | ||||
| 45 | Ronnie Rush – Rick Rush | 1 | 3.73 | 3.73 | 66 | |||
| 46 | Glen McCrary – Sondra McCrary | 2 | 3.66 | 65 | ||||
| 47 | Tom McGovern – Bob Bradley | 1 | 2.14 | 2.14 | 64 | |||
| 48 | Kenny Bogner – Justin Bogner | 1 | 2.13 | 2.13 | 63 | |||
| 49 | Don Heiser – Jim Sells | 1 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 62 | |||
| 50 | Michael Baker – Kennith Mason | 0 | 10 | |||||
| John Campbell – *fished alone | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Bill Dennis – Steve Olive | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Richard Evans – Terry Close | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Jesse Gardner – Mark Glover | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Matt Gunter – Bobby Williams | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Mark Heath – Michael Dixon | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Robert Hime – Paul Huse | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Ralph Laster – Michael Fiedler | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Michael Simons – Jacob Simons | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Jason Swarnigan – Carl Scott | 0 | 10 |
*alternate