Partly cloudy skies, a steady wind, and warm temperatures ushered in the finale of the Joe Bass Truman Division. 66 teams brought an outstanding 544 pounds of fish to the scales, testimony of both the fishery and the talent of the Truman Anglers. To wrap up the season, integrity was ensured as polygraphs were administered to the winning team, big bass winners, others at random, and anyone who wished to experience the process. All of these serve the Truman anglers as they have supported the circuit competing for tournament wins in addition to qualifying points for the Joe Bass Team Trails Championship at Table Rock Lake in October. The strength of Joe Bass anglers is becoming recognized nationally as the Trail is proud to send an angler to the BASSMASTER Classic for the second year in a row, with Ryan Butler winning the 2018 honors on the heels of Scott Clift’s visit in 2017.
Backing up their July win, Bryce Rieder and Mike Edrington stayed in touch with their warm weather pattern that has served them well. Bryce and Mike pulled 21.04 pounds of bass from the treetops. They described their Boats USA Keys to Success focused on fishing big worms into trees with the boat sitting in 5’-30’ of water.
Just as they did in the July tournament, Eric and Ben Zuk brought a sizable bag of fish to the scales to command second place. Again staying relatively close to the Shawnee Bend take-off facility, they fished brush hogs in 10’-15’ on an all-day bite.
Brad Jelinek and John Slavens rounded out the top three with a solid 17.05 pound five fish limit. They fished squarebills and worms shallow to amass their weight, all while fighting through the loss of their trolling motor early in the day, forcing them to tie up to trees and fancast before untying and drifting to the next piece of pole timber. However, they pocketed a nice bonus that can be applied as a remedy as they took home the SportBoats USA Skeeter Bonus by competing from their Skeeter bass boat.
The Ozark Chevrolet Big Bass of the event, a 6.24 giant, was taken by Jonathon Evans and Bradley Dillon. The big bass walloped a buzzbait early in the day, as Jonathon and Bradley noted it was their first keeper of their five fish limit.
Tim Williams Lie Detection Services performed tests all of which where found to be NO DECEPTION.
Division sponsor Everharts Outdoor Store invites everyone to stop by and visit.
Photos
Results
| Place | Team Members | Fish | Pnlty | B/F | TotWgt | Pts | Payout | |
| 1 | Bryce Rieder – Mike Edrington | 5 | 4.61 | 21.04 | 110 | $1,730.00 | ||
| 2 | Eric Zuk – Ben Zuk | 5 | 4.37 | 17.36 | 109 | $1,220.00 | ||
| 3 | Brad Jelinek – John Slavens | 5 | 4.53 | 17.05 | 108 | $1,260.00 | Top Skeeter | |
| 4 | Sam Morton – Dennis Edwards | 5 | 4.14 | 16.84 | 107 | $600.00 | ||
| 5 | Kevin Johnston – Roger Waters | 5 | 4.81 | 16.41 | 106 | $500.00 | ||
| 6 | Ronnie Rush – Rick Rush | 5 | 3.6 | 15.79 | 105 | $300.00 | ||
| 7 | *Kelly Nunn – Jamie Edge | 5 | 0.5 | 5.03 | 14.95 | 104 | $280.00 | |
| 8 | Wayne Garrison – Robbie Plowman | 5 | 3.32 | 14.67 | 103 | $250.00 | ||
| 9 | JR Shinn – Mark Riegel | 5 | 4.57 | 14.38 | 102 | $220.00 | ||
| 10 | John Williams – *John Wilbanks | 5 | 4.2 | 14.12 | 101 | $200.00 | ||
| 11 | Sean Bowling – Brandon Brown | 5 | 4.59 | 13.86 | 100 | $150.00 | ||
| 12 | Jimmie Snodgrass – Jim Waggoner | 5 | 3.33 | 13.18 | 99 | $140.00 | ||
| 13 | Jerry McCutchen – Kevin Smith | 5 | 13.02 | 98 | $136.00 | |||
| 14 | David McCormick – Gary Shartzer | 5 | 12.8 | 97 | ||||
| 15 | Robert Hime – Paul Huse | 5 | 3.47 | 12.72 | 96 | |||
| 16 | Marty Watson – Doug Long | 5 | 2.99 | 12.36 | 95 | |||
| 17 | Timmy Newberry – Rusty Darnell | 5 | 1 | 3.23 | 12.13 | 94 | ||
| 18 | Christopher Fierce – Kevin Malone | 4 | 5.3 | 11.97 | 93 | $200.00 | 2BB | |
| 19 | Matt Gunter – Bobby Williams | 5 | 3.46 | 11.84 | 92 | |||
| 20 | David Hughes – Lucas Fornelli | 5 | 3.65 | 11.82 | 91 | |||
| 21 | Brian Reed – Mike Kepler | 5 | 3.38 | 11.77 | 90 | |||
| 22 | Chris Bridges – Steve Prince | 5 | 2.98 | 11.49 | 89 | |||
| 23 | Greg Askew – Terry Case | 5 | 11.24 | 88 | ||||
| 24 | Tony Powers – *fished aalone | 5 | 3.17 | 11.2 | 87 | |||
| 25 | Shawn Crabtree – Reece Crabtree | 5 | 0.5 | 11.18 | 86 | |||
| 26 | Jonathan Evans – Bradley Dillon | 3 | 6.24 | 11.1 | 85 | $460.00 | 1BB | |
| 27 | Doug Wallace – Ozzie Wallace | 5 | 10.49 | 84 | ||||
| 28 | Ed Matthews – *Tom Starforth | 5 | 10 | 83 | ||||
| 29 | Stephen Smith – Garen Hunt | 4 | 2.99 | 9.55 | 82 | |||
| 30 | Joseph Hull – Brett Fickle | 5 | 0.5 | 9.47 | 81 | |||
| 31 | Lennie Becker – Elmer Becker | 4 | 2.78 | 9.44 | 80 | |||
| 32 | Russ Hughes – Ronald Parker | 5 | 0.5 | 9.21 | 79 | |||
| 33 | Kevin Duer – Dustin Young | 3 | 3.43 | 8.9 | 78 | |||
| 34 | Bryan Baker – Darren Baker | 4 | 8.89 | 77 | ||||
| 35 | Blake Felix – Keith Nickell | 5 | 7.99 | 76 | ||||
| 36 | Don Heiser – Jim Sells | 3 | 4.04 | 7.86 | 75 | |||
| 37 | Billy Greenwell – *James McCutchen | 4 | 0.5 | 7.83 | 74 | |||
| 38 | John Bennett – Darrell Reach | 4 | 7.68 | 73 | ||||
| 39 | Kevin Love – Love Parker | 4 | 7.34 | 72 | ||||
| 40 | Edward Nelson – Tony Zaharsky | 3 | 3.69 | 7.2 | 71 | |||
| 41 | Tom McGovern – Rick Saunders | 4 | 7.16 | 70 | ||||
| 42 | Matt Garrett – Kaleb Rook | 4 | 0.5 | 6.94 | 69 | |||
| 43 | Michael Baker – Ken Mason | 3 | 6.91 | 68 | ||||
| 44 | Keith Sullivan – Linda Sullivan | 3 | 2.92 | 6.85 | 67 | |||
| 45 | Ron Peek – Grieg Engel | 3 | 5.7 | 66 | ||||
| 46 | James Macleod – Danny Johnston | 3 | 5.05 | 65 | ||||
| 47 | Jack Young – Bill McAvoy | 3 | 4.81 | 64 | ||||
| 48 | Justin Hosler – Kyle McAdams | 2 | 4.5 | 63 | ||||
| 49 | Glen McCrary – Sondra McCrary | 2 | 4.26 | 62 | ||||
| 50 | Randy Oliphant – Scott Oliphant | 2 | 4.03 | 61 | ||||
| 51 | Mark Thompson – Mark Thompson II | 2 | 3.15 | 60 | ||||
| 52 | Karl Schmidt – Ysabel Arias | 1 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 59 | |||
| 53 | Denis Repa – *Peter Repa | 1 | 2.24 | 2.24 | 58 | |||
| 54 | Phillip Schwartz – *Dalton Nickles | 1 | 1.52 | 1.52 | 57 | |||
| 55 | Kenny Bogner – Justin Bogner | 0 | 10 | |||||
| Kyle Boman – | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Danny Carter – *Chris Keightley | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Junior Fiedler – *Chris Fiedler | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Benton Fogleman – Levi Sinak | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Tim Hintenach – Dustin Hinkle | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Bob Jany – Dennis Schilb | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Jonathan Pimentel – Christopher Cross | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Rick Reinkemeyer – Brock Reinkemeyer | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Mike Rowland – Greg Miller | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| *fished aalone – Corey Stewart | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| Charley Thomas – Chris Thomas | 0 | 10 |
*alternate