42 teams fished, 40 teams weighed in and 8 places were paid.
After two tough tournaments with freezing air temps resulting in only one limit out of 76 combined teams, FAN made their third stop on a windy LBJ. Although the 25 mph winds made running the lake a bit rough, it did not adversely affect the fishing as 28 limits were weighed out of 42 teams. And as expected with the spawn and warming weather, LBJ held up its end of the deal and gave up plenty of big fish.
Out of those 28 limits and numbers of big fish, the husband and wife team of Allen and Tammy Gass came in with the largest stringer and an 8.18 pound kicker to also win Big Bass for the tournament; they caught the majority of their fish in staging areas on soft plastics and won with a nearly eight pound margin separating them from the rest of the field.
“We just got lucky and hit those two 8′s early before the wind got up and the bite got tough,” said Allen.
Congrats Allen and Tammy!
TTZ spoke with Landon Glass, who has been red hot and in the spotlight as of late cashing in his last three consecutive tournaments. You may recall his March 6 win in Bass Champs on Travis with this event’s partner, Jayson Kisselburg, at over 24 pounds. He followed that up with a second place finish on LBJ in the March 21 Media event and ends the month with a second place FAN finish.
Landon described the day as “horrible” for the most part. They found some bed fish Friday afternoon during practice, but they did not cooperate the morning of the tournament. To make matters worse, the team had connectivity issues early on. Hooking up became a problem, as Landon broke off two very good fish in docks and Jayson had another big one pull off.
“The bite was weird. It was almost like we felt them spitting the bait out. Most of the thump bites we got, in fact about 80% of the time, we would set the hook and nothing was there.”
Fishing docks in canals and creeks, the team had a small limit by 11:00 – real small. In fact, they were able to cull up to just over 7 pounds or so by 1:30. Things were looking bleak to say the least. But, what happened next is pretty incredilble.
Landon threw into a dock where he’d caught a decent male the week before. This time momma was watching the store, and Landon was able to get her into the boat; she weighed over 6 pounds. Just a few casts later, in the next dock in fact, he caught one a tad bigger at almost 7 pounds. For those keeping score at home, that is right at 13 pounds in about 90 seconds! Guess this is why we should all fish hard to the wire…we’ll spare you the Mike Iaconelli stuff for now.
Landon and Jayson would like to thank 6th Sense Custom Lures, Big Bite Baits, McCoy Fishing Line, Quantum reels, Super Pork and Gibb’s Propeller.
Father and son TTZ team members Dale and Jake Read finished 5th in the event. This keeps them in first place in the youth/adult division, and in a tie for 6th place with TTZ team member James Roberts and his partner Brian Burns in the overall standings. They drew boat number 7 and headed to some cuts and canals mid lake with no avail; so they packed up and headed to Horseshoe Bay, where the trend continued. This prompted Dale to make a decision for a radical change and head north…far north.
“We headed all the way up the Colorado to the rocks. In this area we fished the mouths of cuts and canals, and started picking up some fish right away. In fact, we caught three fish under one dock!”
Jake came through big time for the team, as he caught a nice three pounder to help them cull toward the end of the day. He also showed himself to be a true team player by holding a tree as dad flipped at a bedding bass for nearly 30 minutes. Now that Dale has his newly installed Power Pole, we can get Jake freed up to help dad out with some more culls!
The team caught all their fish on Yamamoto Senkos, Pro’s Choice Eg’r Craws and spinnerbaits. They caught 9 keepers throughout the day with all their better fish coming around docks in shaded areas.
We spoke to Dale about the day with his son.
“The time we spend together is something I’ll never be able to replace. Jake has got the bug, and a real passion for this sport like I do. He is already looking forward to fishing again next year. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”
With the regular season more than half way over, the AOY points race is shaping up to be very interesting with less than 10 points separating the top five teams. After three events, Jacky Roberts and Ken Wilkins are tied for first with Travis Jones Jr. and his brother Jason Jones; Charles Whited and Kelley Mauldin are just five points behind them.
The next stop of the Faith Angler Network Central Texas Team Trail will be April 24 on a full Lake Travis! For more information about FAN or to register for the next tournament, please visit faithanglernetwork.com.
Comments on this entry are closed.