70 teams fished and 15 places were paid.
TOTAL CASH AND PRIZES PAID OUT: $10,545 (94.4%)
TOTAL CASH PAID OUT: $10,145 (90.8%)
The first Lone Star Series Central Division event, presented by Texas Tournament Zone, saw 70 teams come out to fish the tail end of the worst winter storm Texas had seen in 20 years! Based on the extreme low temperatures, and the remains of some black ice from the snow and freezing precipitation just before the tournament on Thursday night, the tournament directors elected to delay the start until 10:00am with the first flight’s weigh-in due back at 4:30pm.
It turned out to be a popular decision based on the feedback received from the anglers, as Saturday turned out to be relatively pleasant as the day rolled on. And with anglers suffering through cabin fever during the week, this LSS event was a welcomed chance to get back on the water. Air temperatures got up into the 60s while lake temperatures were reported at 47 to 57 degrees depending on the time of day and area of the lake. We saw prevailing high sunny skies and a gusty wind that really escalated after noon, seeming to shut the bite down a bit for most of our competitors.
One with any knowledge of Texas bass fishing must only quickly glance over the team names throughout the leader board to confirm there is no “dead money” fishing this trail. Almost anyone on the list is a threat to win any given event, and the results proved it. And as they say the rich get richer, with Randy Hibler and Randall Christian pulling off the impressive victory. You see, they just came off a second place finish on this lake last week in Bass Champs with a 16.96 pound bag worth $3,000.
In the LSS event on Saturday, they did even better…catching 17.20 pounds with a 6.08 kicker, which was just shy of big bass honors. This win earned the accomplished duo $3,500 in cash and $400 in Oakley polarized optics.
We talked to Randy about their day, and you can see it for yourself in the video link here.
“We went back to the place we caught ‘em last week. It was a series of little points with underwater rocks coming off of it in 5 to 10 foot of water.”
But one was a little better than the rest as it had a little brush pile on it, and as Randy explained it was all about the jig for them.
“Last week all of ‘em were on a jig. This week the first one, the six pounder, was on a jig too. Then I caught one about 3 pounds on a jig. We lost another one on a jig about 7 pounds five minutes later!”
Then things slowed for them, so they decided to move a bit.
“We went to two more of our places, and couldn’t get a bite. I picked up a Carolina rig and managed to fill out a limit hitting four or five more of those little rock points.”
Congratulations to Randy and Randall for a great day, and a consistently profitable couple of weeks!
Our second place finishers, and equally as accomplished, were Steve Magnelia and Flint Fisher. Their heavy bag of Travis chunks went 15.87 pounds, and was good for $1,250.
Flint filled us in.
“Would go an hour without a bite at time…but the fish have been there. Just gotta change with ‘em. Most were in 6 to 12 foot with deeper water around. We thought we’d catch ‘em right off the bat with the delayed start, but it was almost 30 minutes before we got bit.”
Flint told us more about the area of the lake and the pattern the team utilized Saturday.
“We fished up the Perd and the Colorado. When we started nothing was happening, so I picked up a Strike King crank and caught a good one; then Steve caught another good one two casts later! That settled us down a little; we knew we just had to move out with them. They were deeper than they were last week.”
A crank wasn’t the only thing that brought them success though, especially after they started to jump around a bit.
“Steve caught a lot on a 4 inch lizard. We were fishing a drop with rocks, and they stayed there till about 11:30. Then we went running, but stayed up the river mainly. We had keepers on a jig and culled a little bouncing around in some similar areas. We needed one more solid fish, but it just didn’t happen for us.”
Flint had some good things to say about his teammate, the trail, and the competition.
“Steve and I fish together very well, and it looks like it’s gonna be a fun trail. We’d love to get AOY this year, but Randy and Randall are excellent fishermen and good friends. If we can’t get it, we’d like to see them do it.”
Congratulations Steve and Flint; we look for an action packed AOY race this year, and we are pretty sure you guys will be in the mix.
Third place went to TTZ’s own Dan Taylor and partner Shawn Tamez. They had a 15.58 pound limit with a beautiful 6.89 pounder; which was good for Big Bass of the tournament. Taking home $750 for third place and an additional $670 check for Big Bass, the team was pretty pleased.
Dan gave us the scoop.
“I fish jigs almost always on this lake, and today was no different. I threw a regular 3/8 ounce jig with a trailer, and kept that rod in my hand all day. Shawn was throwing the same thing during practice and we’d been getting quality bites on that bait. The jig out fished everything else we tried.”
They also found an area of the lake to be more productive for them.
“One day in practice on the lower end, only had four or five keepers for 6 or 7 pounds. We knew that wasn’t gonna get it done. Then we practiced up the lake some, and had 12 or 13 pounds…so our choice was easy.”
We asked Dan about the bite in general, and the specifics of the big girl in particular.
“We were dead sticking that jig really. Shake it and let it sit, shake it and let it sit. Pick it up, and you couldn’t feel your bait like you should. It wasn’t a mushy bite, or a tick or anything like that; you really had to pay attention to your bait. That big fish came at 2 o’clock near Bee Creek; we had fished around the middle to the upper end most of the day. Most of our bites came early though, before noon. We had even culled once or twice by noon. The bite died after that, except for the good one!”
The team found most of their catches to be in 20 foot of water on ledges, and around deeper docks. Well done Dan and Shawn!
Here are the remaining 12 teams in the money:
189 fish were weighed for a total weight of 431.09 pounds brought to the scales, there were 19 limits and 18 zeros. Special thanks to the good fish care of our anglers, and our triage tank fish care team!
With Travis in the books, we look forward to hitting LBJ on March 26th. The weights should be spectacular, and we know the participation in this one will be high. We can’t wait to see everybody there. Look for an announcement soon on a little get together the night before at Paul Brady’s River City Grille. We’ll have some special angler incentives Friday evening if you know what we mean! If you joined us at the Gone Fishing for Kids event, you know RCG on Lake Marble Falls is a lot of fun and has great food to boot!
Please take a look at the incredible boat incentives we have for this trail from Triton, Nitro, Skeeter and BassCat (all must be an ’09 or newer). In fact, with a qualifying boat with the required horsepower for this program, Triton will pay an angler an additional $7,000 for a first place win! Please see your individual incentive program for all the details.
Also don’t forget the Oakley polarized optics for the winning team in each of our regular season events, and the Nitro boat at stake for our Championship event!
We’d like to extend our humble thanks to everyone that fished with us. And remember, if you missed Travis and fish the remaining three events, you will qualify for our October Championship…which will not be one to miss! More to come on that soon.
Registrations for LBJ are already starting to come in; online registration is available here. You may also visit lonestarseries.com for more information.
See you next month on LBJ!