29 teams fished, 17 teams weighed in and 3 places were paid.
The lure of “Big Mamma” continues to lure out the anglers, as we had another 29 boat field on Wednesday! Relatively calm conditions and clear skies made for a perfect day to check mattresses; and there were some productive ones too, as most of our money winners and many of the anglers bringing big fish to the scales reported bed fishing success. Yamamoto Senkos also ruled the day for the leaders – but what else is new?
Coming out on top was the team of Ronnie Maynard and Paul Carman. Their bag of four fish at 20.13 pounds with an 11.67 pound kicker was a sight to behold!
We talked to Paul Carman about their night.
“Prior to the tournament, we had two couples that were up to the dirty business locked on beds. The males were in the 3 pound range, while the females were in the 8 to 10 range!”
But when the tournament began, it was apparent another team had found these fish too, so the team ran down lake for a while with no real success. They came back later to find the females still there; but just as most of us have experienced, women aren’t always interested in what we have to offer.
“Just before dark we decided to try to catch the males off the bed and see how the females would respond to that, which Ronnie did with a jig. We still couldn’t get ‘em to bite. So I made a cast to a dock piling nearby with a wacky Senko on the edge of a milfoil bed and hooked her; I knew she was big when she came up and just boiled.
Most anglers will tell you a big fish will either come right to the boat and slip easily into the net, or do the complete opposite and leave you with a broken heart and another story of the one that got away. Paul’s fish didn’t get away, but certainly tried her best and almost succeeded – twice.
“We should have lost her twice, maybe three times during the fight. Ronnie nearly fell in the water trying to reach her with the net; when I got her close enough to try a second time Ronnie got the net under her and as he was lifting it she tail walked right out of it! I thought for sure we had lost her then, but Ronnie saw the line moving and told me she was still on.”
But it gets a little more interesting before it’s all said and done…as Paul went to pick up the slack from his line, his reel wouldn’t engage. Ronnie ended up hand-lining 15 feet of fluorocarbon before they were able to finally get her in the boat.
“When we first got her in the boat we both thought she might qualify as a ShareLunker. Don’t think she was on a bed though, because she had a pretty tail and no marks on her.”
We asked Paul if they ran around much during the event, as they were fishing out of his boat.
“We couldn’t do much running in the ‘Green Hornet’, it takes too long! This was Ronnie’s first time to fish out of it. I gotta say he is the best sight fisherman I’ve ever seen. He can spot beds and entice fish into bitin’ that I never could. He really is a good guy too. I gotta say, the old man really appreciates Ronnie fishing with him!”
Congrats guys on the win and to Paul on his new personal best! The near 12 pound fish is the new Power Tackle Big Bass leader and won the team an additional $145; combined with first place money, Paul and Ronnie went home with $580 on a 40 dollar entry!
Our second place finishers were TTZ team members Dale and Jake Read with a limit weighing 13.72 pounds and worth $260. But it could have been so much bigger after hearing what Dale had to say at the weigh-in. They were also bed fishing and were using Senkos. Dale broke off a fish pushing 10 pounds he hooked off a bed and later had another female in the 8 to 9 pound range let go of his Senko!
“That real big fish I broke off on was a beast man! She just put her head down and looked like an alligator going through the grass. Not much I could do with her.”
An interesting thing happened to Jake as well. As he was looking for beds, he saw a fish cruising out of the corner of his eye. And it was a nice one…with a spinnerbait hanging from his mouth! Shortly thereafter, they ran into Mike and Jr. Waldrop who reported recently breaking off on a good fish. You guessed it, on a spinnerbait.
Still on a hot streak and taking home $175 for third place were John McClung and Jayson Kisselburg. The pair also had a limit, and fell just short of the Read’s with a total weight of 13.35 pounds. They too were throwing Senkos, but were not bed fishing; at least not to their knowledge.
We talked to Jayson at the weigh-in about it.
“John and I were fishing creeks, but they were off-colored. Not sure if there were beds there or not, we were just casting at likely areas with a Senko and a Big Bite Fightin’ Frog. John caught our big fish on a wacky Senko a little after dark.”
Josh Hale and Lee Benton took home the generous tackle bag provided once again by Pro’s Choice Lures (owned by Jacky Roberts of Fish Finders Marine) and several hand tied JaROD Jigs. They had a nice limit weighing 12.71 pounds.
Everyone was buzzing at the weigh-in about big fish in and around beds. They are there, and as Paul and several others demonstrated, some will even bite.
Come on out next week, and see what happens. Paul’s fish is big, but on Austin anything can happen. Any cast could put you in the money for Big Bass, and well in contention for the Power Tackle rod at the end of the season. See y’all at City Park next week!
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