13 teams fished, 5 teams weighed in and 2 places were paid.
13 boats hit the ramp for the next to last Tuesday Nighter of the season. And yes, it is still hot out there…and no, we are not talking about the fishing. Not one limit was brought to the scales, but the top three teams had some respectable weights considering the brutal conditions. Water is still on the fall (though stabilizing a bit) as it went down well over a foot since last week to 669.45 feet above sea level.
Some familiar names, Kelley Mauldin and Mike Grounds, continued their winning ways with a nice four fish bag at 8.75 pounds. Cashing a $235 check is nothing new to these TTZ tourney regulars, but the way they won it was. The team has been whacking fish, by recent standards anyway, on 20 to 25 foot ledges on Brush Hogs and Senkos. Kelley told us that was no longer the case for them.
“Completely different pattern tonight, we didn’t catch a single fish from our first three holes. We were catching them slow on wacky worms. They are still deep, just around deep docks. We aren’t catching a lot of fish, just happen to be catchin’ some keepers.”
Well done Mike and Kelley!
Coming in second with a three fish sack weighing 6.30 pounds and good for $155 was a team you’ll recognize as well, Trey Groce and Joe Bill Hale. Last week they brought in a relative monster bag at 10.99 pounds after a one pound fish care penalty on 10 inch worms in 40 feet of water around docks. It was enough to put them on top for the week. This time, not much changed as Joe Bill explained.
“Still 10 inch worms for us in about 40 foot, but we caught some as shallow as 20 foot tonight…which is different than usual. Still a real slow bite, just grindin’ it out is all you can do!”
Coming in third was the team of Don Gordon and Jon Jackson, with a weight of 5.50 pounds for three fish and earning a very generous tackle bag provided by Jerry Shinn, owner of GrandeBass. You may remember this team was responsible for the monster fish of 9.04 pounds on this lake back on April 24th at the FAN event earlier this year. The hog was Jon’s personal best and came on a watermelon red GrandeBass Rattl’n RattleSnake rigged on a shaky head.
Don told us how they caught their fish this week.
“It was a pretty cool pattern. Catching ‘em in pretty deep water, about 35 feet, on some deep docks. The bait would be dang near on the bottom when they’d hit it. We were throwing Grande worms wacky and fishing real slow. Had two good fish come off that we were pretty sure would have kept easily, but that is part of it you know.”
As a long time pro staff member of GrandeBass, it looks like the rich get richer, as Don now has a few more of these great baits to add to his collection!
We are down to our last event of the season on Travis. It has been an interesting year full of tough days and some really deep fish. It’s been a grind for sure, but there is one more golden possibility at the big girl. That unicorn is out there, and she just might bite for you when it counts. Now is the time, as the River City Grille Big Bass Rollover starts at $1,265 next week!
And if she doesn’t bite for someone, we will have our stringer event on Saturday the 28th. As you know by now, next Tuesday will be your last chance to qualify for the Saturday tournament. It is not to be missed, as it might be one of the best payouts on a $40 entry you’ll ever come across! See you all Tuesday.