The Platinum Team Trail anglers enjoyed an awesome day not only for the fishing on Sam Rayburn on December 7. There were two big bass weighed in over the ten pound mark, four sacks registering over the 20 lb mark, and one well over 30 pounds. The tournament took place at Cassells Boykin Park. Thirty-eight teams competed for nearly $35,000.
Just a few hours after the tournament begun, Russell Cecil and Todd Castledine had to come in to weigh a portion of their catch. "We started off in a shallow area that had stumps and grass using a redeye shad,” said Castledine. “We caught two or three there, one of them was big."
Moving on to three or four other spots, they caught more fish. While using a Strike King 8XD crankbait along with a Crush 500DD 6th Sense crankbait, they had a double hookup. "One of them was a seven pounder, the other was over ten!" At that point they had a nice limit, but it was still early.
"Our trolling motor broke, and we were worried about having those big fish in the livewells all day, so we headed in to weigh some of them so they could be released," continued Castledine. Weighing their three biggest, they had a weight of 24.41 lbs with a 10.27 lb kicker. They switched boats and moved a five pounder and smaller fish to their new boat.
"We just hit one of our milk runs, and got to cull the smaller fish with a six pounder." Once the weight of their best five was added up, they had a total of 36.03 lbs to win the tournament for a $10,000 payday. "First and foremost, I'd like to thank the Lord for blessing us today," Castledine began. He and Cecil thanked their sponsors for their support.
In second place was Charles Bebber and Chris Wilson 26.85 lbs to win 2nd place. They started out in water 14-18' deep with soft plastics, rigged both Texas and Carolina style. "We caught a lot of fish, and probably hit about ten spots all day,” they explained. “The bite was better in the morning; we tried a lot of different types of areas. We also had some luck on Strike King crank baits." The team was awarded a total of $6,000.
Kelly Owens and Brent Brousard captured third place with a five fish limit weighing 24.31 lbs. "We had a very mediocre practice," the team agreed. "We decided to go to spots that we never practiced on." They marked bait fish on their fish finder on a deep, steep ridge bank. Using green pumpkin Combat football head jigs, they caught a limit.
"The middle of the day was slow. We moved to shallow water using a Texas rigged worm, and in the last hour and a half we caught our last two weigh fish." Their 3rd place finish earned a check for $4,720.
