Louisiana anglers Ricky and Ronnie Madole took home top money, $20,000, at the Skeeter Bass Champs Tournament on Lake Sam Rayburn, Jan. 17. Their total fish weight for the one day tournament was 35.95 pounds with a 5 fish limit. Their big bass weighed 8.33 pounds. Over 300 teams participated in the tournament.
“It was a good day to have the best fishing of our lives,” the brothers agreed. They started their day at deep points, 15-25’ with hydrilla. By 9:30 a.m., using an Alabama rig with shad colored plastics, they estimated at having 25 pounds in the boat. “It was quite a flurry there for about 30 to 40 minutes. We caught about seven bass, and then went almost four hours without a single bite. After that we caught three more to cull with – two 7’s and an 8 pounder.”
Coming in second were the team of Rusty Clark of Sam Rayburn and Cory Rambo of Orange, TX with a total weight of 24.54 pounds. Big fish weighed 6.99 pounds. For their catch they received $6,500 and a $250 Talon Bonus.
Clark and Rambo focused on the ends of points in water 15-16’ deep. They were using a watermelon red Carolina rig. “It wasn’t a fast bite for us. We’d catch one here, one there – we just kept pecking at it.” Rusty caught their last fish to cull with at 11a.m.. “It was all over for us after that.”
Kris Wilson, Montgomery, TX and Charles Bebber, Willis, TX weighed a 9.36 pound trophy and finished in third place with a 5 fish limit that weighed in at 22.74 pounds. They took home $5,000.
“We could tell you what we didn’t catch the fish on – that would be the bigger story,” the team said laughing. “In all seriousness, we threw a lot of different things from a RatLTraps to crank baits, to Carolina rigged everything.” They focused on a grass flat 8’ deep. “We had our initial limit in about an hour and a half, and had all we weighed today by 10a.m.. After that (the fish) just shut down on us.” Their kicker weighed in at 9.36 lbs, the second largest single bass weighed in for the day
Shane Hilton, fishing with Ray Beck, caught the biggest bass of the day weighing in at 9.78 pounds. “We had fished a tournament the week before, and found fish in a deep 8’-10’ drain. They were biting on ¾ oz RatLTraps.” They planned on hitting another spot to start out with for this event. “There were boats all over our first spot. We decided to go to that drain, and tied on a new Cherry Bomb color ¾ ounce trap, with 15# P-Line fluorocarbon on a 7’2” medium heavy Denali rod.” First they caught a small bass, then threw back in, pumping the bait off the bottom, and she hit. That catch netted a check for $1,000, plus they got another $200 from UnderArmour and the Abu Garcia Revo bonus. “We’ll hit that spot again next week. The bass are going to be looking for pre-spawn areas this time of year. Temperature, water levels – it all makes a play in what the bass are doing and where they are.”
The top 40 anglers went home with prize money. Check www.basschamps.com and click on “results” for complete list of the finishers.
