|
| |
Seven Anglers Headed to National Championship
South Carolina Team wins Southern Divisional
EUFAULA, Ala.-Seven bass club anglers are another step closer to bass
fishing's world championship after winning their state titles at the
B.A.S.S. Federation Southern Divisional championship that concluded on
Friday at Lake Eufaula. In the state team competition, it was South
Carolina staging a come-from-behind win to overtake home favorite Alabama.
The seven winners advance to the B.A.S.S. Federation National Championship
scheduled for next spring on a fishery yet to be announced. Champions from
46 states and Ontario, and overseas in Japan, Italy, South Africa, and
Zimbabwe will compete for one of five divisional titles. Winners advance to
the 2001 BASS Masters Classic to compete with the sport's top 40 pros for
the world championship.
Matt Herren, 37, and owner of a paint and body shop in Trussville, Ala.,
won the overall title in impressive fashion with 48 pounds, 8 ounces. In
doing so, he earned the Alabama title and a trip to the national
championship. Herren will be joined by South Carolinian Ricky Shumpert, who
caught 48-pounds, 2-ounces to take second place overall and lead his
winning team's effort. Other state champions include North Carolina's
Donnie Cooper, Kentucky's Gerald Smith, Tennessee's Mike Holt, Georgia's
Ricky Layton, and Florida's Todd McGlon.
With exception of fourth-place overall angler Cooper, all of the fish
caught by the state champions were caught in classic summertime style on
Lake Eufaula, finding fish stacked up on sharply-defined bottom contour
breaks featuring isolated cover, from rock to stumps.
Herren had a field day on the first round, catching his 5-bass, 19-pound,
10-ounce limit in just 21 minutes. What is more, he caught 21 bass in all
that measured beyond the lake's 16-inch minimum size limit.
He targeted an underwater hump coming within 8 feet of the surface before
falling into a creek channel with 25 feet of bottom. "The fish were on top
of the hump, feeding, early in the morning," he said. "Then, they'd
move
down the sides of the hump as the sun warmed the water."
Herren used three baits to follow the fish as they transitioned from
shallow to deep water. The selection included a Poe's 400 Series crankbait
(chartreuse/black) fished on 8-pound test P-Line CFX fluorocarbon line. A
3/4-ounce Ledgebuster spinnerbait (clear-water shad) and a Zoom French Fry
that he Carolina rigged with a 1-ounce weight completed the selection.
Cooper was the only state champion who targeted shallow water, in his case
no deeper than 5 feet. In contrast, his peers fished offshore structure up
to 30 feet deep. "I'm not a ledge fisherman and this is a ledge fishing
lake in the summertime," he said. "I knew that I would either live or
die
in shallow water. But it was worth it, because I knew everybody else would
be deep, leaving the shallows all for me."
The North Carolinian flipped a Zoom Brush Hog (watermelon/red flake)
Texas-rigged to a 1/4-ounce slip sinker. He targeted isolated brush piles
along the shoreline of a winding creek fed by a sharply defined creek
channel. Strikes occurred in the early morning in two feet at the base of
the trees. As the sun warmed the water, the fish moved to the outer reaches
of the structure, holding in water up to 5 feet deep.
South Carolina was the dark horse of the seven-state regional competition.
"None of our 12 guys had ever fished here before," said Tony Bennett,
president of the South Carolina B.A.S.S. Federation. His team earned the
$25,000 cash prize to be applied toward civic and conservation projects
supported by the bass clubs in South Carolina.
South Carolina began the competition in second place before falling to
fourth behind Alabama, North Carolina and Kentucky. It rebounded on the
final day, edging Alabama by a mere 6 pounds. Final scores: South Carolina
235 pounds, Alabama 228, pounds, 15 ounces; Kentucky 221-15, North Carolina
212-4, Tennessee 192-8, Georgia 156-14, Florida 150-10.
Jason McCollum of Northport, Ala., caught the biggest bass of the three-day
tournament, a largemouth bass weighing 7 pounds, 12 ounces. Overall, the
contestants caught 461 legal-sized bass weighing 1,398 pounds, 2 ounces.
The next tournament scheduled by the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society
(B.A.S.S.) is the BASS Masters Classic, July 19-23 in Chicago on Lake
Michigan.
BACK
|