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The HawgRus.com blog. Featuring Bass Fishing news and outdoor reports. Sponsored by the Bass Hog Jonathan Marlow. Please subscribe using the RSS feed on the blog. Thank you.
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May 18, 2012 02:03:21
Posted By Hawgsrus
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Akin leads Co-angler division
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (May 17, 2012) – Brian Maloney of Osage Beach, Mo., took the early lead at the Walmart BFL All-American presented by Chevy, with five bass that weighed 15 pounds, 4 ounces. He has a narrow 4-ounce lead over second place angler Mark Snyder of St. Johns, Miss., in one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing.
Hosted by National Harbor, the tournament features the top 49 boaters and top 49 co-anglers from across the country casting for top awards of up to $130,000 in the Boater Division and $60,000 in the Co-angler Division plus the opportunity to compete in the 2012 Forrest Wood Cup presented by Walmart on Lake Lanier Aug. 11-14.
The top five anglers all indicated that the early-morning outgoing tide had the fish biting better than in the afternoon. Keying in on rock and structure seemed to be the predominate pattern for most of the anglers.
“I really wasn’t doing anything fancy,” said Maloney, who qualified through the Missouri TBF chapter. “The fish were moving with the tide and I was just waiting for them to come to me. I’ll play that game all week. We keyed in on the outgoing low tide pretty quickly and probably had our limit by 11 a.m.
“I was looking for ditches and troughs and found a rocky area that had a mud bottom and just bounced my bait off the rocks. I was using plastics - 3/16- to ¼-inch shaky heads.”
Maloney, who was fishing on the Potomac River for the first time, said he had seven or eight keepers all day and that he is hoping for the same type of weather tomorrow - bluebird skies and warm temperatures.
Jake Akin of Powder Springs, Ga., leads the Co-angler Division with five bass weighing 14-3 followed by Robert Hime of Odessa, Mo., in second place with five bass weighing 13-2.
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May 5, 2012 06:07:02
Posted By Hawgsrus
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Sward wins co-angler title
GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. (May 5, 2012) – Alex Davis of Albertville, Ala., weighed a five-bass limit totaling 27 pounds, 1 ounce Saturday to win the EverStart Series Southeast Division event on Lake Guntersville with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 81 pounds, 12 ounces. For his victory, Davis earned $34,767.
“I had a great week out here. It went really good today,” Davis continued. “I think I caught around 20 to 25 keepers today, with at least three limits over 20 pounds. I was fishing on the lower end of the lake. I targeted Honeycomb Creek, Brown’s Creek and I also had a few spots near Seibold Creek. It was about a 15-mile stretch that I would run, and I would just hit all of my spots. I probably had around 25 different spots that I would run to. I would stay for a bit and if I was catching fish, I would just sit on them. If I wasn’t, I would just run to the next one.
“I was fishing pretty deep – anywhere from 14 to 32 feet deep,” said Davis. “Earlier this week I had some success with a big spoon, and I caught a few on a jig head rigged with a single shad-colored swimbait. However, today all of my fish came on the Alabama rig. I had it rigged with Strike King Shadalicious swimbaits, and I was using multiple different lengths and weights. If the fish were up higher, I would use the 1/8-ounce or ¼-ounce rig. If they were deeper, I would throw the 3/8-ounce or ½-ounce rig. The last week they really moved from the grass and went out deeper, and I was able to find a bunch of big schools of them. The bass are mostly out in their summer spots now, and should be there for the rest of the summer.
“I guide on Lake Guntersville and have pretty much fished it every day since January,” Davis went on to say. “Coming in to this event I thought it would take around 65 to 70 pounds to win this thing. I never thought it would take me 80 pounds to get it done. I couldn’t have done this without my sponsors – Vicious fishing line, Strike King Baits, and Ranger Boats. I’m planning on joining the FLW Tour next year as a boater and have been saving my money to make the big jump, so this win is definitely a good shot in the arm for me.”
Fleming caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the Pro Division Friday – a 7-pound, 13-ounce bass – that earned him the day’s EverStart Series Big Bass award of $298.
Justin Sward of Birmingham, Ala., won the Co-angler Division and a Ranger 177TR with an Evinrude or Mercury outboard motor with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 62 pounds, 12 ounces.
Sward caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the Co-angler Division Friday – a 7-pound, 13-ounce bass – that earned him the day’s EverStart Series Big Bass award of $198.
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April 30, 2012 06:51:06
Posted By Hawgsrus
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BULL SHOALS, Ark. — Brandon Palaniuk may have $100,000 in the bank after his win today at the Bassmaster Elite Series TroKar Quest at Bull Shoals Lake, but that’s not going to change his lifestyle. He planned to spend Sunday night sleeping in his pickup truck, just as he has every night this week and during most other tournaments.
“It’s just easy,” said Palaniuk, who beds down in his covered pick-up bed near launch sites. “I’ve got power and a shower, and it’s close to the water. That’s all I need. And it’s free. A hundred thousand dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
The 24-year-old angler from Rathdrum, Idaho, began the final round with a forbidding lead of 12-pounds, 13 ounces, after weighing in the heaviest five-bass limits each of the first three days.
Although his final string was much lighter than usual, his four-day total of 78 pounds, 6 ounces gave him a double-digit margin over Britt Myers of Lake Wylie, S.C., who had 66 pounds, 8 ounces. The rest of the field was much closer. Myers outranked Trussville, Ala., pro Matt Herren’s four-day total of 66-7 by just 1 ounce.
Edwin Evers of Talala, Okla., took fourth place with the day’s biggest bag of 17-11 for a tournament total of 66 pounds, and Brent Chapman of Quivira, Kan., was fifth with 64-7. Chapman took over the lead for Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year with his performance at Bull Shoals.
Palaniuk found his winning area in the west Sugar Loaf part of Bull Shoals Lake.
“The fish were only a couple of hundred yards away from where they wanted to spawn,” Palaniuk said. “It was a quick two- to three-minute swim from where they wanted to hang and where they wanted to spawn. I honestly had the best area in the lake.”
It’s a textbook structure spot, and one that other competitors in the Trokar Quest tried during practice. None had the confidence in it that Palaniuk did. The young angler found it on a lake map, and on his first cast to the spot in practice, he caught a 3 ½-pound bass on it. That validated his game plan and gave him confidence he could win, even before competition began.
Palaniuk fished deep-diving crankbaits – a Rapala DT16 in a blueback herring color and a Strike King 6XD in brown ghost craw. He fished them on an Abu Garcia Veritas rod with a Revo Winch reel in a 5.4:1 gear ratio. “The DT 16 series is my confidence bait,” he said. “I caught my entire 24-4 bag on Day 2 on that.”
A key to getting bites, he explained, was to hit the submerged rockpiles around the roadbed from precisely the right angle. The rockpiles were about the size of a boat deck, and a miss of 1 or 2 feet wouldn’t get a bite.
Palaniuk also praised his Hydrowave unit, an electronic device that mimicks the sound of baitfish, for triggering bites from bigger bass.
Myers’ key bait was a Rapala DT10 on 10-pound-test Berkley fluorocarbon line. He used a Pinnacle 6.3:1 reel with a 7-11 cranking stick.
Herren said a combination of the water clearing and the level falling caused him to lose track of the fish. Yesterday, with two hours left of fishing, the Trussville, Ala., angler located them again in the main channel. He followed up with that strategy today, pulling in 75 using the M Series green pumpkin jig.
Evers boated his 17-11 bag today by fishing any windblown point with a mudline, using a square-billed crankbait Xcs Excalibur 200 and 300 size.
Courtesy of BASS Communications.
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April 8, 2012 10:35:37
Posted By Hawgsrus
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Advisory for Thursday, April 5, 2012
WHAT: Silent Auction and Dinner
WHEN: Sunday, April 29, 5:45 p.m.
WHERE: Embassy Suites, Pinnacle Ballroom - 3303 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Rogers, Ark.
NOTES: In conjunction with the 2012 Will Fish for Kids Charity Bass Tournament, Walmart, FLW and the Children’s Miracle Network will be hosting a silent auction and dinner to raise money for the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. All proceeds will benefit the hospital.
WHAT: 2012 Will Fish for Kids Charity Bass Tournament
WHEN: Monday, April 30, 2012
WHERE: Takeoff
7 a.m. - Prairie Creek Marina, 1 Prairie Creek Marina Drive, Rogers, Ark.
Weigh-in
3 p.m. - Prairie Creek Marina, 1 Prairie Creek Marina Drive, Rogers, Ark.
NOTES: Walmart, FLW and the Children’s Miracle Network will be hosting the 2012 Will Fish for Kids Charity Bass Tournament benefiting Arkansas Children’s Hospital. FLW Tour pros will take corporate teams fishing on Beaver Lake in a one-day tournament where 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to the hospital. The entry fee is $1,000 per boat. Companies interested in participating can register at http://www.flwoutdoors.com/willfishforkids or by calling FLW Community Outreach Manager Allie Gibbs at (270) 252-1594. Breakfast and a box lunch will be provided to all participants on tournament day and a cookout will be provided lakeside during the weigh-in starting at 3 p.m. on April 30. Every participant will also receive a gift bag filled with items donated by participating companies and a commemorative hat.
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April 8, 2012 10:32:29
Posted By Hawgsrus
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David Gillham wins co-angler title
BULL SHOALS, Ark. (April 6, 2012) – Robbie Dodson of Harrison, Ark., weighed a five-bass limit totaling 14 pounds, 13 ounces Friday to win the EverStart Series Central Division event on Bull Shoals with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 44 pounds, 1 ounce. For his victory, Dodson earned $22,026 and a Z518 Ranger boat with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard motor.
“It’s been a tough week,” said Dodson. “The lake dropped drastically each day and I had to run new water every day. I started in East Sugarloaf on day one, moved to West Sugarloaf on day two and today I fished Shoal Creek, I would start at the mouth of each creek, put my trolling motor down and fish to the back. With the water dropping the way it did my knowledge of the lake was key. I knew that if I didn’t catch fish in these areas I wasn’t going to catch them anywhere.
“I was mostly fishing the fronts of bushes, I could see the bass about 5 to 10-feet in front of the bush so that’s what I was targeting,” Dodson continued. “I used Luck E-Strike Flipping Finesse jigs with 2-1/2 inch Bass Magic Fighting Craw in green bamboo to catch most of my fish. I had to fish real slow and that’s all it was.
“You know sometimes things are just meant to be and there is nothing you can do to change it. That’s how this week was for me, it was just meant to be.
“I had three good partners and we all got along real well. The turkeys were out and we listened to them goblin’ and settled down to fish. It was a fun week.”
The next EverStart Series Central Division tournament will be May 10-12 at Kentucky/Barkley lakes in Gilbertsville, Ky., and is hosted by Marshall County Tourist Commission.
Courtesy of FLW Outdoors.
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