On the Dock with Rick Smith 11-15-2011

17. Nov, 2011 0 Comments

TuffMan Fishermen Descend on Lake Stillhouse Hollow
On Sunday the 13th 200 fishermen descended on Lake Stillhouse Hollow for a chance to win one of the coveted 12 team slots to qualify for the 12th Annual TuffMan Bass Tournament Championship. There are four qualifying tournaments held in Central Texas with the top 12 teams from each tournament being eligible to fish the championship, plus the top 12 points qualifiers will also be invited along with Lowell Bennett and Billy Brewer, last year’s champions, for a total of 61 teams. The championship will be held January 7th on Lake Stillhouse Hollow with the weigh-in being a B.A.S.S. style event held in the Bell County Exposition Center in Belton during the annual Central Texas Boat Show. The qualifying tournaments are open to all bass fishermen and there will be one more event coming up on December 11th on Lake Belton.
In talking to the fishermen beforehand, most were fairly pessimistic about the bite on Lake Stillhouse due to the current lake conditions. Many were catching small fish as the elusive hogs were thought to have died off due to the low water and heavy pressure put on the lake by previous tournaments. These predictions were happily proven wrong as 73% of the teams weighed in one or more fish.
First place was won by Darrell Newman of Bruceville and Billy Ficke of Waco with 5 fish weighing in at 19.28 lbs. Their biggest largemouth was a whooping 7.96 lbs which was also the largest fish weighed-in on Sunday. For their efforts they took home a qualifying position and $3,100 in cash. The Gatesville team and 2010 TuffMan Champions, Ryan Crawford and Ryan Warren, came in second with 5 fish at 19.06 lbs. Their largest fish was 6.93 lbs which was the third largest in the tournament. They won $1,500 and a qualifying berth. I talked to this team afterwards and they said the .23 lbs that would have put them in first place cost them $4,500 in contingency money from their sponsor, Nitro Boats. If they had won first place, Nitro would have given them an additional $5,000, but by coming in second they were eligible for only $500. This is the second time this team has lost out on a $5,000 bonus. In 2010 when they won the championship, they were fishing out of a Ranger boat and should have been eligible to receive Ranger Gold Bucks of $5,000. Ranger Boats was in bankruptcy so the friends never got paid, but did win first place money of $10,000 from TuffMan.
B.A.S.S. Elite angler, Dean Alexander of Florence, fished with Eric Crumley. They also caught 5 fish weighing a total of 18.27 lbs. They had the second largest big bass at 7.38 lbs winning them a total of $1,400 and a qualifying slot.
Since 100 teams registered the top ten places won prize money totaling $9,500. The couples division was won by the 20th place Killeen team of Craig and Carla Gilbert with 5 fish weighing 8.75 lbs earning them $250. The youth division went to the 12th place team of Jim Koczka and his grandson, Braden Wright, of Belton with 5 fish weighing in at 10.21 lbs. This qualifies them for the championship plus earned them $250 for being the highest finishing team in their division. Braden is 12 years old and this is his fifth year to fish TuffMan and his first year to qualify. Braden’s dad, Zach Wright, had passed away a few weeks earlier. As a memorial to Zach and to help defray expenses, the fishermen in conjunction with the Belton Bass Club and the Troy Leo Club, raised over $266 for Braden and his sister Avery Wright.
The fishermen weighed in a total of 228 bass with all being released back into the lake. Total weight was 458.34 lbs with an average weight of 2.01 lbs. Only 27% of the teams did not bring fish to the scales. All- in-all most of the fishermen felt it was a successful day on the lake. I talked with numerous anglers at the weigh-in and it seemed that many of them had the most success with Rattle Traps and color did not seem to matter much. Preferred areas to fish were old road beds where the hydrilla and other grasses were offering some cover with many of the fish being caught shallow. Some fishermen had their limit by 10:00 AM (the tournament started at safe daylight which was around 6:45 AM), but others didn’t start catching fish until later in the day. High winds from the south put a strain on the trolling motor batteries. Concerns about the lake being almost 16 feet low seemed to be unfounded as fishermen used caution when running under power to protect their boats and motors. I did not hear of anyone having any major issues.
The last qualifier for the 12th Annual TuffMan Trail is December 11th on Lake Belton. I encourage all you bass fishermen to take advantage of this locally run series, where you’ll not only have a lot of fun, but might just win some big bucks too. For photographs and complete results visit HYPERLINK “http://www.tuffmantournaments.com” www.tuffmantournaments.com or HYPERLINK “http://www.keepthemswimming.com” www.keepthemswimming.com.
HYPERLINK “mailto:rick@marineoutlet.com” rick@marineoutlet.com