Area men finish 3rd in U.S.A. Bassin Classic
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The 2010 U.S.A. Bassin Classic began after a 2 hour delay. My partner, Jason Estel and I were anxiously awaiting our number to be called. With our number being called the problems started. The hot engine alarm went off. We sat there for 15 minutes until the engine cooled and finally made our way 15 miles south from the dam on an extremely choppy Kentucky lake. Forty-five minutes later and $2500.00 worth of damage to my boat we arrived at our first spot. The wind was rocking our first spot. We were able to catch a small keeper before we retreated to a more protected bay.
We had located this small bay in practice near our main area. With the wind bearing down it cut our small bay into a third. We knew this wasn't a place to win, but we thought we could buckle down and catch a small limit and hope the wind would calm a bit. After catching a limit and culling a couple times we noticed that the wind was still present but had lightened a couple notches and we took a short boat ride to our main area.
We immediately caught a couple shorts and continued through the scattered buck brush and willow trees. Just when we decided to hit another area a mortal hawg grabbed Jason's jig. The sow ran 30 feet before Jason got a hook in her. Without a net (blew out at some point on the boat ride) I waited for what seemed like an eternity only to see my partner's jig come out next to the boat by itself. Jason was gutted and I wasn't far behind. Jason took a moment to get refocused and I told him I was pumped up because I knew we were on the right fish. We just had to get bit a couple times in the next hour to be in the game. Jason put it together and on his 5th flip boated a 4.38 largemouth. We were unable to get another keeper bite and made the agonizing boat ride to Kentucky dam marina. Our limit tipped the scales at 12.70 and we sat in 40th place after the first day weigh in.
Heavy rains and thunder storms rattled the area all night. We still remained confident in our area if only the wind would lie down. We were in a unique area and thought our water would stay clear while a lot of areas would be trashed by the heavy rains. After calling Kevin Yeary's cell 30 times checking to see if the tournament would go on, I finally got confirmation.
On take off our aching bodies were greeted by a calm Kentucky Lake. We arrived at our first spot and within minutes I boated a 2.75 lb largemouth, followed an hour later by a line burner. Although the water had risen 4 ft over night, I pointed to and told Jason that I saw the bush that the big fish came out of the day before. On his first pitch he hit pay dirt. He set the hook and yelled "it's her"! With a borrowed net, and tripping over each item littered in the bottom of the boat we finally put the 6.87 lb post spawn sow in the live well. Jason added a 4 pound largemouth, and I added a 5 pounder and we knew we had done our part. We culled out the line burner and headed for the weigh in.
Our limit tipped the scales at 20.49 and we sat in first place with a two day total of 33.19. U.S.A. Bassin likes to see you squirm and had Jason and I sit in the hot seat while the top five from day one weighed in their fish, and someone else took the lead. We lasted a couple rounds and had a lot of fun but it was not meant to be. The 11 lb. deficit was too much to overcome. When it was all said and done we ended up in third place. That's the great thing about U.S.A. Bassin though; we still went home with a boat. We ended up with $1500 in second day big bass cash and a Nitro x-5 with a 90 hp Mercury Optimax worth $17,995.
Another thing I'm proud of is the Kaskaskia River Division that I run for U.S.A. Bassin. We took six teams to the Classic and the following teams had great finishes besides us: 4th-Mike Baldwin, Jason Wolf, $7000. 5th- Shannon Steibel, David Despain, $5000 17th-Jeff Berger, Ken Voelkerding $700.
To recap the event, we caught our small limit on an Xcite Xtreme stix, and a creature bait both in watermelon red. The big fish on Saturday and every fish on Sunday came off a 3/8 ounce green pumpkin jig tipped with an Xcite Baits Raptor Tail Craw in Watermelon Red. I credit the Raptor Tail Craw with its action, scent, and buoyancy as a big part of our success. The fish were scattered in groves of buck brush and willows. Half the fish came off the cover itself, and half while swimming the jig back to the boat. The event didn't go as planned; however, I can't argue with the results.