By: Patty Lenderman
One thing anglers don't have to worry about when fishing Lake LBJ - fluctuations in lake levels. LBJ is known to be a constant level lake, with merely a one foot level variance. It is not immune to the wind, however and 176 Central Region Bass Champs teams were given little mercy with gusts near 20 mph. Dennis Burrer and Alex Bennet, teaming up together for the first time ever, won 1st place with more than a two pound margin.
Lake LBJ Yacht Club hosted this event, the third tournament of five for the Central Region. Temperatures rose to 70's, with mostly cloudy skies and lots of wind.
Dennis Burrer gave his friend Alex Bennet a call, and invited him to fish this tournament. Neither one of them had been on the lake since October, and had never fished a tournament together. "We drew boat #17, and headed right to the spot we wanted to fish. Both of us were throwing a custom, hand poured white plastic jerk bait made by Snake Bite Fishing Tackle out of Idaho" Dennis explains. "We were fishing depths of about 4' along the outside edges of a weedbed. On my seventh cast, around 6:30 am, I landed our first fish. She weighed 8.62 lbs. At about 7:10, Alex caught a six pounder. Throughout the rest of the day, we each caught one more for a total of four." One shy of a limit, but still the best of the bunch with a total weight of 17.66 lbs. "We were just at the right place at the right time." They won big, taking home the Skeeter SX190 powered by a Yamaha 150hpdi motor. They also won $1,000 for winning Big Bass honors with their kicker fish.
Ruben Ribera and Lino Gutterez won 2nd place with 15.34 pounds. Their first fish, about 4 pounds, was caught on a straight rigged, weightless chartreuse & white Senko. Then they switched to a trick worm and caught two more. "It went dry for us for about four hours. At 1:00 it picked back up and we put our kicker (5.90 lbs) in the boat with a firetiger spinnerbait. We were fishing a fence line at a dock, and just kept jumping over the fence, fishing each side of it. We finished our limit and culled our smallest fish in about 5 minutes. We had an hour and a half left to fish, and really wanted to cull one more time. We just never got that last bite." They moved around a lot, fishing about 15 different spots, concentrating mostly on docks. "All of our fish were in 10" - 2' of water." They were awarded $2,500 for their 2nd place finish.
In 3rd place with 14.72 lbs was the team of Patrick Anderson and Pete Albarado. "We started out looking for beds, but couldn't find any. Then we threw a firecracker spennerbait in the grass at about 3'-5'. We ran back and forth all day, but only landed five fish. We did anchor our weight with a 7 pounder." They won $1,600 for 3rd place, and then doubled it to $3,200 for fishing out of their Skeeter I-Class boat and being the highest finishing Skeeter boat owner team.
Twenty five places were paid , and the bottom weight to get a check was tied at 10.10 lbs by Carl Hibler and Mike Vanbrocklin, as well as Doug and Kelly Kennemer. $57,525 was paid out in cash and prizes, adding up to a 126% payback.
There are only two tournaments left for the Central Region. Next is May 6 on Lake Travis, then June 17th on Lake Buchanan. At the conclusion of the season, the Anglers of the Year will be determined. This title is for more than just recognition. As of now, the top five teams in the points race are as follows:
520 pts Charles Whited & Jason BuchananB 514 pts Jason Jones & Travis Jones Jr
512 pts Jesus Cruz & Roger Jacoby
508 pts Troy Jenkins & Lloyd Ward
508 pts Brad Williams & Jason Dewald