ArmyBassAnglers Place 1, 2, 3, at Canyon Lake Bass Fishing Tournament

May 1, 2011
Army Bass Anglers Archive

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Hooters
On April 16th, the Selma, TX Hooters Restaurant hosted the second annual Jailbait Bass Tournament on Canyon Lake.  It’s somewhat of a mystery as to why, but the ArmyBassAnglers had a huge show of support and several teams consisting of Pro Staff and Coalition members participated in the registration activities the night before and competed in the event on Saturday.  Besides the obvious draw, the tournament proceeds were all donated to the Returning Heroes Home non-profit organization that the team has partnered with for a long time in order to raise money and awareness for the Warrior and Family Support Center located on Fort Sam Houston, TX.

Cody Roberson, President and Founder of ArmyBassAnglers, was supposed to fish with one of the Hooters executives, but at the last minute, he was unable to make the event.  So Cody was forced to spend the day on the water by himself.  Being stationed in San Antonio for several years, Cody has spent a lot of time with his family on Canyon Lake and had a pretty good idea where he wanted to fish.  This knowledge would serve him well.  In fairly short order, Roberson had his limit of three keepers in the boat and stayed in the same area all day.  He came to the scales with a very respectable almost eleven pounds that included two fish that weighed well over four pounds.  “This is a decent day on any lake considering it was a three fish limit instead of the normal five, but to do it on a lake that fishes as tough as Canyon, I’m ecstatic.” exclaimed Cody.  He would ultimately win the event easily beating the next team by over two pounds.

And yet another ArmyBassAnglers article that includes ProStaffer Dale Hughes is being written.  He has been in the money the last three events including this tournament.  This time he partnered with Chad Nelson, who fished this lake for the first time two weeks prior and was unable to put a keeper in the boat.  With a few spots marked on the graph, only because they looked like “fishy” spots, the pair did a map recon Friday night.  They settled on an area that Dale thought looked good on Google Earth and that Chad had marked on his GPS and headed there first thing in the morning.  Within an hour they had their limit and were ready to cull.  With one set of the hook Chad tripled their weight with a 4.69 pound beauty, which turned out to be big bass of the tournament.  Throughout the rest of the day they only added a few ounces to their weight.  Both anglers were thrilled and Chad expressed the following, “Considering our lack of confidence in this lake, we are pleasantly surprised.  The bite was very light.”  Chad and Dale finished in second place with a little over eight pounds.

Third place went to the team of Chuck Guthrie and Mario Valenzuela.  They spent their day flipping craw tubes around timber.  Neither had ever been on this lake and they too just went to areas that looked like productive spots on other highland reservoirs they are familiar with.  Like many other teams, they waded through a large number of short fish but stayed persistent and brought three fish to the scales that averaged just over two pounds each.

Overall the organization had a great turnout from ArmyBassAngler Pros and Coalition Pros across the board. Not only was the fishing better than anticipated, but the Selma Hooters provided a cookout at the ramp, music provided by a professional D.J., and very appealing photo opportunities.  The ArmyBassAnglers would like to thank them for their generous support to Returning Heroes Home and of course, to all of their sponsors for their continued support to the team.  They plan to run another similar even this coming Fall, so be watching for the flyers and come out to support this growing event.