Del Rio, Texas - The Show Me State team showed it had a stellar group of anglers as Missouri swept all of the top honors at the BASS Federation Central Divisional Bass Fishing Championship at Lake Amistad.
Second-day leader Luke Payne weighed in a 17-pound, 8-ounce limit to capture the overall individual championship with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 52 pounds, 7 ounces. The 28-year-old Triton boat dealer from Warsaw, Mo., also accumulated the top weight on his state team to advance to his second BASS Federation National Championship.
Payne relied on a watermelon red-flaked 1-ounce Odom jig tipped with a watermelon copper-flaked Madman Tube Craw to punch through deep hydrilla beds the first two days of the tournament. A ripping wind today caused him to switch tactics today.
"I didn't throw the jig all day; it was just too windy," said the All Star Bass Club member. "All the water we fished today had three- to five-foot rollers. We were both on the front deck kind of square dancing."
Since his second-day partner caught a 19-pound stringer from the back of his boat using a Carolina rig, Payne decided to try some rigging as well.
"I caught a couple of fish on the Carolina rig yesterday but today is the first day I went prepared to throw the rig," said Payne. The tournament champion used a 4-foot leader and 1-ounce tungsten weight to drag either a watermelon red-flaked Zoom Brush Hog or a 10-inch pumpkin Berkley Power Worm, which Payne said produced his bigger fish. The rest of his keepers bit a bumblebee pattern Norman Lures DD22 crankbait.
"I would crank it down and crash the crankbait into the trees and stop it. The fish would just absolutely knock the rod out of my hands," he said.
His main spot produced 22 keepers. Since the wind made it difficult to move around, Payne keyed on one ridge of matted hydrilla that had some trees around it. He believes the fish were suspended in the tree tops.
"Yesterday the big fish bit early, but today I didn't know what to expect," said Payne, who caught a limit of small keepers on his first pass down the ridge.
"We made two passes before the big ones started biting. It took me about two hours to figure out where the bigger fish went. Every drift after that we would catch two, three or four good ones."
Seven other anglers advanced to the 2006 Federation Championship by catching the most weight for their teams. Other team leaders qualifying for the Championship included Tom Jessop, Dalhart, Texas; Zachary King, Clarksville, Ark.; Randy Haynes, Starkville, Miss.; Alex Franks, Boystown, Neb.; Kevin Miller, Augusta, Kan.; Lee Sanders, Stillwater, Okla.; and James Kennedy, Lacombe, La.
Forty-six state winners will compete in the championship along with qualifiers from Canada, Italy, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Japan. The top finishers from each division (Northern, Southern, Central, Eastern and Western) advance to the 2006 Bassmaster Classic.
Missouri also captured first place in the team competition by tallying a collective weight of 390-9. Oklahoma took second in the bragging rights battle with 358-10, while Louisiana finished third with 357-5, followed by Texas in fourth with 355-8 and Arkansas in fifth with 352-10; Kansas, sixth, 352-8; Nebraska, seventh, 347-11; and Mississippi, eighth, 284-2.
The Missouri team avenged last year's last-place showing in the Central Divisional as the Show-Me State anglers caught their fish on a variety of lures and tactics, including topwaters, split-shot and Carolina rigs and deep cranking.
"There are a lot of different personalities on this team, and sometimes it's difficult to get them to click together," said team coordinator Greg Cooper. "I was a little worried about this group, but the first night of practice we got together, and we talked very professionally. The team camaraderie was the greatest thing that we've seen."
None of the Missouri team members had ever fished Amistad before, but Payne spent 10 days on the lake prior to the tournament to get acquainted with Amistad's crystal-clear waters. The rest of the Missouri anglers relied on tactics they use on their clear-water reservoirs back home.
Missouri angler Glenn Connors won the Purolator Big Bass Award of $1,000 by catching a seven-pound, 10-ounce largemouth bass on Friday. He caught the fish on a split-shot rig with a watermelon green Zoom Tiny Critter Craw about 22 feet deep along a point with a rock shelf.