RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (Sept. 9, 2019) – Boater Charles Williams of Clarksville, Arkansas, won this weekend’s Bass Fishing League (BFL) Arkie Division tournament on Lake Dardanelle after catching a two-day total of 10 bass weighing 35 pounds, 9 ounces. For his efforts, Williams took home $4,868. Williams said he spent each day of the tournament up the Arkansas River, in the Spadra area of the lake.
“I worked along main-lake points that had some good current on them. It seemed like the channel swings were the best,” said Williams, who earned his first career win in FLW competition. “I was flipping rock and laydown wood – wood that was in the current. It held the bigger fish. If you could find a point that had laydown logs on it, there seemed to always be big fish on them.”
Williams said he flipped a black and blue flake-colored Big Bite Baits Dean Rojas Fighting Frog with a ¼-ounce weight on 25-pound-test Seaguar Flippin’ Fluorocarbon line. He said he also weighed some off of a ½-ounce white and chartreuse Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait Jack Hammer with a 3½-inch chartreuse and pearl Lake Fork Tackle Live Magic Shad trailer, and a Crack-colored Lucky Craft LC DRS square-billed crankbait. His rod and reel setup was a 7-foot, 8-inch Denali N3 Extra Heavy Flippin’ Rod with a Daiwa Tatula reel set to a 7:3:1 gear ratio.
“I ran to the back of some pockets Saturday in the same area and mainly fished blowholes. If it had a creek channel coming out, that was good,” said Williams.
On Sunday, Williams stuck with his main-lake pattern and was able to catch a limit by 8:30 a.m. Sitting on around 12 pounds of fish, he said he was able to cull up to 17 pounds with the help of a 4-pounder that he caught with an hour left in competition.
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Charles Williams, Clarksville, Ark., 10 bass, 35-9, $4,868
2nd: Mike Rhinehart, Delaware, Ark., 10 bass, 31-6, $2,334
3rd: Erick Hurst, Clarksville, Ark., 10 bass, 30-10, $1,557
4th: Chip Hawkins, Little Rock, Ark., 10 bass, 29-5, $1,189
5th: Josh Hilton, Clarksville, Ark., 10 bass, 25-14, $934
6th: Wayne Dixon, Morrilton, Ark., 10 bass, 25-14, $856
7th: Samuel Hutson, Benton, Ark., eight bass, 23-11, $1,325
8th: Cade Alsbury, Gentry, Ark., 10 bass, 23-10, $700
9th: Ben Blaschke, Roland, Okla., 10 bass, 23-7, $872
10th: Brandon Lee, Ratcliff, Ark., 10 bass, 23-2, $545
Hutson caught a bass weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – and earned the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $547. Eric Pinter of Little Rock, Arkansas, won the Co-angler Division and $2,608 Sunday after catching a two-day total of nine bass weighing 20 pounds, 5 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Eric Pinter, Little Rock, Ark., nine bass, 20-5, $2,608
2nd: Matt Russell, Prairie Grove, Ark., eight bass, 18-2, $1,167
3rd; Derrick Damon, Clarksville, Ark., seven bass, 12-6, $779
4th: Andrew Wooley, Little Rock, Ark., five bass, 11-14, $645
5th: Jody Jones, Harvey, Ark., seven bass, 11-7, $517
6th: Tony Smith, Bryant, Ark., six bass, 11-0, $578
7th: Matthew Inman, White Hall, Ark., six bass, 10-15, $389
8th: Trent Jones, Springdale, Ark., four bass, 10-4, $350
9th: Keith Gardner, Waldo, Ark., five bass, 10-3, $311
10th: Ethan Sutton, Hot Springs, Ark., three bass, 9-6, $272
Pinter also caught the heaviest bass in the Co-angler Division, a fish weighing in at 5 pounds, 10 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $274.