EUFAULA, Ala. (May 15, 2017) – Shane Powell of Midland City, Alabama, weighed a five-bass limit totaling 25 pounds, 2 ounces Saturday to win the TBass Fishing League (BFL) Bulldog Division tournament on Lake Eufaula. Powell pocketed $4,200 for his efforts. Powell said he started his day fishing deep water, but headed shallow after some heavy cloud cover and low-light conditions moved through the area.
“I caught the first bass I weighed from a random creek on a Booyah Pad Crasher Frog,” said Powell, a former Auburn University angler who earned his first career-victory as a boater in BFL competition. “I ran around and got a few more bites, but switched to a swimjig around 8:30 a.m. After that swap, I started getting a lot more steady bites.”
Powell’s swimjig was Bream-colored and had a Bream-colored Strike King Rage Craw trailer.
“I worked through another area close to the dam and caught four of the five I weighed in,” said Powell. “It was a 200-yard stretch of shallow grass. It wasn’t hydrilla or anything – just bank grass.”
Powell said everything he weighed in came from less than 3 feet of water.
“I caught about 20 keepers throughout the day,” said Powell. “The water was left up by the corps (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), so grass ended up being a factor. Usually I’d go out deep this time of year, but the water was high enough to head shallow.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Shane Powell, Midland City, Ala., five bass, 25-2, $4,200
2nd: Ryan Ingram, Phenix City, Ala., five bass, 23-5, $2,100
3rd: Bryan Brown, Cataula, Ga., five bass, 23-1, $1,334
4th: Lee Nunnally, Social Circle, Ga., five bass, 20-7, $1,473
5th: Bobby Padgett, La Grange, Ga., five bass, 19-5, $800
6th: David Parsons, Dothan, Ala., five bass, 18-14, $733
7th: Dustin Wood, Eufaula, Ala., five bass, 18-11, $667
8th: Ronnie Ray, Phenix City, Ala., five bass, 17-5, $600
9th: Jason Smith, Dawson, Ga., five bass, 16-14, $533
10th: Mark Stillwell, Salem, Ala., five bass, 16-12, $467
Nunnally caught a 6-pound, 10-ounce bass – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – which earned him the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $540. Steve Hall of Mableton, Georgia, won the Co-angler Division and $2,100 Saturday after bringing a five-bass limit totaling 14 pounds, 4 ounces to the scale.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Steve Hall, Mableton, Ga., five bass, 14-4, $2,100
2nd: Sam Naib, Atlanta, Ga., five bass, 13-9, $1,000
3rd: Robert McNear, Warner Robins, Ga., five bass, 13-6, $666
4th: Brian Neal, Jacksonville, Fla., four bass, 12-13, $737
5th: John Blevins, Cumming, Ga., five bass, 12-9, $400
6th: Christopher Wilder, Macon, Ga., three bass, 12-0, $417
7th: Benjamin Schooler, Monroe, Ga., four bass, 10-11, $333
8th: Lee Parker, Hull, Ga., five bass, 10-4, $300
9th: Andrew Nickeson, Valdosta, Ga., five bass, 10-3, $267
10th: Isaac Clemmons, Fitzgerald, Ga., five bass, 10-2, $233
Neal caught the biggest bass among Co-angler Division anglers, a fish weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $270.