GADSDEN, Ala. (May 6, 2019) – Boater Scott Wright of Carbon Hill, Alabama, won the Bass Fishing League (BFL) Choo Choo Division tournament on Neely Henry Lake Saturday with five bass weighing 18 pounds, 14 ounces. Wright earned $3,313 for his day on the water.
“I ran downriver and made a couple of quick stops before heading to an area in Canoe Creek. I’d caught them there with a swimjig in practice,” said Wright, who earned his first win in FLW competition. “I figured the water must’ve dropped some because the grass line I was fishing had scum up on top. I started throwing a frog, and by 8 a.m. I was culling – it was on fire.
“Around 9:30 [a.m.], the frog bite slowed down, so I started throwing a weightless green-pumpkin [Yamamoto Custom Baits] Senko in 5 to 8 feet of water outside the same grass line and caught several more fish. Every fish I weighed, though, ended up coming from the frog.”
Wright said he used a white H2O XPRESS™ Hollow-Body Poppin' Frog to catch his fish.
“I started working my way back to check-in around 1:30 [p.m.], but had one spot I wanted to stop at,” said Wright. “It was a small patch of grass in a pocket about a mile downriver from where we took off, and with 10 mins left to fish, I caught my biggest fish of the day.”
Wright went on to say that it was likely the way he worked his frog that had the biggest impact on his win.
“I think the way I was working did more to help me than the bait itself – I’ve never fished a frog that way,” said Wright. “I’d jerk it once or twice, and then let it sit absolutely for about 10 or 20 seconds. It was a technique I discovered during a pause to grab a bottle of water from my cooler. I never got a bite moving the frog – it had to be sitting dead still.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Scott Wright, Carbon Hill, Ala., five bass, 18-14, $3,313
2nd: Trey Gamble, Helena, Ala., five bass, 18-0, $1,557
3rd: Casey O'Donnell, Guntersville, Ala., five bass, 17-8, $1,137
4th: Dax Ewart, Humboldt, Tenn., five bass, 16-9, $726
5th: Daniel Whitaker, Phil Campbell, Ala., five bass, 16-8, $623
6th: Scott Towry, Lawrenceburg, Tenn., five bass, 15-10, $571
7th: Thomas Helton, Charleston, Tenn., five bass, 15-7, $769
8th: Kenneth Grover, Decatur, Ala., five bass, 15-4, $467
9th: Andy Kilgore, Kingston, Ga., five bass, 15-1, $415
10th: Greg Lamb, Birchwood, Tenn., five bass, 15-0, $363
John Polly of Nauvoo, Alabama, caught a 5-pound, 11-ounce bass – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – and earned the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $365. Mike Young of Suwanee, Georgia, won the Co-angler Division and $1,589 Saturday after catching five bass weighing 15 pounds, 9 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Mike Young, Suwanee, Ga., five bass, 15-9, $1,589
2nd: Tom Bowker, Terre Haute, Ind., five bass, 13-2, $794
3rd: Keith Youngblood, Guntersville, Ala., five bass, 12-12, $497
4th: Kyron Jones, Gardendale, Ala., five bass, 12-8, $347
5th: Jerry Cornwell, Cleveland, Tenn., four bass, 12-2, $298
6th: Mark Whitten, Scottsboro, Ala., five bass, 12-0, $273
7th: Bryant Davis, Madison, Ala., five bass, 11-13, $418
8th: David Haraway, Decatur, Ala., five bass, 11-8, $223
9th: Robby Griffith, Ashville, Ala., five bass, 11-6, $198
10th: Larry McNeil, Huntsville, Ala., five bass, 11-4, $165
10th: Randall Kramer, Signal Mountain, Tenn., five bass, 11-4, $165
Davis caught the heaviest bass in the Co-angler Division, a fish weighing in at 4 pounds, 9 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $170.