CHARLES COUNTY, Md. (Aug. 24, 2019) – Pro Marvin Reese of Randallstown, Maryland, caught four bass weighing 8 pounds, 5 ounces, Saturday to win the FLW Series Northern Division tournament on the Potomac River. Reese’s three-day total of 14 bass weighing 38 pounds, 15 ounces, was enough to earn him the victory by a 1-pound, 6-ounce margin and a cash prize of $38,026. Reese also tallied 250 points in the Northern Division Angler of the Year (AOY) standings.
“This is my first win as a boater – it feels pretty special,” said Reese, who earned his fifth career victory in FLW competition – third on the Potomac River. “I’ve been in this position [to win] before as a co-angler and it always seems like things don’t go right the last day and you fall short. I had two fish break off today, and two other fish hooked up. I had the bites and I’m like ‘I blew it.’ It shouldn’t have been this close, but I’ll tell you what, this win feels great.”
Reese caught a fish or two in grass on days one and two and caught a couple on shallower hard cover up near Washington, D.C., but the vast bulk of his weight came from one particular structure.
“It was a pier in 20 feet of water in D.C., and I just fished simple. I threw up on the side of it, and they would hit the bait on the fall,” said Reese. “I was feeding the lure line so it could get down to the bottom – it was nothing more complicated than that.
“It had two key spots on it that accounted for 12 of the 14 bass I weighed-in,” continued Reese. “The two corners are the sweet spots, and I had stuff pretty dialed in on that dock. That structure is hollow underneath, and once that tide gets to a certain level they sit under there and they’d come out and hit it [the bait] on the fall. Not a fish we caught there all week hit it on the bottom.”
Reese cited a jig and a shaky-head rig as key lures this week. He preferred a ½-ounce handmade green-pumpkin-colored jig with a Strike King Rage Tail Craw trailer of the same color and a green-pumpkin/green-flake Zoom Trick Worm on a 3/16-ounce Spot Remover shaky-head hook. He said he caught six keepers Thursday and Friday, with each lure catching an equal amount of fish.
On Saturday, Reese struggled a bit, but managed to scrape up three late in the day, with his third fish coming from an area called the Spoils. He added that the shaky-head rig was what produced for him on the final day of the tournament.
“I thought if I could get one more fish I would run back up there to that dock to try and get a kicker,” said Reese. “I fished and fished and didn’t catch one, so with 15 minutes left I ran back up there anyway. With three fish in the boat and 15 or 20 minutes to fish I pulled up on it and caught one, and that ended up being the difference.”
The top 10 pros on the Potomac River finished:
1st: Marvin Reese, Randallstown, Md., 14 bass, 38-15, $38,026
2nd: Troy Morrow, Eastanollee, Ga., 15 bass, 37-9, $14,932
3rd: Justin Atkins, Florence, Ala., 15 bass, 37-3, $12,948
4th: Ryan Davidson, Branchland, W. Va., 15 bass, 36-3, $9,457
5th: Adrian Avena, Vineland, N.J., 15 bass, 36-3, $9,511
6th: Robert Grike, Dumfries, Va., 14 bass, 36-0, $7,565
7th: Jordan Thompkins, Myrtle Beach, S.C., 15 bass, 33-10, $6,620
8th: Dylan Hays, El Dorado, Ark., 14 bass, 31-12, $5,874
9th: Casey Smith, Macedon, N.Y., 14 bass, 30-9, $4,728
10th: Wil Dieffenbauch, Morgantown, W. Va., 12 bass, 30-1, $3,783
Chris Moxley of Strasburg, Virginia, weighed a 5-pound, 15-ounce bass Friday – the heaviest fish of the tournament in the Pro Division. The catch earned Moxley the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $272. Jim Short of Ocean Pines, Maryland, won the Co-angler Division with a three-day total catch of 13 bass weighing 29 pounds, 9 ounces. For his win, Short took home a $32,350 prize package, including a Ranger Z175 with a 115-horsepower outboard motor.
The top 10 co-anglers on the Potomac River finished:
1st: Jim Short, Ocean Pines, Md., 13 bass, 29-9, $27,350 + $5,000 Ranger Cup Bonus
2nd: Ted Kephart, Philipsburg, Pa., 13 bass, 28-10, $4,800
3rd: Austin Archer, Anniston, Ala., 12 bass, 26-11, $3,840
4th: Michael Duarte, Baltimore, Md., 14 bass, 26-1, $3,410
5th: Ryan Bauman, Fleetwood, Pa., 14 bass, 23-1, $3,030
6th: Dennis Blakely, Norwalk, Ohio, 13 bass, 22-7, $2,400
7th: William Puduski, Portsmouth, N.H., 10 bass, 19-4, $1,920
8th: Daniel Taylor, Elizabethton, Tenn., 6 bass, 17-6, $1,861
9th: David Williams, Fredericksburg, Va., 9 bass, 17-1, $1,440
10th: Sakae Ushio, Tonawanda, N.Y., 8 bass, 17-0, $1,200
Jeff Mellott of Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania, caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the Co-angler Division Friday, a fish weighing 4 pounds, 13 ounces. For his catch, Mellott earned the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $181