Tournament winners say bass holding on points, stumps
Prairieville’s Dave Cavell and Gonzales’ Corey Wheat teamed up to win Claire’s Heart benefit tournament last weekend, and the pattern wasn’t what they expected.
“We thought we’d catch them punching,” Cavell said. “That’s how Corey caught them practicing.”
Instead, they had to back off the banks, and turn away from heavy flipping rigs.
“Everything we caught was off the banks in that 3 to 6 feet of water,” Cavell explained. “You would work your bait out 20 to 30 feet (away from the bank) and you’d hit a stump, and every now and then you’d catch one.”
Their win came in the middle portion of the Basin, where they put together a stringer weighing 13.85 pounds. Wheat caught the tournament’s big bass, which tipped the scales at 5.1 pounds.
They sealed their victory by narrowing down the vast area.
“We stayed within 50 yards of a main point,” Cavell said. “The backs of the canals werent’ the deal.”
The angler said almost all of their winning stringer came using Delta Lures’ Thunder Jigs, casting them shallow and dragging them into stumps near main points.
The fish ate pretty much all day — with the exception of a short stretch between 11 and 1.
“We had a limit at 8:30,” Cavell said. “About noon, you could tell they were going to bite. After about 1 we caught another eight to 10 fish.”
The key to their being there when it happened was just putting their heads down and sticking with their area.
“We didn’t move areas,” Cavell said. “We just waited for them to turn on again.”
The rest of the top five in Claire’s Heart Bass Tournament, held out of Doiron’s, were:
• Blake Sylvester and Blake Carello — 13.25 pounds
• Ted Mayon Jr. and Kyle Bush — 12.72 pounds
• Chance Marse and Beak Jacob — 12.45 pounds
• Rob Werner and Bryce Hill 12.08 pounds
