It was cold on Sam Rayburn.
Friday, originally scheduled as the second day of competition was cancelled due to unsafe weather conditions. The event was reformatted to two days of competition where the full fields of both pros and co-anglers fished both Thursday and Saturday. The winners of each field were decided by two-day cumulative weights.
Chris McCall of Brookeland, weighed a five-bass limit totaling 19 pounds, 10 ounces Saturday to win the Rayovac FLW Series Texas Division at Sam Rayburn Reservoir presented by Mercury with a two-day total of 10 bass weighing 33 pounds, 15 ounces.
For his victory, McCall earned $33,300.
“I think this win feels better than my first one,” said McCall, who also won a Rayovac FLW Series event on Sam Rayburn back in 2006. “It was really a tough tournament. Today, everything just came together for me. I feel great.”
McCall said that he fished 15 different areas and didn’t have many competitors around him.
“I had a 20-mile milk run,” McCall said. “I had around 15 different spots that I liked, and I just rotated through them. Most of the areas I fished I pretty much had to myself, which is pretty rare for Rayburn. One of the keys for me was fishing real thoroughly. I really milked my main areas, and fished until I knew that I had gotten every bite.”
McCall said that all of his fish this week came on a Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap, a Sixth Sense crankbait and a Santone Lures football-head jig, and red seemed to be the color of choice.
“I was keying in on the outside edges of the grass lines, fishing from five to eight feet deep,” McCall continued. “On Thursday, I didn’t really catch any big fish, but they were solid. I ended the day with only 12 bites. This cold front has the fish all messed up and today, I honestly didn’t know if I would get any bites. But it turned out great and I ended up weighing in the third-largest stringer of the tournament.
“I’m really looking forward to the next event of the season at Toledo Bend,” McCall went on to say. “I love fishing that lake. I wish we were going there a little earlier, as I think it’ll end up being a sight-fishing event and my strengths are fishing Rat-L-Traps and crankbaits. But, I’m signed up and you can bet I’ll be ready to go.”
The top 10 pros at Sam Rayburn Reservoir were:
1st: Chris McCall, Brookeland, Texas, 10 bass, 33-15, $33,300
2nd: Robert Case, Point, Texas, 10 bass, 31-14, $12,904
3rd: Dicky Newberry, Houston, Texas, 10 bass, 30-3, $9,990
4th: Brian Branum, Sam Rayburn, Texas, 10 bass, 29-3, $8,325
5th: Jason Wells, Center, Texas, nine bass, 28-9, $7,492
6th: Todd Castledine, Nacogdoches, Texas, nine bass, 27-5, $6,660
7th: James Stricklin Jr., Texarkana, Texas, 10 bass, 26-2, $5,827
8th: Keith Combs, Huntington, Texas, 10 bass, 26-2, $4,995
9th: Ray Hanselman, Del Rio, Texas, six bass, 25-5, $4,162
10th: Clint West, Beaumont, Texas, 10 bass, 25-3, $3,330
Complete pro results can be found at FLWOutdoors.com.
Cory Rambo of Orange, Texas, caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the Pro division Thursday — a 9-pound, 4-ounce bass – that earned him the day’s Rayovac FLW Series Big Bass award of $224.
Keith Honeycutt of Temple, Texas, won the Co-angler Division and a Ranger Z117 with an Evinrude or Mercury outboard motor with a two-day total of nine bass weighing 23 pounds, 2 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers on Sam Rayburn were:
1st: Keith Honeycutt, Temple, Texas, nine bass, 23-2, Ranger Z117 with 90-horsepower outboard, $5,000
2nd: Kevin Gressett, Tioga, Texas, seven bass, 22-4, $4,200
3rd: Jason Gates, Kountze, Texas, eight bass, 20-15, $3,360
4th: Steve Hope, Alba, Texas, eight bass, 20-0, $2,940
5th: Dan Wilson, Pilot Point, Texas, seven bass, 19-14, $2,520
6th: Larry Regina, South Bend, Ind., seven bass, 19-0, $2,100
7th: Ted Robbins, Longview, Texas, three bass, 17-5, $1,680
8th: Clint Farris, Joshua, Texas, five bass, 16-12, $1,470
9th: Rusty Harvey, Nederland, Texas, six bass, 15-14, $1,260
10th: Elton Brock, Denton, Texas, eight bass, 15-7, $1,050
Photo by FLW Outdoors.
