Eric Wright of Balch Springs, and Jeremy Sims of Sulphur Springs, brought 27.96 pounds of bass to the scales to win the 2014 Texas Team Trail presented by Cabela’s event at Lake Texoma on April 12.
With their victory, the winners took home a new, fully-rigged boat and motor package valued at $40,000.
With warm, windy weather in the area, Wright and Sims targeted the Alberta Creek area where the pair spent their day sight fishing, landing an impressive 9.17-pound kicker fish, which won the pair an additional $970 Big Bass prize.
“We didn’t have to run too far, just from Granpappy (Point Marina) across to Alberta Creek,” said Wright. “The conditions were good for what we planned to do. We found fish and worked them with crawfish-shaped soft plastics.”
Second-place finishers Spike Stoker, of Stephenville, and Randy Sullivan, of Breckenridge, weighed a five-fish limit of 23.25 pounds, which brought them $7,050 in second-place earnings and contingency bonuses.
Stoker and Sullivan also used the warming temperatures to their advantage, targeting bass as they moved shallow around docks as the day progressed.
“The wind and the heat really played into our plans,” Stoker said. “In some places, we found them on beds and caught them on soft craws and jigs. We also caught them around docks on umbrella rigs.”
Jason Bonds, of Lufkin, and Travis Moore, of Cleveland, took home a combined $4,340 in third-place and contingency prize money, the result of sight fishing with plastic worms near boathouses.
The next stop for the Texas Team Trail is Lake Livingston on May 3. Competitors who register for the Lake Livingston event by midnight of Thursday, May 1, will be allowed to pre-fish on Friday, May 2 and will be entered into a drawing for a free Minn Kota Talon shallow water anchor.
