THE LATEST NEWS
KVD REDCREST: Fueled up for another 20-pound limit
Kevin VanDam stopped for boat gas Monday evening with a satisfied grin knowing he’d just reached his goal of catching at least 17-pounds on Day 1 at Major League Fishing’s REDCREST Championship on Lake Eufaula, Alabama.
In fact, he exceeded his goal by catching 20-pounds to land in 6th place to begin Tuesday’s second day of competition. He deemed Monday’s catch worthy of a cold beverage and pork tenderloin on the Traeger Grill for dinner.
“Since I’m staying alone at a buddy’s lake house, it’d be easy to grab a burger at a drive-thru window on my way back from weigh-in, but that’s not my style, I love to grill good food,” says VanDam.
Grilling and chilling occurs at least once weekly back in Michigan when he’s not on the road. Roughly 25 VanDam family members gather every Sunday afternoon at his mom and dad’s lake house on Pretty Lake, home to mongo-sized bluegills.
“Over the years we’ve collected five different grill and frying apparatuses at Dad’s house, and trust me, we use ‘em – we’ve got a big family,” smiles VanDam.
A ‘family first’ guy to the core, far greater than celebrating his 20-pound catch, was the chance to smile knowing his dad had been released from the hospital after a battle with pneumonia, and his twin sons Jackson and Nicholas have grown to be two great guys as they celebrated their 24th birthday Monday.
His plan for Tuesday was to spend a lot of time slinging a 3/8-ounce Strike King Thunder Cricket in less than 4-feet of water. He’ll alternate between white and green pumpkin, and says the biggest mistake anglers make when throwing a vibrating jig is using the wrong rod.
“A vibrating jig throws off so much vibration, that if you’re using a pure graphite rod you have a tendency to feel a little too much and pull it away from a lot of bass. I use a composite rod with a lot more flex in it, and I catch everyone that bites it,” says VanDam.
His go-to rod is a Lew’s 7’ 1” CC3, and his biggest bass on Monday weighed 5-pounds. With the moon already 85% full, and lots of 72-degree weather coming to Eufaula, AL this week, VanDam is licking his chops at the promise of another 20-pound day like an Auburn Tiger nose tackle slobbering over a juicy pork tenderloin.
The post KVD REDCREST: Fueled up for another 20-pound limit appeared first on Bass365.com.
Thrift Leads on Day One of REDCREST 2021 on Lake Eufaula
EUFAULA, Ala. (Feb. 22, 2021) – A field of the top 40 pros from the Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour converged on Lake Eufaula in Eufaula, Alabama, this morning for the start of REDCREST 2021, the Bass Pro Tour championship. The five-day competition, which awards a top cash prize of $300,000 to the winner, is being live-streamed online and filmed for television broadcast on CBS, the Discovery Channel and the Outdoor Channel.
North Carolina Pro Catches 13 Bass Weighing 45 Pounds Even, Full Field of 40 Anglers to Compete Again Tuesday
Pro Bryan Thrift of Shelby, North Carolina, weighed in 13 bass totaling 45 pounds even, to take the early lead after Day One of the Qualifying Round. Thrift holds a 13-pound, 14-ounce, lead over Ott DeFoe of Blaine, Tennessee, who caught nine bass weighing 31-2, good for second place.
“Today went about as good as I could have imagined,” said Thrift in the post-game General Tire Take Out show. “It started out kind of slow – it took me an hour, an hour and a half to kind of figure out where the fish were setting. Once I found them, I ended up catching five or six on a jerkbait and a Damiki swimbait. When they quit, I went running around and caught a couple on a shaky-head and hit another spot and ended up catching a 7 (pounder) and a 5 (pounder). I couldn’t have asked for a better day.
“I’ve got about 50 rods on my deck, and I think I caught a bass on most of them today,” Thrift joked. “I caught fish on a lot of different baits. My big one came on a 4-inch swimbait with light line – when I first hooked it and was fighting it on the light line I felt like it was way too big to be a bass. I caught it with a 7-foot medium-heavy Fitzgerald Stunner rod paired with a (Abu Garcia) Revo MGX reel and P-Line Tactical 10-pound-test fluorocarbon line.”
With only the top 20 pros advancing after tomorrow’s day of competition, Thrift’s 30-pound cushion over 20th place will allow him to spend Tuesday’s day of competition expanding on his pattern and looking for new areas.
“I’m going to use tomorrow as a practice day,” Thrift went on to say. “I don’t think I have enough right now to win the event, so I’ve got to try to find more. There are going to be a lot of fish in new water in the next few days – we’re looking at three days of sunshine and 70-degree weather. The water is going to warm a lot, and these fish could change up really quickly. It’s almost March in Southern Alabama, so these fish are ready to spawn. Two or three of these hot sunny days, they can push up shallow. The first person to find that can definitely win this event, so I’m going to spend a lot of time looking for that tomorrow.”
Like Thrift, DeFoe credited a jerkbait as a big part of his success today as well.
“I switched up to the jerkbait this morning and that was the big player for me today,” DeFoe said. “The 13 Fishing Loco Special was the deal. Those fish wanted something a little slower, something you could pause and let hang right in front of their faces. I did catch a really nice one late in the day on a Terminator Pro Series spinnerbait, but the jerkbait was key. I feel like I’m in pretty good shape and all in all, today was a great start. I’ve got a little bit of a cushion, so tomorrow I’m going to try to find something else for later this week to go with what I’ve got.”
The top 20 pros after Day One on Lake Eufaula are:
1st: Bryan Thrift of Shelby, N.C., 13 bass, 45-0
2nd: Ott DeFoe of Blaine, Tenn., nine bass, 31-2
3rd: Stephen Browning of Hot Springs, Ark., nine bass, 26-4
4th: Brent Chapman of Lake Quivira, Kan., nine bass, 26-3
5th: Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., seven bass, 26-3
6th: Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich., six bass, 20-10
7th: Zack Birge of Blanchard, Okla., five bass, 20-9
8th: Mark Davis of Mount Ida, Ark., five bass, 20-8
9th: Takahiro Omori of Tokyo, Japan, six bass, 19-15
10th: Andy Montgomery of Blacksburg, S.C., six bass, 18-9
11rh: Alton Jones Jr. of Waco, Texas, six bass, 17-5
12th: Dustin Connell of Clanton, Ala., five bass, 15-5
13th: Fred Roumbanis of Russellville, Ark., six bass, 15-2
14th: Mark Rose of Wynne, Ark., five bass, 14-11
15th: David Dudley of Lynchburg, Va., three bass, 13-7
16th: Randall Tharp of Port St. Joe, Fla., four bass, 12-14
17th: Anthony Gagliardi of Prosperity, S.C., five bass, 12-5
18th: Scott Suggs of Alexander, Ark., three bass, 11-13
19th: Wesley Strader of Spring City, Tenn., four bass, 9-14
20th: Jacob Wheeler of Harrison, Tenn., two bass, 9-10
| A complete list of results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Overall, there were 156 bass weighing 492 pounds, 8 ounces caught by 38 pros on Monday, which included one 7-pounder, one 6-pounder and 11 5-pounders caught from Lake Eufaula. Thrift won Monday’s $1,000 Berkley Big Bass Award, weighing in a 7-pound, 1-ounce largemouth during Period 2. Berkley will award $1,000 to the angler that weighs the biggest bass each day, and a $7,000 bonus to the angler who weighs the largest bass of the tournament. REDCREST 2021 Presented by Old Wisconsin Sausage, the Bass Pro Tour championship at Lake Eufaula, is hosted by the Eufaula Barbour County Chamber of Commerce. All 40 Anglers compete on Day 1 (Monday) and 2 (Tuesday) of the event. After two days of competition, the field is cut to just the top 20 based on two-day total cumulative weight. The remaining 20 anglers are split into two groups – 10 compete on Day 3 (Wednesday) and 10 compete on Day 4 (Thursday). The top five anglers from each group based on total single-day weight will advance to the fifth and final day of competition (Friday), where weights are zeroed and the angler that catches the highest total weight on the final day will be crowned the REDCREST 2021 champion. Attendance is limited to competing anglers, essential staff and media covering the event only. Fans are encouraged to follow the event online through the MLF NOW!® live stream and SCORETRACKER® coverage at MajorLeagueFishing.com The 2020 Bass Pro Tour featured a field of 80 of the top professional anglers in the world competing in a COVID-shortened five regular-season tournaments around the country. The top 40 anglers in the Angler of the Year (AOY) standings after the five events qualified to compete in Bass Pro Shops REDCREST 2021 presented by Old Wisconsin Sausage. The MLF NOW!® broadcast team of Chad McKee, Marty Stone and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action each day of competition from 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. MLF NOW!® will be live streamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com. and the MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) app. Television coverage of REDCREST 2021 presented by Old Wisconsin Sausage, the Bass Pro Tour championship, will be showcased across two two-hour episodes, premiering at 7 a.m. ET, July 3 on the Discovery Channel. A one-hour special episode of MLF Inside the REDCREST will premiere at 2 p.m. ET, Sunday, July 18 on CBS. New MLF episodes premiere each Saturday morning on the Discovery Channel, with additional re-airings on the Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman Channel. Each two-hour long reality-based episode goes in-depth to break down each day of competition. For complete details and updated information on REDCREST 2021, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. |
| About Major League Fishing Founded in 2011, Major League Fishing (MLF) brings the high-intensity sport of competitive bass fishing into America’s living rooms on Outdoor Channel, Discovery, CBS, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network, Sportsman Channel, and on-demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). According to Nielsen ratings, Major League Fishing remains the number one series on Outdoor Channel for five years and MLF premiered as the number one outdoor show in their time slot on Discovery in 2019.In 2019 MLF acquired FLW, which expands their portfolio to include the world’s largest grassroots-fishing organization, including the strongest five-biggest-fish format professional bass fishing tour, the MLF Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit presented by Bad Boy Mowers, as well as the MLF Toyota Series, MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine, MLF Abu Garcia College Fishing presented by YETI, and MLF U.S. Army High School Fishing presented by Favorite Fishing. |
The post Thrift Leads on Day One of REDCREST 2021 on Lake Eufaula appeared first on Bass365.com.
KVD MLF REDCREST: Throwing Blades and Eating Pork
With high muddy water, Kevin VanDam and the rest of the field at the Major League Fishing REDCREST Championship on Lake Eufaula, Alabama are hungry for just a handful of good keepers today.
(Editors Note: This is the first of a series of short daily accounts of Kevin VanDam’s MLF REDCREST event this week as told to Alan McGuckin of Dynamic Sponsorships.)
And when it’s time for lunch, the angler most consider the greatest of all time will satiate his appetite with a pulled pork sandwich.
“When I thought we were headed to Lake Palestine in East Texas where all the residents, restaurants and stores had been so badly affected by ice and snow, I filled-up on plenty of my own groceries including some pulled pork that I brought in a cooler I packed in my Tundra,” grinned VanDam prior to Monday’s take-off.
As far as ‘groceries’ he plans to feed Eufaula’s largemouth, he says a spinnerbait and Strike King’s Thunder Cricket vibrating jig will be major players in the high muddy 48-degree water. He’ll mix in a structure jig and a medium diving crankbait as back-ups.
“The biggest X-factor this week is the weather because we’re starting with heavy clouds, passing rain, and pretty cold water, but we have lots of sunshine coming this way, and it’s going to change everything for the better – big time – as this tournament progresses,” says an optimistic VanDam.
He practiced until dark Sunday on the only allotted practice day, then worked on prepping tackle until 9:30 p.m. while his buddy who owns the lakeside home he’s staying in grilled them a steak.
But today, it’s pulled pork. And hopefully seven or eight keeper bites that will total around 17 pounds based on what VanDam predicts it will take to do well. And as of this writing at 11:00 a.m., according to SCORETRACKER
, he was more than halfway there.
The post KVD MLF REDCREST: Throwing Blades and Eating Pork appeared first on Bass365.com.
Jerkbait Selection & Techniques
We took a trip down to Alabama to visit Bassmaster Elite Series Pro, Clent Davis, and FLW Tour Pro, Braxton Setzer, to find out how, when, and why they throw the 3DB Jerkbait 110 & 110 Deep.
The 3DB Jerkbait 110 Deep is a suspending lure with an irresistible minnow shape. It is designed with “Flat Sides” which make it perfect for stop & go retrieves, or a pause/jerk/pause technique. This completely new version dives down to 8-12 feet, allowing anglers to reach suspended fish even deeper than before! The new Weight Transfer System makes for unbelievably long casts and the “Head Down” position during pauses in the retrieve are features developed by Yo-Zuri’s product development teams working closely with their pro-staff bass anglers. All baits in this series feature Yo-Zuri’s exclusive “Wave Motion Technology” that sends vibrations throughout the water column.
BAIT STATS:
Action: Suspending
Body: Tough and Durable ABS Resin.
Length: 4-3/8”, 110mm
Weight: 1/2oz, 14g
Hardware: 3 Round Bend Black Nickel Hooks and Split Rings
Features: Patented 3D Prism Finish and Weight Transfer System
Colors: Table Rock Shad, Clear Ayu, Pearl Shad, Ghost Perch, Natural Smelt, Natural Ayu, Clear Pro Blue, Sexy Bone, Natural Shad, Ghost Sexy Shad, Gizzard Shad, and Natural Tennessee Shad
Depth Range: 8-12ft’, 2.5-3.5m
3DB JERK BAIT 110 –SUSPENDING–R1355 SERIES
The 3DB Jerkbait 110 is a suspending lure with an irresistible minnow shape. It is designed with “Flat Sides” which make it perfect for stop & go retrieves, or a pause/jerk/pause technique. The new Weight Transfer System makes for unbelievably long casts and the “Head Down” position during pauses in the retrieve are features developed by Yo-Zuri’s product development teams working closely with their pro-staff bass anglers. All baits in this series feature Yo-Zuri’s exclusive “Wave Motion Technology” that sends vibrations throughout the water column.
BAIT STATS:
Action: Suspending
Body: Tough and Durable ABS Resin.
Length: 4-3/8”, 110mm
Weight: 1/2oz, 14g
Hardware: 3 Round Bend Black Nickel Hooks and Split Rings
Features: Patented 3D Prism Finish and Weight Transfer System
Colors: Table Rock Shad, Clear Ayu, Pearl Shad, Ghost Perch, Natural Smelt, Natural Ayu, Clear Pro Blue, Sexy Bone, Natural Shad, Ghost Sexy Shad, Gizzard Shad, and Natural Tennessee Shad
Depth Range: 3-5ft’, 1-1.5m
The post Jerkbait Selection & Techniques appeared first on Bass365.com.
Texas Reservoir To Host Bassmaster Kayak Series National Championship
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — After kicking off the inaugural tournament at the 50th Bassmaster Classic in March 2020, the country’s best kayak anglers are Classic-bound once more, this time competing for a National Championship trophy and over $97,000 in prizes. Officials have announced that the Bassmaster B.A.S.S. Nation Kayak Series National Championship will be held at Possum Kingdom Lake in Mineral Wells, Texas, as part of festivities surrounding the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk in nearby Fort Worth.
The National Championship at Possum Kingdom Lake will be a two-day event, June 9-10, 2021. The awards ceremony will be held on the Bassmaster Classic stage at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth on June 11 prior to the Day 1 Classic weigh-in.
“With this new trail, we wanted to give kayak anglers an opportunity to show what they can do from a small craft,” B.A.S.S. Nation Director Jon Stewart said. “Both the anglers and host communities have embraced these tournaments during the first season and we’re looking forward to 2021 and to naming our first Kayak National Champion in June.
“It’s just one more opportunity for bass anglers. That’s what we’re all about.”
Possum Kingdom Lake, located in the rugged canyon country of the Brazos River Valley, was the first water supply reservoir constructed in the Brazos River basin and is renowned for offering some of the clearest water in the southwest.
After launching the Kayak Series 2020 season on Logan Martin Lake in Pell City, Ala., the series made stops at Lake Fork in Alba, Texas, Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wis., Clear Lake in Lakeport, Calif., and concluded the season at Chickamauga Lake in Dayton, Tenn.
Among the anticipated field of 270 anglers who qualified for the National Championship will be 2020 event winners Jim Davis of Knoxville, Tenn., Cody Milton of Heber Springs, Ark., Barry Davis of Startex, S.C., Rus Snyders of Nashville, Tenn., and Tyler Cole of Hopkinton, Iowa. B.A.S.S. officials will be contacting all eligible participants with tournament specifics and registration information.
Instead of a standard weigh-in that uses scales to measure pounds and ounces, anglers will practice “catch, photograph and release” to determine the standings.
When an angler catches a bass, he or she will photograph the fish lying on a standard-issue measuring board and submit the photo through a special mobile app provided by TourneyX. The boards will measure each fish in inches down to a quarter of an inch, and the angler with the longest five-bass limit will win.
For more information, visit Bassmaster.com/kayak.
About B.A.S.S.
B.A.S.S., which encompasses the Bassmaster tournament leagues, events and media platforms, is the worldwide authority on bass fishing and keeper of the culture of the sport, providing cutting edge content on bass fishing whenever, wherever and however bass fishing fans want to use it. Headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., the 515,000-member organization’s fully integrated media platforms include the industry’s leading magazines (Bassmaster and B.A.S.S. Times), website (Bassmaster.com), TV show, radio show, social media programs and events. For more than 50 years, B.A.S.S. has been dedicated to access, conservation and youth fishing.
The Bassmaster Tournament Trail includes the most prestigious events at each level of competition, including the Bassmaster Elite Series, Basspro.com Bassmaster Opens Series, TNT Fireworks B.A.S.S. Nation Series, Carhartt Bassmaster College Series presented by Bass Pro Shops, Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster High School Series presented by Academy Sports + Outdoors, Bassmaster Team Championship, Bassmaster B.A.S.S. Nation Kayak Series powered by TourneyX and the ultimate celebration of competitive fishing, the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk.
The post Texas Reservoir To Host Bassmaster Kayak Series National Championship appeared first on Bass365.com.