The 2015 Texas Team Trail, presented by Cabela’s, held its second in a series of four qualifying tournaments at Toledo Bend Reservoir on February 21with 254 teams represented. A big problem this year was the weather. Winds prior to the tournament were gusting in the 30 mph plus range. Tournament officials made the decision to let all participants trailer to their fishing locations.
Many of the anglers headed north to fish shallow, stump-filled waters. Mid lake anglers were seeking medium depth grass lines, while those heading south seemed to be keying in on the 12 to 20 feet staging areas.
The team of Bart Blakelock and James Benedict were the third team to weigh-in and set the bar high for the rest of the field with a bag of bass weighing 35.56 pounds. Their big bass weighed 11.42 pounds. Their tournament win was worth $32,125, which included $1270 for Big Bass.
“We fished north and our area was a 50 yard stretch in the bend of a ditch that had some isolated hydrilla patches,” stated the winning duo. “We were using 3/4 oz. Rayburn Red Rat-L-Traps, 17- to 20 pound test line, working the bait slow and ripping it out of the grass. The second cast of the morning was when the 11 pounder hit and at first we didn’t think it was that big. However, when we got it to the side of the boat it was so big it was scary. We had three good fish by 9 a.m. and lost one in the five pound range right at the boat. The rest of the day was a grind to get our limit and we only had a total of seven bites.”
Blakelock and Benedict were fishing behind an island to get out of the wind. This was the same area they fished during the Bass Champs Tournament the previous weekend when they finished in 25th place.
Second place and $8,327 went to the team of Jonathan Simon and Cade Durio with a total weight of 26.28 pounds. The team fished mid lake all day and had about 25 pounds in the livewell by 8:20 a.m.. All of their bass were taken on Bass Kandi soft plastics fished on a Carolina-rig with a 3/4 oz. weight. In some areas the fish were positioned on the inside of the grass-line while in others the bass related to the outside edges. The team caught between 30 to 40 keepers during the day with two of the bass over eight pounds. They stated that their 12 foot Minn Kota Talon power-poles were a real key to their success allowing them to anchor in windy areas where otherwise they probably would not have been able to fish.
Third place and $5630 went to the team of Clay and Clint West with a total weight of 26.09 pounds. This team also spent their time in the mid-lake area and worked drops in the 15 to 26 foot depths that had scattered grass and stumps. They fished an A-rig almost exclusively but did take a few bass on a Carolina-rig.
“In practice we found a spot where we caught a couple of three pounders and a four pounder,” stated the West duo. “We were using the Hog Farmer A-rig (umbrella rig) with Keitech plastic bodies. We started our day in Housen Bay. It seemed like there were about 300 other boats fishing that same area. We had a four pounder on the first cast and then a five pounder. We were working the rig fairly deep and anytime you could bang the A-rig off a stump and not get hung-up you would get a bass. We fished a couple more spots and then with 25 minutes left in the tournament we went back to our starting spot and caught a six pounder on a Carolina rig. It was a great day for sure!”
Last years’ ‘Championship winners, Phil Marks and Tim Reneau, brought in 19.45 pounds and stated that they just couldn’t get anything going deep so had to go shallow with the Strike King Rage Blade and a new proto-type Red Eye Shad for their fish.
Even with the tough weather conditions there were 783 bass brought to the scales. Total fish weight was 2323.07, average weight per team was 9.18 pounds and the average weight per fish was 2.97 pounds.
