Damon Bowers, left, hoists a 9.14-pound bass while his Coteau Bass Hustlers tournament partner, Jason Jones, grips the lip of a 6.68-pound bass that vaulted the team to first place March 11 at Caney Lake. Bowers and Jones won that day's tournament with four bass at 18.68 pounds.
Tim Sturm holds an 8.48-pound bass caught March 10 at Caney Lake while fishing a Coteau Bass Anglers tournament. It was the biggest bass of the day.
Submitted
Damon Bowers, left, hoists a 9.14-pound bass while his Coteau Bass Hustlers tournament partner, Jason Jones, grips the lip of a 6.68-pound bass that vaulted the team to first place March 11 at Caney Lake. Bowers and Jones won that day's tournament with four bass at 18.68 pounds.
CHATHAM – Just when two bass anglers thought the bite couldn’t get bigger, it did at a lake known for big ol’ bass.
After putting a 4-plus, 5.88- and 6.5-pound bass on the digital scale March 10 on the way to winning the first Coteau Bass Hustlers tournament at Caney Lake, Jason Jones of New Iberia and his guest, Damon Bowers of Splendora, Texas, really shook up the weigh-in crowd on March 11.
Bowers, who owns Alamo Hydraulics of Louisiana, set the pace the next day with the first bass put in the boat, a 9.14-pounder worthy of the name “hawg.” It bit on his special self-named “redneck Carolina-rigged” black/blue Senko.
“Ah, we were excited. We didn’t weigh it. He wanted to get it in the livewell right away. I said, ‘Damon, what you think?’ He said 7. I said 8,” Jones said.
It was a heckuva way to start the second tournament, they agreed.
Five or 10 minutes later, Jones, using a Texas-rigged black/blue Senko, set the hook and reeled in a 6.68-pounder.
“I said, ‘Man, we could put a good stringer together.’ We were thinking we had 11, 12 pounds early in the morning by 6:40 a.m.,” he said.
They didn’t get another bite until a smaller keeper bit just after 1 p.m., then a fourth and final keeper, a 3-pound class bass, bit around 3:15. Turns out they didn’t need a five-fish limit that second tournament because they won that, too, with 18.68 pounds.
Their five-bass limit the first day tipped the scale at 20.24 pounds, more than enough to top the nine-boat field that fished both tournaments at Caney Lake.
“It felt good. That’s our first time putting together two days in a row. It was pretty exciting. I was excited,” Jones said.
The combined weight to win the overall pot was 38.92 pounds, 12 pounds more than their nearest challengers Robbie Mayer and Gerald Frederick, who had 14.63 pounds for third in the first tournament and followed up with 11.94 pounds for third in the second tournament. Mayer and Frederick’s total was 26.62 pounds.
Marlin Hebert and Blaine Miller were fourth in the first tournament with 14.23 pounds but second the next day with 12.30 pounds for a two-day total of 26.53 pounds.
The biggest bass the first day – an 8.48-pounder whopper, belonged to Tim Sturm, who fished with Bobby Muffoletto. It was one of the three bass they weighed for 16.47 pounds and the runners-up spot behind Jones and Bowers.
“Everybody thought after seeing the 8.4, man, that’d be hard to beat. Damon pulled that (9.14) out of the bag. It was a big old toad,” Jones said.
The winning team’s outing on the first day was a precursor of bigger happenings. Jones prefished with Joey Trahan on Wednesday, two days earlier, and with Bowers on Thursday.
Jones, 51, said he had a few bites on the second scouting trip.
“We went into Friday not really knowing what to do. Friday we went to where we had a few bites (and Bowers had missed a large bass),” Jones said.
Right off the bat, Bowers hooked and boated a 4-pound class bass. Then they had a hard time getting bit.
Later, Jones had Bowers come up to take the trolling motor on the deck of his 2001 SX190 Skeeter so he could munch on a tuna salad sandwich. While they were trading places they saw a big swirl in the water near the boat.
“I didn’t know if it was a turtle or a bass. He flipped to the spot and caught a 6 ½,” Jones said.
That fish’s location was a clue, he said.
“We figured the fish were farther back,” he said, noting most of the bites they got were in 4 ½- to 6-foot depths, mainly around points with fresh, scattered hydrilla.
The action slowed and they tried other areas to fill a limit after 12:30 p.m. At 3 p.m., Jones caught a 5.88-pounder. Soon after, Bowers culled another small keeper with a 2 ¼-pounder.
Bowers’ “redneck Carolina-rig” has a tungsten bullet weight (7/16 ounces on the windy Saturday) with an Owner bobber stopped below and above it. There is no swivel and beads for a leader.
That way the Texan can adjust the length without retying, etc. He fished the Senko 5 to 6 inches below the bullet weight at Caney Lake.
