ALABAMA’S QUAINTANCE WINS T-H MARINE FLW BASS FISHING LEAGUE TOURNAMENT ON PICKWICK LAKE
Belden’s Gable Claims Co-Angler Title
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IUKA, Miss. (May 20, 2019) – Boater Chris Quaintance of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, won the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Mississippi Division tournament on Pickwick Lake Saturday with five bass weighing 21 pounds, 5 ounces. Quaintance netted $4,119 for his victory.
Quaintance said he put between 10 and 15 keepers in the boat during the event and weighed all largemouth.
“I started out the day mid-lake, rotating between a long point that had a little brush at the end of it in 6 to 8 feet of water, and 2 or 3 patches of weed beds 200 yards toward the shoreline,” said Quaintance, who notched his second win as a boater in BFL competition on Pickwick Lake. “I got two good keepers off the point and two from the weed beds. My fourth fish ended up being my heaviest – about 6½ pounds.”
Quaintance used a few different baits to catch his fish – a ¼-ounce, pearl-colored Strike King Swim Jig with a pearl craw trailer, and a 3/8-ounce, green-pumpkin Mean Mouth Pro Rocker Jig with a 3.75-inch Yamamoto Custom Baits Flappin’ Hawg of the same color. He said the 6½-pounder came off a 7-inch, green-pumpkin NetBait T-Mac Straight Tail worm.
“I had a limit by about 8:30 (a.m.) and decided to make a run upstream to an area where I thought I could get a big fish, but someone was on it,” continued Quaintance. “I ended up going to a secondary deal around Koger Island that I hadn’t planned on fishing, but had caught some good ones at before. I caught a 4½-pounder on the Mean Mouth jig, which culled out my smallest fish and really sealed the deal.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Chris Quaintance, Muscle Shoals, Ala., five bass, 21-5, $4,119
2nd: Christopher Whitehead, Tupelo, Miss., five bass, 19-15, $2,259
3rd: Jimmy Washam, Covington, Tenn., five bass, 19-14, $1,474
4th: Heath Gilmore, Meridian, Miss., five bass, 19-4, $1,211
5th: Steve Hughes, Mooreville, Miss., five bass, 18-3, $824
6th: Bryan Dowdy, Florence, Ala., five bass, 18-0, $755
7th: Brian White, Pontotoc, Miss., five bass, 16-14, $686
8th: Bryan Waldon, Falkner, Miss., five bass, 16-11, $618
9th: Andrew Clayton, Westpoint, Tenn., five bass, 16-7, $549
10th: Brandon Perkins, Counce, Tenn., five bass, 15-15, $456
10th: Charles Crouch, Waterloo, Ala., four bass, 15-15, $1,021
Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.
Crouch caught a bass weighing 7 pounds, 13 ounces – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – and earned the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $565.
Connor Gable of Belden, Mississippi, won the Co-angler Division and $2,059 Saturday after catching five bass weighing 15 pounds, 7 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Connor Gable, Belden, Miss., five bass, 15-7, $2,059
2nd: Randy Hill, Athens, Ala., five bass, 15-5, $1,280
3rd: Keith Whipple, Iuka, Miss., five bass, 15-4, $737
4th: Dalton Steele, Cherokee, Ala., four bass, 14-2, $762
5th: Daniel Corkern, Florence, Miss., five bass, 13-13, $412
6th: Matthew Berry, Florence, Ala., five bass, 13-5, $378
7th: Hunter Beal, Beech Bluff, Tenn., five bass, 13-2, $343
8th: Clint Horton, Falkner, Miss., five bass, 12-15, $309
9th: Ron Creasy, Florence, Ala., three bass, 12-13, $275
10th: Anthony Rasberry, New Albany, Miss., five bass, 12-2, $240
Steele caught the heaviest bass in the Co-angler Division, a fish weighing in at 8 pounds, 15 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $282.
The top 45 boaters and co-anglers in the region based on point standings, along with the five winners in each qualifying event, will be entered in the Oct. 17-19 BFL Regional Championship on Lake Guntersville in Guntersville, Alabama, presented by Mercury. Boaters will compete for a top award of a Ranger Z518L with a 200-horsepower outboard and $20,000, while co-anglers will fish for a new Ranger Z518L with a 200-horsepower outboard.
The 2019 BFL is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 128 tournaments throughout the season, five qualifying events in each division. The top 45 boaters and co-anglers from each division, along with the five winners of the qualifying events, will advance to one of six regional tournaments where they are competing to finish in the top six, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American. The 2019 BFL All-American will be held May 30-June 1 at the Potomac River in Marbury, Maryland, and is hosted by the Charles County Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism and the Commissioners of Charles County. Top performers in the BFL can move up to the Costa FLW Series or even the FLW Tour.
For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagra