MIDLAND CITY’S POWELL WINS T-H MARINE FLW BASS FISHING LEAGUE BULLDOG DIVISION TOURNAMENT ON LAKE EUFAULA
Georgia’s Hall Takes Co-angler Title
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EUFAULA, Ala. (May 15, 2017) – Shane Powell of Midland City, Alabama, weighed a five-bass limit totaling 25 pounds, 2 ounces Saturday to win the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Bulldog Division tournament on Lake Eufaula. Powell pocketed $4,200 for his efforts.
Powell said he started his day fishing deep water, but headed shallow after some heavy cloud cover and low-light conditions moved through the area.
“I caught the first bass I weighed from a random creek on a Booyah Pad Crasher Frog,” said Powell, a former Auburn University angler who earned his first career-victory as a boater in BFL competition. “I ran around and got a few more bites, but switched to a swimjig around 8:30 a.m. After that swap, I started getting a lot more steady bites.”
Powell’s swimjig was Bream-colored and had a Bream-colored Strike King Rage Craw trailer.
“I worked through another area close to the dam and caught four of the five I weighed in,” said Powell. “It was a 200-yard stretch of shallow grass. It wasn’t hydrilla or anything – just bank grass.”
Powell said everything he weighed in came from less than 3 feet of water.
“I caught about 20 keepers throughout the day,” said Powell. “The water was left up by the corps (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), so grass ended up being a factor. Usually I’d go out deep this time of year, but the water was high enough to head shallow.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Shane Powell, Midland City, Ala., five bass, 25-2, $4,200
2nd: Ryan Ingram, Phenix City, Ala., five bass, 23-5, $2,100
3rd: Bryan Brown, Cataula, Ga., five bass, 23-1, $1,334
4th: Lee Nunnally, Social Circle, Ga., five bass, 20-7, $1,473
5th: Bobby Padgett, La Grange, Ga., five bass, 19-5, $800
6th: David Parsons, Dothan, Ala., five bass, 18-14, $733
7th: Dustin Wood, Eufaula, Ala., five bass, 18-11, $667
8th: Ronnie Ray, Phenix City, Ala., five bass, 17-5, $600
9th: Jason Smith, Dawson, Ga., five bass, 16-14, $533
10th: Mark Stillwell, Salem, Ala., five bass, 16-12, $467
Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.
Nunnally caught a 6-pound, 10-ounce bass – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – which earned him the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $540.
Steve Hall of Mableton, Georgia, won the Co-angler Division and $2,100 Saturday after bringing a five-bass limit totaling 14 pounds, 4 ounces to the scale.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Steve Hall, Mableton, Ga., five bass, 14-4, $2,100
2nd: Sam Naib, Atlanta, Ga., five bass, 13-9, $1,000
3rd: Robert McNear, Warner Robins, Ga., five bass, 13-6, $666
4th: Brian Neal, Jacksonville, Fla., four bass, 12-13, $737
5th: John Blevins, Cumming, Ga., five bass, 12-9, $400
6th: Christopher Wilder, Macon, Ga., three bass, 12-0, $417
7th: Benjamin Schooler, Monroe, Ga., four bass, 10-11, $333
8th: Lee Parker, Hull, Ga., five bass, 10-4, $300
9th: Andrew Nickeson, Valdosta, Ga., five bass, 10-3, $267
10th: Isaac Clemmons, Fitzgerald, Ga., five bass, 10-2, $233
Neal caught the biggest bass among Co-angler Division anglers, a fish weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $270.
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. 12-14 BFL Regional Championship on Wheeler Lake in Decatur, Alabama. Boaters will compete for a top award of a Ranger Z518C with a 200-horsepower Evinrude outboard and $20,000, while co-anglers will fish for a new Ranger Z518C with a 200-horsepower Evinrude outboard.
The 2017 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. Top performers in the BFL can move up to the Costa FLW Series or even the FLW Tour.
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the BFL on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWFishing.