Co-angler Title Goes to Tennessee’s White
Boater Bradley Jones of Aragon, Georgia, brought five bass to the scale Saturday weighing 17 pounds, 8 ounces, to win the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Choo Choo Division event on Neely Henry Lake. Jones took home $5,224 for his efforts.
“I caught bedding fish that I’d found a couple weeks earlier and in practice,” said Jones, who logged his fourth win on Neely Henry Lake in BFL competition. “I never actually saw any of them during the tournament, but I made some long pitches into their general area and they bit on the first cast each time.”
Jones said he fished three larger creeks on the lower end of the lake. He caught around 15 fish throughout the event, citing a Texas-rigged green-pumpkin-colored V&M J-Bug as his bait of choice.
“I could tell where the beds were by the way the structure was,” said Jones. “I just pitched it in there and they bit it, there wasn’t really anything to it. I couldn’t have asked for a better scenario – everything just worked out.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Bradley Jones, Aragon, Ga., five bass, 17-8, $5,224
2nd: Andrew Johnson, Glencoe, Ala., five bass, 16-10, $2,197
3rd: Blake Hall, Hartselle, Ala., five bass, 15-10, $1,564
4th: Landon Lomax, Owens Cross Roads, Ala., five bass, 15-6, $1,025
5th: Geoff McKnight, Rainbow City, Ala., five bass, 14-11, $879
6th: Brandon McGinnis, Pell City, Ala., four bass, 13-13, $805
7th: Scott Chatham, Kingston, Ga., five bass, 13-9, $732
8th: Brian Davenport, Attalla, Ala., five bass, 13-5, $659
9th: Terry Tucker, Gadsden, Ala., five bass, 13-2, $586
10th: Jeff Cannon, Douglasville, Ga., five bass, 12-6, $513
Jones also brought a 6-pound, 3-ounce bass to the scale – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – and earned the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $630.
Truman White of Spring Hill, Tennessee, won the Co-angler Division and $2,612 Saturday after catching five bass weighing 16 pounds, 5 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers were:
1st: Truman White, Spring Hill, Tenn., five bass, 16-5, $2,612
2nd: Cameron Gatlin, Chattanooga, Tenn., five bass, 13-2, $1,148
3rd: Steven White, Ashville, Ala., five bass, 12-11, $733
4th: Kenny Pannell, Springville, Ala., five bass, 11-14, $513
5th: Davey Bailey, Warrior, Ala., five bass, 10-8, $439
6th: Marcus Corbett, Anniston, Ala., five bass, 10-2, $403
7th: Jason Risley, Cordova, Tenn., five bass, 9-14, $366
8th: David Blakely, Kingsport, Tenn., five bass, 9-13, $330
9th: Sal Pinto, Cumming, Ga., five bass, 9-2, $293
10th: Michael Corbett, Oxford, Ala., five bass, 8-13, $256
White also caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division weighing in at 5 pounds, 7 ounces. The catch earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $315.
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. 25-27 BFL Regional Championship on Lake Chickamauga in Dayton, Tennessee. 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 2018 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 2018 BFL All-American will be held May 31-June 2 at Cross Lake in Shreveport, Louisiana, and is hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission. 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.
About FLW
FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2018 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW and their partners conduct 286 bass-fishing tournaments annually around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa and Spain. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show, broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros.
By: Brian Johnson, FLW
