THE BASS COLLEGE

(Jan. 18, 2010 - Lake Sam Rayburn TX)... Bass N Bucks 2010 Team Tournament trail started off with their East Texas Series Saturday, January 16, 2010 on Sam Rayburn. Although it proved to be a tough day of fishing, two double digit bass were weighed in! John Lemaire and Phil Ransonet dominated the field to win the $15,000 guaranteed 1st place purse.

Although not quite the arctic blast as was seen in weeks prior, it was still a cold, wet, windy day. Water temperatures on Big Sam ranged from the low to mid 40’s and bass were elusive. Catching fish has been a challenge on Sam Rayburn for the last couple of weeks. As teams began filing in to the weigh in line, the sight of skinny sacks told the tale of how tough it had been on these competitors.

John Lemaire & Phil Ransonet had one shy of a limit, but weighed in 21.32 lbs to take the win. Their kicker was a fat sow weighing 10.37 lbs! "Our morning started off well with a 7 pounder around 7:40. We were using black & blue jigs with matching trailers in grass 11-12’ deep." They weren’t getting a lot of bites, but managed to catch one about every two hours. At 2:30 John caught their big bass that anchored their win. Bass N Bucks presented them with the guaranteed $15,000 1st place check.

2nd place winners Dave and Derrick Mong, a father and son team, had a limit weighing 16.64 lbs. "We had a good day." The team headed to bare main lake points with scattered stumps to fish in 12’-18’ using Carolina rigs and jigs. "We caught our biggest fish of the day at 7:30, then didn’t catch another for three hours. They turned on for us at that point and the rest came pretty quick. We caught six fish today, and five of them were keepers." They won $2,200 for their 2nd place finish plus an additional $500 from Ranger Cup as the highest finishing qualified team.

Ted Priesling and James Shaw had three solid chunks in their bag totaling 15.20 lbs to win 3rd place. "We got lucky", the team reported. "We didn’t get to do any pre-fishing. We just hit some spots we knew." Going to deep water, up to 25’ deep, they poured their efforts on bare main lake points with Carolina rigs. They found a few quality bites that produced a $1,200 check.

The Big Bass of the day weighed a whopping 11.07 lbs, brought in by N. Dee Williams and Kyle Robinson. She was sitting in 25’ of water along a drain when she hit Williams’ big brush hog at 12:30. "I thought it was a log. There was no fight. I just had to pull her in!" That was a very lucrative catch, adding an additional $1,000 to their winnings. The team finished in 11th place overall and also claimed the Cabela’s Angler Cash Participant award for a $250 gift card.

March 3, 2010

All in all agood day on Sam Rayburn. Water temps hit 59 an I personally expect higher tomorrow. The fish are starting to bite and I believe by Saturday it will be a completely different lake.

Map with best areas marked