LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. – The fourth and final stop of the Wild West Bass Trail (WWBT) Arizona Teams division came to a close this weekend, as nearly 140 anglers battled for a piece of the $22,600 total payout on Lake Havasu.
Arizona anglers, Shaun Bailey of Lake Havasu City and Mike Williams of Phoenix pulled out a narrow win, claiming top-spot and $5,700 with a total weight of 25.52 for their full seven fish limit.
Bailey credited local knowledge and some luck for their victory.
“We definitely got lucky and caught a pretty good fish (that we needed) flippin’ and we only flipped for about 20 minutes,” he explained. “We hadn’t been flippin’ much; because, we haven’t been catchin’ big ones doin’ it. But, we decided to go up to the tules, in a little pocket and on the third flip in, my partner caught a good one (just under five). We flipped the rest of the area and he caught one just under four. It was the right decision at the right time; but it was also a little bit of luck.”
The flip fish Baily spoke of were boated mid-day and enticed with a green pumpkin Berkley Chigger Craw with a ¾ -oz weight.
Two other techniques put the rest of the fish in the box.
In the morning, the team targeted brush piles in 5- to 15-ft with a dropshot rigged with a 6-inch, Red Crawler Roboworm.
“We caught a lot of fish on the dropshot – a lot of two pounders,” he said. “It was hard to get quality. We did get one about 4-lbs and we ended up with three fish that we weighed in. At about 10 a.m. that bite slowed down and that’s when we went flippin.”
In the afternoon, the pair threw a Carolina rig on deeper rocky points in 15- to 25-ft, culling out two of their limit for better quality. “We got one with a Paca Craw and one with an Evergreen Double Motion, both in green pumpkin,” added Bailey.
Bailey and Williams have been fishing together for three years. In this season alone, the team has accumulated multiple wins on the lake; but was still surprised at this triumph.
“I had no idea we were going to win,” said Bailey. “Being post spawn and knowing that fish are pretty skinny right now, I didn’t think it was going to be a lot more than we had to win; but I thought it was going to take 26 or 27. I figured we could make a top-five; but I thought we would be short of a win.”
The team’s top prize included $250 Lowrance and $250 Yamamoto contingency dollars.
2nd – Roach/Furmanek
Running a close second with 25.23 was TJ Roach and Seth Furmanek, both of Gilbert, Ariz. Roach credited practice knowledge and game day decisions for their finish.
“We are pretty new to Havasu; so we decided to put in some time figuring out the lake,” he said. “We spent two straight weekends (sunup to sundown), even fishing into the night, to find quality fish.”
Their pre fish led to a strategy for reaction baits if it was a windy morning or a big topwater bait if it was calm and a secondary plan for deeper fish in the afternoon.
“When we got out there, there were so many boats on the main area that we wanted to fish,” recalled Roach. “It was full of locals and we just decided that we didn’t want to play in the crowd.
“In practice, we had caught a 4 ½-pounder in a specific area with isolated structure in 20- to 24-ft. It turned out that, that spot didn’t have much pressure on it. We decided we would go give that a whirl and it worked out in our favor.”
The seven fish they took to the scales came on a black Spro frog, a Texas-rigged green pumpkin Berkley Chigger Craw with a ½-oz weight and an undisclosed dropshot rig that landed a four pounder in the final 10 minutes of the day.
This season marks Roach and Furmanek’s second year of team competition. Their pocketed $3,250, including $250 in P-LINE contingency dollars for their Havasu finish.
3rd – Foreman/Billetdeaux
Nathan Foreman and Nathan Billetdeaux, both of Queen Creek, Ariz. completed the top trio of teams with a seven-fish total of 23.63, anchored by a 7.01 kicker – the big bass of the event.
Three baits contributed to the team’s weigh fish.
“It was a mixed bag of one Caroline-rig fish, a couple topwater fish and the rest were on a dropshot,” said Billetdeaux.
Their big bass fell to the topwater lure – a Strike King Sexy Dawg and their plastic in multiple presentations was a green pumpkin, Gary Yamamoto Kut Tail worm.
The team concentrated on main lake areas with bites coming in shallow water in the morning and deeper in the afternoon.
“We’ve were catching bigger fish in the main part of the lake, instead of the higher-pressured river areas,” added Billetdeaux. “We’ve were fishing docks and points related to those docks.”
This is the first year that Foreman and Billetdeaux have joined forces as a competitive team. They banked $2,800 in event earnings, which included $500 for the Yamamoto Toad of the Day.
The finish rocketed the duo into first place in the WWBT Arizona Teams Year-to-Date standings. They lead the field by more than 20 points going into the year-end, two-day championship scheduled for Lake Mead on June 25-26.
The following was also paid:
$500 Run and Win with Lucas Oil to White/White (7th)
$500 Run and Win with Lucas Oil to Uptain/Coleman (20th)
$500 Evinrude to Shaver/Wilkinson (5th)
$300 Evinrude to Hodges/Lubenec (22nd)
$200 Evinrude to Hawk/White (29th)
The WWBT debuted in 2016 with 17 events that include two Pro/Am and two Teams circuits – one based in California and the other in Arizona. Each Pro/Am circuit consists of three tournaments and a combined, year-end qualifying championship event. The Teams circuit includes four tournaments and a year-end championship.
A special thanks to all of the WWBT sponsors – Lucas Oil, Ranger Boats, Evinrude, Lowrance Electronics, Dobyns Rods, General Tire, Add-A-Wrap, Protect the Harvest, Gator Guards, P-Line, Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, Power-Pole, Industrial Decals, Hydro Force Marine, Super Clean and E3 Spark Plugs.
For complete details and updated information, visit WildWestBassTrail.com. For tournament news, event updates and more, follow the WWBT on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Wildwestbasstrail/
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