Published: October 09, 2008 10:42 am      

Local bass team takes state title

Outdoors

Old men rule.

At least that’s what the T-shirt says.

And it sure proved true in the recent Texas Association of Bass Clubs (TABC) State Tournament. The Canyon Bass Club of San Marcos, which has about 50 members from 16 towns surrounding our city, sent two teams to fish the tournament on Lakes Belton and Stillhouse Hollow.

Team A (eight fishermen in four boats) consisted mainly of old guys. Andy Labay, who is in his forties, was the only youngster on the team. The other seven — Bobby Whiteside, John Beene, Carl Adkins, Gary Swensen, Stan Miller, Bob Jett and Dean Smith — are in their later 50s and 60s. Whiteside was the oldest at 68.

These old hats won the state tournament.

They didn’t just win. They blew the competitors out of the tub with a total two-day weight of 78.37 pounds of bass. That was 15 pounds above the second-place team. That’s unheard of. Like any other sport, competition at the state playoff level is fierce. There are no weak fishing teams at this level.

“Two members of our team fished with wrist braces and one with a back brace,” Whiteside said. “Life in the old lane is not easy.”

All these years may add up to lots of aching joints and muscles but they also translate into a wealth of fishing experience. Also, since most of the team is retired, they were able to make many trips to Belton and Stillhouse lakes to pre-fish.

Whiteside put in five days on each lake pre-fishing. With the tournament not being on a big, distant East Texas lake they were able to leave San Marcos early, get to the lakes at daylight, pre-fish most of the day, and return home by late afternoon.

The water temperature on the lakes was perfect for shallow water bass — in the 70s. Most of Team A’s fish were caught in four feet of water or less. A few were caught on shallow crank baits but most succumbed to soft plastic baits.

Whiteside and his partner John Beene caught the heaviest first-day stringer (19.21 lbs.) and the largest 2-day weight (29.87 lbs.). That’s based on a combined five-fish limit for each day. The largest bass caught by any team was 5.60 pounds. Whiteside had the second largest fish at 5.50 pounds.

Whiteside and Beene could have lost the tournament for their team very easily.

Late in the afternoon, the starting battery on their boat died. They had to get to the weigh-in on time or their limit of heavy fish would be disqualified. Fortunately, they got a jump start and let the engine idle for their last 45 minutes of fishing. To have missed that weigh-in would have been disastrous.

The Canyon Bass Club won a BASS State Tournament many years ago but this was their first victory in the TABC event. The winning team won $3,060, plus each member received an American Rodsmith rod, a state championship jacket and a plaque. The Club would like to thank all the sponsors of their annual Open Money Tournament this year since some of the funds raised at that event helped support the teams that fished the state tournament.

What about Team B consisting of Mike Halfman, Troy Wallace, Bennett Cowan, Greg Cummings, Dale Farnsworth, Randy Burdnicki, Kenneth Dees and Tracy Peters?

How did they fare? Not bad.

They got 16th place with a total of 44.06 pounds of bass. Most of these guys still have to work. They didn’t do much pre-fishing.

Keep the faith youngsters. One of these days you’ll be old enough to win.



Jim Darnell is an ordained minister and host/producer of the sundicated television show, God’s Great Outdoors. His colum appears every Thursday in the Daily Record.