Steve Miracle and Jim Miracle took 1st place on Saturday, November 12, 2011 with a winning weight of 17.88 lbs. They won a 2011 Skeeter ZX200 with a Yamaha 200 SHO engine valued at $40,000. Steve purchased his Stratos from Morristown Marine which gave him $500.00 additional in winnings. The brothers also won the final tournament of trail on October 22^nd with a winning weight of 16.88lbs.The Miracle brothers won a total of $47,550 on the trail this year

Classic Tournament Winning Pattern:

We took vacation time and fished all week in preparation for the event. We were able to locate and pattern fish both up and down the lake. Each day during practice, we managed to catch between 15-18lbs on a variety of lures. We initially ran down the lake to start the tournament and managed to pick up two smallmouth keepers and one 16” Largemouth. Things slowed down when the sun got up and bright so we decided to head up the lake to try an area that had stained water. As we ran up the lake, the motor on my boat lost power. (The problem was later diagnosed as a blown motor). We didn’t know if the motor would start each time we went to change locations. In fact, in order to get on plane, my brother (Jim) had to initially lie on the front deck to get it up on plane.

On our third stop up the lake, we caught two largemouth over 4lbs. At that point, we knew that we needed to cull the 16” largemouth to have a chance to win.

With the clock ticking and 30 minutes to go, we caught another keeper smallmouth that culled the smaller largemouth – that fish was the margin of victory. The boat started again and we made it back to the weigh in.

The winning fish were caught on crankbaits.

Steve Miracle

Here are the complete results:

 

 

Mark Mellons Sr and Mark Mellons Jr – Big Largemouth 5.53 lbs $475.00

Mark Meredith and Chip Ballinger – Big Smallmouth 4.51 lbs $475.00