Co-angler Title Goes to Athen’s Hill

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. (Sept. 10, 2018) – Boater Casey Martin of New Hope, Alabama, won the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Choo Choo Division tournament on Lake Guntersville Sunday with a two-day cumulative catch of 10 bass weighing 36 pounds, 5 ounces. Martin earned $8,174 for his win.

Martin said he spent his weekend fishing the Goose Pond area of Lake Guntersville.

“I fished mid- to upper-lake, just junk-fishing,” said Martin, who earned his seventh career win – third on Lake Guntersville – in FLW competition. “I caught a couple of fish deep with a swimbait at a depression on a shell bed, and a couple schooling with a topwater bait. For the schooling fish I sat in 7 to 8 feet of water and threw into 3 to 5 feet. You could see the grass right under the surface.”

Martin said he used a 99 Problems-colored True Bass Perfect Head Swimbait rigged on a ¾-ounce Picasso Smart Mouth Jig Head out deep, and a Sexy Shad-colored Bill Lewis’ StutterStep and a green-pumpkin-colored Z-Man ChatterBait with a Z-Man Razor Shadz trailer for a one-two punch up shallow. He said he logged about nine keepers total Saturday.

“I’d run the StutterStep and then the ChatterBait after to get ones that wouldn’t commit to the StutterStep,” said Martin.

On Sunday, strong winds forced Martin to switch patterns. He opted to flip main-lake grass mats with a Z-Man Palmetto BugZ rigged with a 1½-ounce Picasso tungsten weight and ended up catching around eight keepers.

“The key for me was knowing how to adjust to the conditions,” said Martin. “Having confidence in my areas was important as well. It can be tough out there this time of year.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:

1^st:           Casey Martin, New Hope, Ala., 10 bass, 36-5, $6,174 + $2,000 Ranger Cup Bonus

2^nd:         Ryan Salzman, Huntsville, Ala., 10 bass, 34-3, $3,137

3^rd:          Jason Grape, Attalla, Ala., 10 bass, 31-9, $2,057

4^th:          Casey O’Donnell, Guntersville, Ala., 10 bass, 31-4, $1,371

5^th:          Alex Davis, Albertville, Ala., 10 bass, 31-3, $1,175

6^th:          Paul Tidwell, Horton, Ala., 10 bass, 29-4, $1,077

7^th:          Laker Howell, Guntersville, Ala., 10 bass, 28-12, $979

8^th:          Derek Remitz, Grant, Ala., eight bass, 27-14, $881

9^th:          Bryan Dowdy, Florence, Ala., 10 bass, 27-14, $783

10^th:        Jake Gipson, Birmingham, Ala., 10 bass, 27-8, $685

Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.

Douglas Webster of Pinson, Alabama, caught a bass weighing 6 pounds, 14 ounces – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division. The catch earned him the Boater Big Bass award of $780.

Randy Hill of Athens, Alabama, caught a two-day total of eight bass weighing 23 pounds, 1 ounce, to win the Co-angler Division and $3,080.

The top 10 co-anglers were:

1^st:           Randy Hill, Athens, Ala., eight bass, 23-1, $3,080

2^nd:         Alex Pruitt, Bessemer, Ala., eight bass, 22-13, $1,440

3^rd:          Ron Montgomery, Rome, Ga., six bass, 17-4, $1,012

4^th:          Colby Hester, Russellville, Ala., five bass, 16-12, $672

5^th:          Marcus Corbett, Anniston, Ala., five bass, 15-12, $576

6^th:          Paul Clayton, Cohutta, Ga., six bass, 15-4, $528

7^th:          Cameron Gatlin, Chattanooga, Tenn., seven bass, 14-15, $480

8^th:          Tony Hill, Chatsworth, Ga., seven bass, 14-12, $432

9^th:          Steven Jacques, Addison, Ala., five bass, 12-9, $384

10^th:        Chris Smith, Resaca, Ga., five bass, 11-11, $336

David Marr of Cleveland, Tennessee, caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division – a fish weighing 5 pounds, 12 ounces – and earned the Co-angler Big Bass award of $382.

The 2018 T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Choo Choo Division finale on Lake Guntersville was hosted by the Marshall County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

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 2019 BFL All-American will take place May 30-June 1 on the Potomac River in Marbury, Maryland.

For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.