Ada’s Hill Takes Co-angler Title

GROVE, Okla. (Sept. 11, 2017) – Curt Warren of Rose, Oklahoma, won the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Okie Division tournament on Grand Lake Sunday with a two-day cumulative catch of 10 bass weighing 31 pounds, 15 ounces. For his win, Warren earned $6,534.

“The bite was funny this weekend,” said Warren, who logged his first career-win in BFL competition. “It wasn’t as bad Saturday, but Sunday I missed several bites. I don’t know if it was weather or what, but they were finicky. Thankfully my 7-foot Falcon (Cara T7) rod helped me feel the bites, or else I may have missed more.

“I was mainly junk-fishing – just beating the banks,” continued Warren. “I was on the north end of the lake, not too far from takeoff. I fished docks and shallow wood cover. I probably had 50 different stops. All my fish came from less than 10 feet of water.”

Warren said everything he weighed in came on a ½-ounce Bass-X football-head jig with an unnamed green pumpkin-colored trailer. He said he caught six keepers each day of the event.

“If I pulled up to an area and there weren’t any shad, I usually kept moving,” said Warren. “They were really close to the surface.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:

1^st:          Curt Warren, Rose, Okla., 10 bass, 31-15, $6,534

2^nd:         Paul Smith, Copan, Okla., eight bass, 29-8, $3,467

3^rd:          Cade Alsbury, Springdale, Ark., 10 bass, 28-11, $2,276

4^th:          Benjamin King, Garnett, Kan., 10 bass, 26-6, $1,525

5^th:          Tim Hickson, Cleveland, Okla., 10 bass, 26-4, $1,307

6^th:          Dylan Duncan, Kansas, Okla., 10 bass, 26-2, $1,198

7^th:          Sheldon Collings, Grove, Okla., seven bass, 25-13, $1,089

8^th:          Thomas Canady, Collinsville, Okla., 10 bass, 23-14, $980

9^th:          Chris Torkleson, Sand Springs, Okla., eight bass, 23-4, $871

10^th:        Tye Smith, Fort Gibson, Okla., eight bass, 22-5, $762

Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.

Mark Teply of Midwest City, Oklahoma, caught a bass weighing 6 pounds, 4 ounces – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division. The catch earned him the Boater Big Bass award of $937.

Alan Hill of Ada, Oklahoma, caught a two-day total of eight bass weighing 22 pounds, 9 ounces, to win the Co-angler Division and $3,267.

The top 10 co-anglers were:

1^st:          Alan Hill, Ada, Okla., eight bass, 22-9, $3,267

2^nd:         Patrick Weir, Broken Arrow, Okla., seven bass, 18-15, $1,633

3^rd:          Keltyn Hendrix, Goldsby, Okla., eight bass, 16-2, $1,091

4^th:          Jason Buckley, Canute, Okla., six bass, 15-14, $762

5^th:          Jacob Sloan, Paola, Kan., seven bass, 15-13, $853

6^th:          Nolan Wright, Blanchard, Okla., six bass, 14-10, $599

7^th:          Josh Sloan, Paola, Kan., four bass, 14-4, $544

8^th:          Sam Bremmerkamp, Joplin, Mo., four bass, 14-4, $540

9^th:          Rick Blosser, Tulsa, Okla., six bass, 14-3, $436

10^th:        Nathan Colwell, Pryor, Okla., seven bass, 13-12, $381

Tom Verdine of Yukon, Oklahoma, caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division – a fish weighing 6 pounds, 4 ounces – and earned the Co-angler Big Bass award of $469.

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. 19-21 BFL Regional Championship on the Red River in Bossier City, Louisiana. 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 2017 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. Top performers in the BFL can move up to the Costa FLW Series or even the FLW Tour.

For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the BFL on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWFishing.