By Jason Duran

The 2024 season of The Alabama Bass Trail began at Lake Jordan for the south division. 225 teams competed for a for an increased payday of $15,000 for first Place. Teams reported having a tough practice but were expecting to catch the quality 4-pound bites needed to win this event. Lake Jordan is full of largemouth and spotted bass. The results show the fish catching was good. The top five teams all weighed in over 19-pounds. It took 14.35-pounds to collect a check in 40 th place. 208 teams weighed fish in this event. The competition was tough but at the end of the day the Team of Eric Sommers and Robbie Pelt took home the win in the first event of 2024.

The first-place team of Eric Sommers and Robbie Pelt spent the day fishing much different than other teams on the lake. A large majority of the field spent the day using forward facing sonar to locate and catch fish. However, Robbie and Eric kept it old school for the win. The team shared ‘we had a good day; it wasn’t a fast and furious day. We caught maybe 10- 11 fish all day.” Erik said, “We had to fish multiple baits today to get the fish to bite.” A key for them was bait presentation, “we noticed that when we got a bite, we had to multiple casts with different baits to the exact same area to finally catch the fish. We had to use many different presentations to catch the fish we ended up with.” They made a long run upriver to fish the way they love to fish. They called it “old school fishing.” Robbie shared they really mixed it up, “we drifted some, went offshore fishing ledges, we used a jig, a spinnerbait, swimbait, and
we fished s scrounger.” The team said they relied a lot on their long-time history and local knowledge of the lake to put together a sold bag weighing 21.35 pounds. They collected the $15,000 first place check and a $8,000 Phoenix Boat Bonus.

The first-year team of Kolby and Kade Crowson caught 20.18- pounds of Lake Jordan bass and finished in second-place. They shared, “Practice for us was pretty good we caught a 6-pound spotted bass and a couple other three pounders. We just left them alone and didn’t really fish the area again until today.  We are from Lay Lake, and we understand the Coosa River spotted bass really well. With boat number 41 it helped us fish the area we wanted. After a 15-minute run upriver, we fished an area in about 15 feet of water. We knew the fish were keying in on bait fish, so we stuck with a shad pattern. We used natural color six-inch swimbaits with a Dirty Jigs Guppy Swimbait Jig Head in blue shad color. For us the
key was to fish the current and make cast around rock piles today. We caught about 7 fish total and had our limit at about 8 o’clock this morning. We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome for this tournament our goal this year is to be consistent.” They collected a $7,500 paycheck for their second place finish.

The third-place team of Lucas Lindsay Brendon Holt shared practice for them started back in December.  Lucas said, “I love this place. We are from Auburn Alabama. Characteristically the fall is tough here.  However, as we move into December the bite gets good. The fish start chasing bait and they start to fatten up for the spawn. During this time or year baits like the Damiki Rig and the jerk bait really come in to play. I was here seven- or eight-times during December. The fish were more in the pockets, and they were really biting well. I caught lots of numbers during that time. Today the fish had pulled out of the pockets working their way back. I assume the bait had pulled them out of the pockets and they are now making their transition back.” Brendon said “During practice we noticed the water was really dirty on the end of the lake near take off. The areas were really blown out down here. We had to move up the river to find the better bass and clean water.” The team shared, “We fished the main river in about 60 feet of water about 15-minutes upriver. The key for us was to stay out about two full cast from the bank.” Lucas said, “Garmin LiveScope was the deal for us today. I run a 8616. The pixels are crisp and it really helps a lot when you’re trying to catch these fish. It help you see the details and gives your every little edge to show your bait a lot better. The bait for us was the Damiki Armour Shad. We probably covered 2 miles of water today” For third place they caught 19.44-pounds and collected a $6,000 check plus a $300 Garmin highest finisher bonus.

The top ten standings are below for a complete list of standings please visit:
https://www.alabamabasstrail.org/lake-jordan/results/

Download and listen to the ABT Podcast on your favorite Podcast app by searching for
“Alabama Bass Trail Podcast.”  The Podcast is released each week on Tuesday.

For Live coverage from this event and others visit
https://www.youtube.com/@alabamabasstrailtv

The 2024 Alabama Bass Trail Sponsors Include: Phoenix Boats, AMFirst, Landers – McLarty Chevrolet, McGraw – Webb Chevrolet, Rapala, VMC, Crush City, Buffalo Rock, Academy Sports & Outdoors, Jack’s, Garmin, Alabama State Parks, Halo Fishing, Snag proof, NetBait, Bait Fuel, TH Marine Supplies, Power-Pole, Pro Guide Batteries, American Trailer Rental, Yamaha, Anheuser-Busch, Big Bite Baits and FishAlabama.org