There are days to remember and then there are days you will never forget. Clayton Boulware and and Albert Collins experienced the latter on day one of the Texas Team Trail Championship when they plucked over 40 pounds of bass from Sam Rayburn reservoir and positioned themselves for a dominant victory with a two-day total of 65.09 pounds and a nearly 8-pound winning margin.

Their heroics earned Boulware and Collins the top prize of a Nitro Z20 with a 225 Mercury. In addition, they claimed $1,890 of Anglers Advantage cash. Their total payday was $44,485.

“Two years ago, Albert and I won a tournament with 32, but this was, by far, our best day of competition ever,” Boulware said.

As Boulware explains, he and Collins fished the same general scenarios both days: main lake structure from mid-lake to the northern arm; essentially from the 147 area, north. Working from 11-12 feet, they only needed two spots to produce their monster bag – before 9 a.m.!

“Honestly, the two spots we caught them off of are just mine and Albert’s knowledge of the lake,” Boulware said. “I had a starting spot that I hadn’t made a cast on and I went across it the first day of practice with my Humminbird before dead water and they were stacked.

“I went across it the second day of practice and they were more isolated on stumps. There were seven to eight stumps on this spot and there was a big fish by every stump. We pulled in there on day one within about 20 minutes, we had 20 pounds, with one of them being one of our 9-pounders.”

With a big start to their day, Boulware and Collins pulled up to their second spot and it was fireworks again! The fish were positioned right and these big fish had the feed bag on.

“It was just unbelievable,” Boulware said. “We caught enough to finish out a limit really quick and on back-to-back casts, I caught an 8-plus-pounder and then Albert caught one 8 to 8 1/2. We were joking that we had a 5-pounder we needed to cull. In just a few minutes, we culled it with a 5 1/2-pounder. We looked at the clock and it was before 9 o’clock and we looked at one another and said ‘Well, what do we do now?’

“At that point, we just went looking for a real giant. We caught a bunch more fish and probably culled an 18- or 19-pound limit. But the main thing became fish care. Even though my Z21 Nitro has the best live well on the market, we used a lot of ice and a lot of TH Marine G Juice. We made it to weigh ins and they were all in good shape.”

Collins’ take on that magical day: “Why we caught the 40 pounds on day one, I don’t have a clue! I don’t know why those fish were there. I mean, we catch good fish off that stuff once in a while, but not like that.

“It was just a specific depth and you had to have a drop with hard bottom. These fish were post-spawners moving into a summer pattern. They’re in transition and they’re in those little in-between spots right now.”

Day two found the fish more spread out and the winners had to hit about 30 spots to put together a 25-pound bag. Boulware and Collins fished farther up the lake on day two where the shallower structure they targeted sat in 5-6 feet.

“We didn’t find a congregation like we did on day one,” Boulware said. “We’d just catch a 3- or 4-pounder here and a 5-pounder there.”

Both days, the winners caught their fish on a trio of worms – a 12-inch Mister Twister Buzz Tail worm, a 10 1/2-inch Mister Twister Hang 10 worm and an 8-inch Big Bite Baits Kriet Tail Worm. They Texas rigged their baits with 5/0 Owner worm hooks, 1/2-ounce Elite Tungsten sinkers. Collins said they used darker colors in the morning hours and brighter colors like their favored cranapple during the brighter periods.

Boulware and Collins caught their fish on 7-3 Kistler KLX Stump Grinder rods with 7.5 and 8.3:1 Lew’s BB1 pro reels. They spooled with 22-pound Sunline and 25-pound High Seas fluorocarbon.

The winners would occasionally use a 6th Sense Cloud 9 crankbait to fire up the fish but all of their weight came off the worms. Collins notes that he and his partner constantly threw different worms to give the fish different looks so they could dial in what they wanted at any given time.

Boulware gives big props to his Mercury-powered Nitro for flawless performance over nearly 200 miles of travel across two days. Also, Minn Kota’s SpotLock technology played an invaluable role in holding them on their locations.

Collins summarizes the championship experience: “It was just a special weekend; that’s the only way you can put it. The stars aligned. You don’t typically go out thinking you’re going to catch a 40-pound sack. We went into this tournament thinking we were going to have in the mid-20s both days and have a shot at the top-3. Saturday was just one of those days you dream about.”

In second place, Kris Wilson and Harold Moore put in a lot of miles and amassed a two-day total of 56.13 pounds. Their performance earned them a Ranger Z518 with a 150 Mercury. In addition, they claimed $1,386 of Anglers Advantage cash and $745 for the Big Fish prize. Their total payday was $39,126.

Wilson said they caught their fish on two main patterns – main lake hard bottom drops and shallow brush piles. They hit approximately 30 spots between the two days and picked quality fish off a handful of particular locations.

“It’s really random where you can catch a big one right now, so we just hit as many spots as we could,” Wilson said. “We caught big fish off completely different spots each day.

“We fished from the 103 Bridge, up the Angelina arm and up the other arm of the lake. We burned a lot of gas and covered just about the whole lake.”

Following the same patterns both days, Wilson and Moore caught their fish on a 6th Sense crankbait, but a 1/2-ounce green pumpkin/black and blue 6th Sense Hybrid Casting jig with a green pumpkin Zoom Z-Craw trailer. Day two was a little more productive and Wilson attributes that to meteorology.

“After noon, the wind laid down and the bite got better,” he said. “When the wind was blowing, they’d scatter and it was harder to pinpoint them. You’d have to fish around a little bit and catch one here and one there. But when it got calm, they would be grouped up.”

Philip Crelia and T.J. Goodwyn tallied 47.90 over two days and took third place. They collected a $3,495 prize, which included $1,260 in Angler Advantage cash.

Crelia and Goodwyn spent most of their tournament in Rayburn’s upper end and targeted a variety of spots in 2-25 feet. They caught a 7-pounder on day one with a frog thrown over pepper grass and then bounced around from shallow to deep as they worked uplake.

They also caught weight fish on a Carolina-rigged Zoom Brush Hog and a Strike King flipping jig with a Rage Craw trailer. Crelia noted that his team boated a 5-pounder on two about 20 feet from where they caught the 7 on day one.

“Later on, we hit a deep brush pile where I caught a 6 the first day and T.J. caught a 7 on it the second day,” Crelia said.

William Flournoy and James Chumley weighed 10 bass worth 45.66 pounds, taking fourth place and earning $2,561.Behind them were Jarrett Latta and Brian Lowrance with 10 fish for 43.21 pounds. For fifth place, they earned $2,062.50