Stephen Johnston and Dicky Newberry are accustomed to seeing their names at or near the top of a bass tournament leaderboard. Many of those wins and high finishes have come on their home waters of Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend. But Lake Ray Roberts, the site of the third Texas Team Trail presented by Cabela’s event, is a long ways from home. Ironically, the two put together their best performance of the season as many of the 243 teams struggled with high pressure conditions.
Heading out this morning as boat No. 78, Johnston and Newberry knew it was going to be a struggle.On Thursdaynight, a cold front hit the area and put the bass in a major funk. That was followed with extremely high windsFriday, which further deteriorated the water clarity in the backs of pockets and creeks. While the bass are beginning to spawn all over the lake, seeing them proved to be a challenge, which played right into Johnston and Newberry’s hands.
“Yesterday in practice we only got four bites so we knew what we were in for,” said Johnston, the Lucas Oil pro. “These are Floridas (Florida-strain largemouths) and they get that high pressure headache and don’t want to bite. But we’ve been here enough that we know some of the areas where they live. This morning we started on our first spot and got two little bites and missed them both.”
Johnston then returned to a stretch of bank where he shook off a giant in practice. Right away the 8.22-pounder bit his 5-inch V&M Thunder Shad swimbait.
“That just kind of got us started,” recalled Johnston. “It doesn’t always happen like that, but when it does, it sure is nice. Then pretty quick after that we got a 2 1/2-pounder. Then Dicky pulled into another tree and caught an 8-pounder.”
“It was actually a log I’ve fished several times in the past when the water was up,” explained Newberry. “We watched three other boats fish that same log and come away with nothing. To catch a big one afterwards is pretty remarkable; it felt like everything was just lining up.”
“An hour later we caught a 4-pounder and at11:15we finished our limit,” said Johnston. “With about 30 minutes left we caught another one that culled us up a few ounces.”
The final tally between the two was seven keepers, with the five best weighing 25.03 pounds.
“When we weighed our 25 pounds we were just hoping for a top 10,” said Johnston. “Then after a while we noticed the weights were down and we were hoping for a top five. To win is absolutely unexpected.”
While several of their fish may have been protecting nests, Johnston said none of them were caught sight-fishing.
“Dicky and I aren’t sight guys. We’d rather just sit back and fish. We knew the fish were coming; that’s what is on their minds. But it rained so hard last week and it blew so hard yesterday that the pockets were kind of muddied up. I think that muddy water really helped us.”
Two of the winning team’s five weigh fish came on the Thunder Shad swimbait with a 1/16-ounce belly hook. Two also came throwing a Texas-rigged V&M Lizard with a 3/16-ounce weight and one came from a 3/8-ounce Santone swim jig with a Thunder Shad. All of the fish were caught in 2 to 6 feet and most were relating to bank grass and Ray Roberts’ plentiful trees. Johnston and Newberry said they focused on the lake’s north creeks.
“We thought we were going to catch them staging on things like the side of trees or on secondary points,” said Newberry. “But in practice we did better on the bank so we stuck with it and kept the trolling motor down.”
For winning the third qualifier of the year, Johnston and Newberry claimed aRanger Z119C with a Mercury ProXS 225 and an additional $2,220 of Anglers Advantage money for a total prize package worth $47,220.
“It’s backwards, but sometimes it can hurt you knowing so much at home,” Johnston said. “It’s a weird deal. You drive five hours to a lake you fish twice a year and you catch ’em. But this lake set up right for us. When you get in an area that has ’em, you just keep your head down and keep plugging along.
“To win is still a big shock. We really thought there would be 30-pound sacks; everybody was anticipating that. With some of our primary sponsors like Lucas Oil, Ranger and Mercury sponsoring this event, it’s a huge deal for us to win.”
Chapman-Delgado take second
Greg Chapman and Paul Delgado finished second with five bass weighing 24.78 pounds. To reach that total, the two employed a unique wait-and-see approach with their best area.
“We had been fishing one certain creek for a while,” said Delgado, the Grapevine, Texas, native. “We knew there would be a ton of boats there in the morning so we purposely stayed away from it.”
Instead of running their primary program, Chapman and Delgado started with a Strike King KVD swim jig. But with just a 3-pounder and a 2-pounder in the livewell at12:30 p.m., they knew it was time to make their move.
“We went back into that creek, pulled up to a point and caught our first fish, which was about an 8-pounder,” said Delgado. “Then we just started culling through quality fish, but we never got another one over 5 pounds.”
Slowly dragging watermelon-colored Flukes, one person would throw towards the bank and the other would throw parallel to the bank. Only one fish, their last keeper of the day, came from sight-fishing.
“We fished a lot of cedar trees and the whole key was knowing where to throw,” said Chapman, the Keller, Texas, angler.
For second place, Chapman and Delgado earned $7,728,$1,628 of it coming from the Anglers Advantage program.
“We’re really pleased with it,” said Chapman. “We enjoyed ourselves and the payouts are great. We would like to thank our employer, US-Instrument Services, and our wives for letting us do this.”
Cecil-Castledine settle for third
Russell Cecil and Todd Castledine finished third with a limit weighing 23.76 pounds, but were one bed fish away from taking another title. The two started on a spawning 7-pounder this morning, but couldn’t get her to bite.
“We thought we might be able to go back to it later, but someone swooped in there and caught it,” explained Cecil. “We gambled and we lost. It was nothing unsportsmanlike.”
After unsuccessfully coaxing the first spawner, Cecil and Castledine decided to just go blind- fishing.
“I was mainly throwing a 5 1/2-inch Big Bite Baits BB Kicker on a 1/2-ounce J-Will swimbait jighead. We would also mix in some flipping in the trees. We probably got up to 20 pounds doing that and then we made a couple key culls sight-fishing late.”
Of the five fish that were weighed, three came via sight-fishing and two came from blind-fishing. When the two weren’t looking on the bank, they were fishing the first little break.
“We were targeting spawners and immediate prespawners,” added Cecil.
When he was flipping and sight-fishing, Cecil would opt for a Big Bite Baits Yomama. Castledine used a Strike King Rage Bug up on the bank.
For third place, the two earned$5,640 with Anglers Advantage, Ranger and Evinrude bonuses.
“The thing about this lake is that if you can get some bites, you’re going to have big ones,” said Cecil. “There’s just not that many small fish in it. It can be stingy, but there’s always big ones. If we would have caught that first big one, we would have won. But if we wouldn’t have left that spawner and just gone fishing we might never have been in that position. So it’s kind of a double-edged sword.”
With their best performance of the season, Cecil and Castledine are once again positioning themselves for a run at the Lucas Oil Team of the Year award.
Bonds-Nitschke fourth, Herron-Sugg fifth
In fourth place with five fish for 22.86 pounds was Jason Bonds and James Nitschke. Behind them in fifth was Michael Herron and Marty Sugg with 22.61 pounds. Herron and Sugg achieved their weight on only four fish – one of which weighed 9.07 pounds.
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 teams at the 2015 Texas Team Trail presented by Cabela’s event on Lake Ray Roberts:
6th:Nicholas Albus and Jim Guzman, 21.92
7th:Jerrel Pringle and Jerry Dolezal, 21.89
8th:Peter Myhre and Brian Duplechain, 21.81
9th: Terry Bollom and Trent Menees, 21.04
10th:Don McFarlin and Dennis Matlock, 20.46
Up next
The next Texas Team Trail presented by Cabela’s event is slated forApril 25on Lake Texoma in Pottsboro, Texas, the season’s fourth qualifying tournament.
