>>>RESULTS
By Jamie Coyle
The Maryland B.A.S.S.
Federation held its State Qualifying Championship on the
Potomac River
on May 20th and 21st, 2005. One hundred and sixty
four anglers competed for eight spots in this event for a birth on the
State Team and the opportunity to fish the Eastern/Mid Atlantic Division
Championship in 2005. Many
of the competitors had been pre-fishing for weeks prior to the start of
competition and reports of lunker largemouth and heavy bags were not
hard to find. The first competition day featured a full moon high tide
and the largemouth bass were ready to spawn and the results showed it.
The second competition day saw just the opposite a full moon low tide,
which kept many anglers from their fish.
As the boats began to check in for the first afternoon weigh-in, it was
clear that the big bags that the
Potomac
are known for would be weighed in. There were several nice Largemouth
weighed in and not surprisingly former State Team angler Jamie Coyle had
the biggest limit of both days. Coyle, posted a five fish limit that
weighed 19 pounds 8 ounces for the first day. Jamie backed that up the
second day with a 15 pound 2 ounce limit to best the field by nearly 12
pounds. His two-day total weight was 34 pounds 10 ounces, which locked
up first place for this long time angler. Jamie spent 4 days prefishing
on the river and found his bigger fish on the main river while fishing a
well know spot for his limits north of the
Woodrow
Wilson
Bridge
. Crank baits and Jigs produced both days for Jamie although a small
finesse bait pulled up his bigger fish. Jamie wanted to say thanks to
several competitors who all respected each others water including those
that wanted to come up the second day but didn’t.
Second Place
finisher was Brian Trieschman with a total weight of 22 pounds 14 ounces
and the only other angler, besides Coyle, to weigh in limits both days.
Brian fished south on the river. Making the run to Blue Banks, Brian
caught a solid limit the first day using a Carolina Rig centipede. Grass
behind Chopawamsic island helped Brian round out his limit but as with
many other anglers the second days unusual low tide and 25 mph winds
moved his bigger fish.
Aaron Whitford captured third place with a two-day weight of 22 pounds 5
ounces. Aaron’s first day weight came from shallow wood in
Pohick
Bay
using a Baby minus one. Realizing the extra low tide on day two he went
to a main river channel marker with wood pilings close by and started to
flip tubes and jigs into the deeper water for staging fish that were
getting ready to move up for the spawn.
Fourth Place
finisher was Brett Quader with 22 pounds 3 ounces. Brett’s main
pattern was simple; he found a 50 yard sandy area in the large grass bed
on the south side of Aquia creek. He camped out, for both days, in the
middle of it and started flipping senko’s and fish doctors to the
inside edges and pockets with in the grass.
Ed Riley finished fifth with a two-day weight of 21 pounds 12 ounces,
which put him on the team as a non-boater. Since Ed already qualified as
a non-boater from his second place finish on
Deep
Creek
Lake
during the Mr. BASS tournament he graciously gave up his spot from this
tournament. Ed’s pattern consisted of running several grass beds from
Wades Bay over to Aquia flipping a Senko and using his Riley rig.
Sixth Place
went to David Hankins whose two-day weight was 21 pounds 9 ounces. His
4 pound 6 ounce lunker was the tiebreaker
between David and Ken. Most of David’s fish came from Mattawoman Creek
behind
Marsh
Island
after which he moved to the grass beds north on the main river. David
threw a one minus crank bait along with a 4 inch worm which he flipped
into the marshy grass.
Ken Enders, with a
two-day weight of 21 pounds 9 ounces placed in seventh place.
Ken wanted to thank his partner Rick May for finding and locating
quality fish during his prefishing days. Kens primary area was an
isolated grass bed in Aquia creek throwing brush hogs into the pockets
and clumps of grass.
Eighth place finisher Joe Bell actually left the tournament early
thinking his weight of 21 pounds 7 ounces wasn’t going to be enough
for this
years
State
Team. The news that he did came from a call from tournament director
Earl Jenkins while Joe was traveling home on the highway. Joe’s fish
came from a small stretch of shoreline on the backside of the grass in
Chicamuxen Creek on a texas rigged lizard.
Jimmy Spencer was in second place after the first day but fell to ninth
with a two-day total weight of 21
pounds 3 ounces. Jimmy will be the eighth qualifier from this SQT due to
Ed dropping his position. Jimmy targeted spawning fish flipping a black
blue jig in the spoils to isolated lay downs and stumps that were on a
small flat next to a deep water channel.
Tenth place went to
Paul Gietka with a 19 pound 12 ounce total. Paul will be this years
alternate. His primary pattern was throwing plastics to the backside of
grass lines against the shorelines in the creeks south on the river.
A special congrats to
these anglers who will represent the State of Maryland in September on
Lake Cobblesecontee in Maine along with our two Mr. Bass qualifiers Jim
Mathews and Ed Riley and our Classic qualifiers Kevin Waterman and Ron
Riley. Looks like we have a great team this year and wouldn’t it be
nice to win it all for the first time in the newly created Mid Atlantic
Divisional.
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