THE BASS FEDERATION
HOW HE GOT IT DONE
Hirt could tell it was going to be a good week for him when he managed to catch an 8-pound , 4-ounce lunker during practice . At that point , that 8-4 was his personal best , but it would be shattered once more during his memorable week in southeast Texas .
On his first day of competition , Hirt was the first boat out on Lake Conroe . He spent the majority of his day targeting brush piles in about 14 feet of water , winding a swimbait on a 1 / 8-ounce Berkley Fusion swimbait head over the top of the brush piles with his eyes on his Lowrance ActiveTarget , trying to wind the swimbait just over top of the brush .
Unlike the first two days , he wan ’ t able to catch five on the day , so three is all he had heading up to the stage as the final angler weighed in ahead of him . He needed his bag to weigh 8-6 if he wanted to earn a life-changing victory .
Hirt put his fish on the scale , waited for the word from the man on the mic and got the confirmation he was looking for : “ 11 pounds , 1 ounce .” With that , Hirt secured the TBF National Championship win in the Lone Star State to cap off a magical week .
PROCTOR ’ S PRESSURE-FILLED FINAL DAY LEADS TO CO-ANGLER TITLE
On the co-angler side , South Carolina ’ s Marc Proctor blanked on the final day of competition , but the work he put in on the previous two days was enough to still seal the deal .
The Southern Division co-angler representative started off in the lead after Day 1 , catching five bass for 13 pounds out of the back of the boat . Proctor then added four fish for 9-5 on Day 2 , which pushed his total weight to 22-5 and kept him on top of the co-angler field .
However , much like Hirt , Proctor ’ s final day was quite stressful . He was unable to bring in a single largemouth the entire day , and he came in with his boater with an empty livewell and a knot in his stomach . All Proctor could do was wait to see if his first two days of competition were enough to earn him a win .
It came down to Proctor and New Mexico co-angler Riley Nielsen for
That strategy paid off in a big way , as he got bit on one of those brush piles and hauled in a 10-12 largemouth – his new personal best and the biggest one in his bag for the day . Hirt ’ s five-fish Day 1 limit weighed 18-15 , positioning him in second place and just 11 ounces behind the leader .
Hirt continued on Day 2 with the strategy that got him there , this time turning to a Berkley jig and finding similar success to his first day ( minus setting a new personal best ). Hirt ended Day 2 with another fivefish limit weighing 17-1 , bringing his total weight to 36 pounds and putting him in sole possession of first place on the leaderboard and more than 5 pounds ahead of second place .
Day 3 was a different story as Hirt had to sweat it out as weigh-in approached .
84 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | APRIL-MAY 2022