photo by ChARLES WALdoRF
BOULDIN BANKS $ 50,000 CO-ANGLER TITLE
At the final-day weigh-in of the 2018 Cross Lake All-American , Matthew Bouldin of Smithville , Tenn ., experienced shell shock .
As the pros weighed in , Bouldin , a co-angler , tried to find words to explain what had just happened .
“ I haven ’ t even started to process this yet ,” Bouldin said . “ I ’ m still thinking about what happened on day one when I struggled , so it ’ s going to be a while before what just happened today really sinks in .”
Just moments earlier during the co-angler weigh-in , Bouldin amazed the crowd – and himself , to a large degree – by toting 18 pounds , 4 ounces to the scale to jump from third place into the coangler winner ’ s circle . In doing so , he nipped runner-up Jesse Parks of Avondale , Ariz ., by just 4 ounces . Parks had led the coanglers for two days and seemed to have a lock on the crown with a solid three-fish catch of 12-13 , but it was not enough to hold off Bouldin ’ s final charge .
On the final day , Bouldin dialed in an exact shaky head / worm combo that made his fishing efforts more efficient .
All week , Bouldin had been swapping between a couple of shaky head combinations : a 5 / 16-ounce Buckeye Lures Spot Remover head with a Zoom Mag Finesse Worm on casting tackle for flipping and a 1 / 8-ounce head with a Zoom Trick Worm on spinning tackle for skipping .
“ Most of the time my partners had me around either trees or docks ,” Bouldin says . “ If it was windy with surface chop , I flipped the bigger 5 / 16-ounce head . But if it got calm and slick , I went with the Trick Worm on the 1 / 8-ounce head .”
Bouldin kept swapping rods as the conditions suggested until the last day , when he discovered that teaming a 3 / 16-ounce head with the Zoom Mag Finesse Worm on casting gear was the ticket . He had the best of both worlds with one setup .
“ That combination with the Mag Finesse Worm was just heavy enough to pitch with and yet still light enough to skip with ,” he adds . “ Once I got comfortable with just that combination I could really focus more on hitting targets without switching rods as much .”
Wagner started the event fishing a shaky head and Zoom Trick Worm on cypress trees , weighing in 22-12 on day one . By the third day he had switched to a swim jig to provoke more of a reaction bite .
A topwater walking bait fished around bank trees and flipping a Texas-rigged Yamamoto Senko under docks landed Roger Fitzpatrick of Eldon , Mo ., in fourth .
Finally , topwater frogs were big scorers for fifth-place finisher Tyler Morgan of Columbus , Ga ., and John Duvall of Madison , Ga ., who finished sixth .
The rest of the top 10 , including Rob Jordan , Marty Sisk , Heath Pack and Ben Blaschke , fished a similar mix of moving baits ( vibrating jigs , spinnerbaits , swim jigs ), topwater and soft plastics .
Roger Fitzpatrick
Tyler Morgan
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