ON TOUR
DEtAILS
BFL REGIONALS
oct. 13-15, 2016
presented by mercury
hosted by bainbridge Convention & Visitors bureau
Divisions: bulldog, Choo Choo, Gator, South Carolina
DEAKINS CRACKS 50 ON LAKE SEMINOLE
TENNESSEAN WINS REGIONAL IN THE TIMBER
a
fter two days in the run-
ner-up spot, Tennessee
angler Marshall Deakins
patched together a 17-pound,
13-ounce limit in round three
at the Lake Seminole T-H
Marine Bass Fishing League
Regional to earn the win and
his first-ever trip to the BFL
All-American.
Deakins concentrated on
standing timber in the Spring
Creek area of Lake Seminole
the first two days of the event
when the wind was calm.
When the winds picked up on
day three, he turned his
attention to the more open
areas between the trees.
Deakins says that he and
his friend and co-angler trav-
eling partner, Lee Graves,
uncovered the winning pat-
tern during practice. The key
was casting an electric shiner-
colored Zoom Z Craw, which
he had Texas-rigged on a 1/8-
ounce tungsten bullet sinker
with 15- to 17-pound-test flu-
orocarbon line, and letting it
fall vertically alongside the
timber. Figuring out the
speed at which the Z Craw
needed to fall in order to trig-
ger strikes in the standing
timber was an important fac-
tor.
“In order to get strikes,
the lure had to fall very slowly
and stay in the strike zone
for a long period of time,” he
says. “If the lure was falling
too fast, I wouldn’t get strikes
from the quality fish.”
Deakins reveals that the
selection of the Z Craw was
also a key because it gave
him the profile of a bigger
bait with appendages that
provided action on the slow
january 2017 i FlwFisHing.com
fall. The lure color was also
significant. Electric shiner is
not a color that is widely dis-
tributed, so he believes it
gave him an advantage over
more standard hues, pre-
sumably because the fish
have seen all the favorites
before.
Deakins pegged the light
sinker to keep it and the bait
from separating when com-
ing into contact with branch-
es on the way down. Then he
made repeated casts to the
standing timber and allowed
the lure to descend on semi-
slack line.
For the first two days, that
approach put Deakins in
prime position to make the
All-American (the top six
qualify), but heavy winds on
the final day forced a change
– a change that allowed him
to catch the stringer that
closed out the win.
“I had seen those fish
[between the stands of dead
trees] on my graph while
idling through to fish the tim-
ber [on days one and two],”
Deakins recalls. “I wasn’t sure
they were bass, but I needed
to try something in the wind
on day three. I’m really glad
I did.”
The champ backed off and
slowly retrieved an umbrella
rig through the gaps in the tim-
ber to trigger strikes. He used
a three-hook rig with 1/4-
ounce jigheads and 4-inch nat-
ural light-colored Scottsboro
Tackle Company Swimbaits to
catch the second-largest limit
of the day and wound up win-
ning the tournament by a mar-
gin of nearly 3 pounds with a
50-pound, 1-ounce combined
weight.
By Dan O’Sullivan
CO-ANGLER
CHAMP
Name: Jessey Rudolph
hometown: Deltona, Fla.
total Weight: 36-02
(15 fish)
Winning program:
Rudolph primarily
targeted grass. His
go-to presentations were
to flip mats with a Strike
King Rage Twin Tail
Menace Grub and work
a bullfrog-colored
Booyah Poppin Pad
Crasher on the surface.
2017
All-American
Qualifiers
boaters:
roBert crosnoe
Inverness, Fla.
marsHall deakins
Dunlap, Tenn.
mike keyso jr.
North Port, Fla.
cHris kirksey
Fairmount, Ga.
tyler morgan
Columbus, Ga.
steve PHilliPs
Douglas, Ga.
Co-anglers:
david BoZeman
Ocala, Fla.
tony dimauro
Watkinsville, Ga.
randy Paquette
Sarasota, Fla.
jessey rudolPH
Deltona, Fla.
stanley (trey) sHaw
Dunnellon, Fla.
joHn trudel
Lighthouse Pt., Fla.
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