ON TOUR
COSTA FLW SERIES
COSTA FLW SERIES | FT. GIBSON
By Justin Onslow
WAGONER, OKLA.
PHOTOS BY CURTIS NIEDERMIER
WINNING ANGLER
tommy dickerson
Orange, Texas
Winning Weight:
32-06 (13 fish)
details:
Oct. 4-6, 2018
Presented by Mercury
Hosted by Wagoner
Area Chamber of
Commerce
Southwestern Divison
t
ommy Dickerson needed only one rod, one lure and one creek to land 32 pounds, 6
ounces over three tough days on Fort Gibson to win the 2018 Costa FLW Series event
in early October by way of a tiebreaker with second-place finisher Kyle Cortiana.
After turning in solid bags on days one and two for a total of 26-7, Dickerson saw his
creek run dry – both literally and figuratively.
Dickerson dug his way into the shallow creek on the northern end of the river for the
first time on the final day of practice, and despite some difficulty getting into the creek
during the tournament due to changing water levels, he was able to pull two limits from
the area and set himself up for what could have been a much easier day three.
Instead, water levels continued to drop overnight between days two and three, leaving
the creek impassable until 10 o’clock on the final day, when runoff from recent rains
restored the water level enough to get a boat into the skinny water. With limited time in his
honey hole, Dickerson only managed three keeper bass for a total of 5 pounds, 15 ounces.
“I had no chance of winning I didn’t think, even until the minute I got up there to weigh
them in,” he admits. “When Ron [tournament director Ron Lappin] told me I needed 5
pounds, 15 ounces, I thought, ‘I got 5-something pounds. Maybe I’ll have a chance.’”
And a chance he did have. Dickerson’s 5-15 pulled him into a tie with Cortiana, but the
tiebreaker – going to the angler with the most weight entering the final day – went to
Dickerson, sealing a nerve-racking victory for the Texas native.
“It kind of all worked out in the end,” he says. “I was just fortunate to go in there and
catch those three, and I only caught those in maybe the last 45 minutes of the day. I just
got lucky.”
NEWER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER
64
The spinnerbait is a classic lure that never seems to go out of fashion. Sure, other moving
baits have crowded the category and reduced the popularity of the bladed bass magnet, but
in the fall, it’s hard to go wrong with a spinnerbait when fishing shallow water.
Dickerson used only a double-willow spinnerbait (white and chartreuse) on a 6-foot, 10-
inch iRod with 20-pound-test Berkley fluorocarbon and a Shimano Chronarch reel to land all
of his fish for the tournament. The smaller of the two willow-leaf blades, a No. 3 on the front
of the lure, was painted orange, and Dickerson employed a trailer hook to negate the short-
strikes he had experienced during practice.
WINNING CO-ANGLER
Johnny Burke
Bristow, Okla.
Winning Weight:
17-02 (7 fish)
Winning program:
The Oklahoma native
landed 17 pounds, 2
ounces of fish to cruise
to a comfortable victory
by a 6-pound, 2-ounce
margin. The keys to the
win were fairly simple:
a Carolina-rigged green
pumpkin magic Zoom
Speed Craw and a Texas-
rigged green pumpkin
Zoom Baby Brush Hog,
each with the tips dyed
chartreuse.
flWfIshInG.com I WInter 2019