April 6th-11th, 2008, 2008
Lake Belton – Belton, TX
The ATX BASSMASTERS Top 6 Team arrived at Lake Belton for
the 2008 BASS Federation Nation Texas State Championship
with hopes of doing well. While Lake Belton is not ATX’s
home lake it is a lake that our anglers have spent some
“quality time” on in the past. However their
optimism was tempered by their knowledge regarding the fickle
nature Lake Belton can exhibit. Yet when the week long event
came to an end it was the ATX BASSMASTERS that stood alone
as the best BASS Club in the State of Texas for 2008. With
a total weight of 198.23 pounds the ATX BASSMASTERS bested
45 other teams and the nearest competition (H.O.T. BASS
Assassins) by a mere 0.47 pounds to secure the number one
spot.
This year’s team was fielded by member ranking in
AOY points. The ATX AOY standings are calculated via a year
long process that starts with the first tournament of the
year held in January and includes a monthly tournament for
the balance of the year. From these twelve tournaments a
member’s best ten tournaments are converted to points
relative to their respective finishes and then added to
their meeting/function points for total number of AOY points
earned for the season. Those that find themselves at the
top of the standings in December form the Top 6 Team for
the next year’s championship tournament. Members of
this year’s team include Adam Clark, Mark Peevey,
Gerald Goff, Dan Taylor, Ubi Figueiredo and Pete Albarado.
http://www.texas-bass.com/index.htm
Fishing a large, multi-day, team tournament is very different
than normal tournament competition. Team events required
team members to work together to locate fish and share information
on how to catch those fish. This goes against the nature
of most tournament fisherman but all this must be put aside
if the team is to be successful. The ATX BASSMASTERS did
an excellent job of getting past the awkwardness of the
event and worked together as a team to get the job done.
The team unselfishly shared locations, lures, techniques
and knowledge. Such team work really came into play on the
final day of competition as the team overcame a 14 plus
pound deficit to take the victory. Final
Standings.
Given the time of year there were a number of patterns
and techniques working during the tournament. While each
team member worked patterns that aligned with their individual
strengths there were a few keys to success. Adam Clark who
led the team with 44.08 individual pounds found the majority
of his success early with a Chatterbait and latter in the
day with Carolina Rig. Mark Peevey’s 40.08 individual
pounds came mostly from dead sticking a Zoom Super Fluke.
Ubi Figueiredo boated 33.96 pounds by slowly working a shaky
head worm. Gerald Goff netted 29.30 pounds by working a
Vixen topwater early and dead sticking a Yamamoto Senko
late. Dan Taylor pickup 25.66 pounds pitching shallow timber.
Pete Albarado rounded out the field with 25.22 pounds by
chunking a spinnerbait and sight fishing. Regardless of
the technique each angler’s weight contributed to
the overall success of the team. Had the team as a whole
weighed in just one less fish the results would have been
very different considering the slight margin of the team’s
victory.
As the reining 2008 State Champions the ATX BASSMASTERS
Top 6 Team will now move on to the BASS Club World Championship
Regional Tournament to be held in early 2009 at a destination
and time yet to be announced. We wish our boys all the best
as they
represent the Great State of Texas against teams
from other states in the Central Region.
Congratulation ATX BASSMASTERS as a young, up and coming
BASS Federation Nation Club you have done yourself proud
with this performance!
