XFL held it’s second tournament of the year at Grand Lake on Sunday, April 1, 2012. Recent rains caused the lake to rise about 6′ above normal the week prior to the tournament. The bass were just beginning their annual spawning ritual and the rising waters caused them to scatter somewhat making pre tournament practice a whole new ballgame. However, the lake managers dropped the lake quickly and by tournament time the lake was about 4′ above normal. The flows were cut back on Thursday to allow the downstream lakes to dump their excess water and the lake stabilized. This set up for great fishing conditions. The anglers were greeted with off-colored to downright muddy waters and plenty of bankside cover to throw to. 170 teams entered this tournament with 91 limits brought to the scales. 462 fish were weighed with an impressive 3.13 lb/avg. Topping the field was the team of Nick Frakes (Gravette, AR.) and Morgan Carlton (Springdale, AR.) with a 5 fish limit weighing 24.07 lbs anchored by a 5.96 big bass. I caught up with Nick and Morgan at the weigh-in and they shed a little insight on how their day went and what they did to take home the $20,000 first place check.
The boys from Arkansas had an excellent practice on Thursday by catching about 25 lbs by keying on spawning coves and pockets in the mid-lake area from Horse Creek and above. Friday, they practiced on the lower end of the lake and duplicated their pattern with a solid 20 lb+ bag. They reported catching lots of fish during practice. They were so confident in their areas and pattern they opted not fish on Saturday. Tournament day started off with a near disaster. Right after take-off Morgan was driving their FX 20 Skeeter through the other boat wakes when all of a sudden a large floating log appeared directly in front of them. It was apparently hidden in all the other boat wakes and he barely saw it in time. Morgan cut the wheel hard to avoid a collision and the responsiveness of the Skeeter boat did not let him down. The quick turning ability and stability of the boat allowed him to maintain control and avoid the collision. What a great testimony to the performance of the Skeeter FX boat. Shortly after this close call they arrived at their first spot on their mid-lake areas and by 10:00 a.m. they had a limit of about 16 lbs. They decided to stick with these areas and culled up throughout the day. For the day, they caught 8 fish over 4 lbs and the 5.96 big bass came late in the day. They reported the majority of their biggest fish were caught in the afternoon. Their lure of choice was a Missouri Craw Bass-X Jig with a black Zoom Super Chunk trailer. Nick and Morgan would like to thank Bass-X Jigs for making such a great lure that simply does not hang up. Nick said he fished all 3 days with the exact same jig. They also want to thank their Skeeter/Yamaha sponsor, Waymack Marine of Lowell, AR., for all their support.
The staff and sponsors of the XFL thank everyone for their support and look forward to seeing everyone at the next event on May 6th at Lake Eufaula.
Winning lure count for the year: Alabama Rig – 1, Jig-n-chunk – 1
Capt. Rob