The Skeeter Extreme Fishing League hosted it’s 4th and final regular season event at Martin’s Landing on Grand Lake. 151 teams entered this event and Grand certainly lived up to its reputation as one of the premier bass fisheries in the country by giving up 101 five fish limits with an impressive 3 lb avg. fish. Only 47 teams failed (more likely opted not to weigh) to weigh-in. A total of $52,720 was paid out to the field yielding a 175% payback over the total amount of entry fees collected. It was a very close finish as only a few ounces separated the top teams and it took 19.57 lbs to get in the top 10. Topping the field was the team of Allen Head, Pryor, OK. and Gary Carrier, Vinita, OK. with a total weight of 21.36lbs. Allen and Gary are certainly no strangers to the Oklahoma team tournament scene. Wherever they fish they are always considered one of the teams to beat. Gary was available for comment and was kind enough to share some details about their day.
The team started their day on the lower end of the lake throwing topwaters in shallow water and collected two keepers. After running several spots they worked their way to the mid-lake region and brought two more keepers to the boat. By the end of the day they had worked their way back up north of Shangri La and on the last cast of the day boated a 4 lb fish that put them in the winner’s circle. Gary said without that fish they would have come in around 10th place. During practice they never found any schools of fish and decided to “just go fishing”. Drawing on their many years of experience on Grand they fished areas they knew and even fished some spots they hadn’t visited in years. Unlike many other teams that reported catching a boatload of keepers, Gary and Allen only caught 8 keepers but they were the quality of fish they needed to win. Gary reported their fish were all caught shallow on a variety of lures: Carolina rig, jig, crankbait and topwaters. Gary and Allen would like to thank their sponsors Ranger, Mercury, Abu Garcia and Shoreline Fiberglass for their support.
The next event is the season finale on October 6 & 7 at Lake Eufaula going out of Eufaula Cove. This will be a demo event with the demo’ boat rides being offered on Friday, October 5th. A special thank you goes out to all the participants who fished the XFL circuit this year. We look forward to seeing everyone in October.