Lake Fork, TX. – Skeeter Boats hosted it’s annual Owner’s Tournament on Lake Fork, TX on June 9-10, 2012. This annual 2 day event draws Skeeter Boat owners from all over the country to compete in an hourly, big bass format for tremendous cash and prizes. The husband and wife team of Jamie and Shirley Moore, of Talala, OK. bested an enormous field of competitors with a Lake Fork largemouth tipping the scales at 10.54lbs. They took home a fully rigged Skeeter ZX 200, Yamaha 200 SHO, Minn-Kota Fortrex trolling motor, 2 Hummingbird 788 graphs, tandem axle powder coated trailer with custom wheels and fenders valued at $48,000. I spoke with Jamie and asked him to provide an account of the events surrounding their winning catch.
The pair practiced for this event on Thursday and Friday before the tournament and established 2 different patterns. One pattern involved an early morning, shallow buzzbait and topwater bite. This pattern yielded fish up to 4 lbs and numerous “unders” (under 16″) that could be potential money fish for the hourly prizes. The other pattern was fishing jigs on an offshore hump that topped out at 7′, then fell to about 15′ on the sides. A key component to the hump was two ditches that ran parallel to the hump on either side. On Thursday afternoon, Jamie caught a fish that weighed nearly 10lbs but was under the 24″ slot from this spot thus verifying this spot as having the potential to yield the winning fish. Jamie and Shirley started out the tournament with their topwater pattern and quickly landed several unders that went into the livewell. As is so often the case in this tournament competitors fish very close to one another. That is just part of this tournament, everyone accepts it and goes about fishing. Jamie and Shirley wisely let the early morning crowd disperse a bit before moving to the offshore hump. Shortly after arriving at this spot, Jamie boated an 8 lb slot fish. Several other fish in the 5-7.5 lbs range came into the boat as well. At 10 minutes until 8:00, Jamie cast his Oldham’s jig and Berkely Chigger Craw combo to the deepest end of the hump and began to work the bait up the slope. Sensing a fish had picked up the jig, Jamie hesitated a bit, felt the fish load up and slammed the hook home. Instantly, Jamie knew he had hooked the fish they were looking for. The fish came to the surface and just wallowed about, unable to jump due to is size. Jamie was able to keep the fish out of the thick flooded timber and after several hard runs brought the fish to the boat. Shirley, a very experienced fisherman in her own right, quickly and expertly scooped the fish into the net and hoisted it into the boat. With the fish lying in the bottom of the boat, Shirley exclaimed “Dude, you just won us a boat!”. At this point Jamie was speechless and began shaking like a dog trying to pass a peach seed. Then they realized that this fish would have to exceed the 24″ minimum. Like a good carpenter who measures twice, Jamie did so and both times the fish measured 24 1/4″. Jamie deposited the fish into the livewell and then the skaking really began. Being the cool headed one of the two, Shirley told him to sit down and calm down a bit while she went back to fishing. Within a few minutes, Shirley set the hook on a quality fish that measured right at 23″ and weighed approximately 9.5 lbs. Not wanting to take a chance at having the big fish die, they went to weigh-in. After weigh-in, the fish was the overall leader for the tournament. The rest of the day was largely uneventful and Jamie admitted it was pretty hard to concentrate knowing that they were in the lead. Saturday night was a long and sleepless night. Despite the fact that there were 8 fish brought to the scales that exceeded the 24″ minimum, none of them were big enough to top Jamie and Shirley’s fish. So, a big Congratulations goes out to Jamie and Shirley for their big win.
Next year is the 20th anniversary of the Skeeter Owner’s Tournament. This tournament promises to be the biggest and best event ever and all Skeeter owners are encouraged to attend this event. This event is surely one you do not want to miss. Details on this event should be out by the first of 2013.
Capt. Rob.