No one would blame Mark Wallace and Aaron Smith if they do a little bragging to their fishing buddies and at tackle shops around Lake Jordan.
Wallace and Smith won the Alabama Bass Trail Tournament Series South Division tournament on Lake Jordan Saturday, April 19 with a five-bass limit that weighed 18.66 pounds.
Shaye Baker and Ben Weldon were close behind in second place with 18.43 pounds. They also had big fish for the tournament, a 6.12 pounds largemouth.
Nick Hill and Jeremy Headley finished third with 17.60 pounds.
Randy Gardner and Tray Gillespie, with 17.54 pounds, and Andy Markos and Chris Markos with 17.48 pounds rounded out the top 5.
Wallace and Smith used jigs worked around grass to catch their fish.
“I got on a pattern early in the week that I thought would work good in the tournament and it did,” said Wallace, who lives on Lake Jordan in Titus. “It started out real good, then we went for about three hours and didn’t catch anything. We just stuck with our pattern and the fish eventually turned back on and we started catching them again.’
Smith said the $10,000, he and Wallace split for winning the tournament, is the most either has ever earned in a bass tournament. Smith said this is the first year he and Wallace have fished as a team.
Baker and Weldon won $5,000 for second place and $500 for big fish.
Baker said they used jigs and spinnerbaits to catch their fish.
Weldon caught the big fish. “I haven’t caught a big fish on a spinnerbait here in probably 3 years. I decided to try one today, just to see what I could catch, and caught a 6-pounder.”
Baker said the changing light and weather conditions throughout the day made it difficult to catch fish at times, but he and Weldon were able to adapt to the changes.
“We got lucky and happened to pull up on the right spots at the right time,” Baker said.
Headley said while he and Hill were able to get some big bites, those bites were few and far between. “It was really slow.”
Rounding out the top 10 were, Billy Pairux and Todd Sharpe, 16.82 pounds; Ricky Knight and Randall Carter, 16.81 pounds; Rex Chambers and Brent Crow, 16.45 pounds; Buck McDonald and Thad Crowley, 16.35 pounds; Andy Leslie and Grant Bennett, 16.26 pounds.
The next tournament for the South Division is May 10 on the Alabama River at Roland Cooper State Park in Camden.
The next tournament for the North Division is May 31 on Wheeler Lake out of Ingall’s Harbor in Decatur.
The Alabama Bass Trail is a program of the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association.
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