NEWS

2014 Wheeler Lake Tournament Recap

Stutts, Hailstone Win Wheeler Lake Tournament

Randall Stutts and Patrick Hailstone have 10,000 new reasons to like fishing in Alabama. Stutts, of Nashville, and Hailstone, of Cincinnati, won the Alabama Bass Trail Tournament Series North Division tournament on Wheeler Lake Saturday, May 31. with a five-fish limit that weighed 21.41 pounds. They earned $10,000 for their win. Billy Sharp and Kevin Stubblefield finished second with 21.09 pounds. Luke Kyle and Arch Cornett were third with 20.95 pounds. Sharp and Stubblefield won $5,000. Kyle and Cornett won $4,000. William Davis and Tim Cummings with 20.59 pounds and Justin Atkins and Grant Galloway with 19.84 pounds completed the top five. Stutts said he and Hailstone had a limit of bass by 6:30 a.m. and began culling as they continued to catch larger and larger fish. Their largest bass was a 5.92 pounds largemouth. “They were schooled all together,” Stutts said. “We had what we needed to win by 7:00. We kept fishing, but we were not in as big of a hurry.” Hailstone said they used Strike King 6 XD in sexy chartreuse to catch their fish. Sharp said he an Stubblefield caught their fish on 3/4-ounce green pumpkin football-headed jigs worked around shell beds an stumps along the main river channel near Decatur.. Kyle and Cornett also used jigs. The jigs and the skirts were made by Kyle. He described the homemade jigs as a bream color. Kyle Glasgow and Josh Bragg had the big fish of the tournament, a 7.92-pounds largemouth. Rounding out the top 10 were Shane Cox and Ty Cox with 19.57, Nicholas Reeves and Blake Hall, 19.37, Jeremy Utley and Robert Boyd, 19.07, Waylon Hancock, and Timothy Little, 18.96 and Jeremy Christian and Logan Johnston with 18.69.

The North Division of the tournament series wraps up June 21 on Logan Martin Lake in Pell City. The final tournament for the South Division is June 7 on Lay Lake in Columbiana. The deadline to enter is midnight Wednesday, June 4.