The Texas B.A.S.S. Nation – Southeast Region held its second Region Qualifier of 2019 on February 9th. The tournament was held on Toledo Bend Reservoir out of San Miguel Park. The week of the tournament had temperatures in the 70’s and water temps in the 60’s. However, in typical SETX Region tournament fashion, mother nature had other plans for tournament practice and tournament day. Friday mid-day brought a major cold front dropping the air temperature nearly 30 degrees, bringing in the wind as well with up to 30+ mph gusts, thus limiting many to trailer their boats to their desired practice areas. Conditions worsened throughout the day with sleet and light snow in the evening and overnight. However, this did not deter our TOUGH Region anglers as we had a total of 145 participants!
While anglers awoke Saturday morning to slush in their boats, frozen boat covers, and frozen boat parts, tournament launch and take-off was successful. Despite the frigid conditions, the wind did fortunately subside to about 10 mph, allowing most anglers to go to their desired fishing areas. Once on the water, most anglers found the water temperature had dropped 10 degrees overnight. These tough conditions obviously made it tough as 52% of the field were not able to weigh in a keeper. However, 10 anglers were at least able to weigh in a 5-fish limit.
One of those anglers was The BASS Club angler Jody Rhoden. Anchored by a 7.79 pound kicker, Jody not only earned 2nd place Big Bass honors, but took home the Champion title. Jody’s success was due to pitching baits to cover in 3-4 feet of water, and “covering tons of water”. Following in a close second was Nacogdoches Bass Club angler Troy Reed with 19.35, followed in 3rd by The BASS club angler Wesley Baxley with 16.07.
Big Bass honors went to Vidor Bass Anglers Association angler Robert Royal with a 8.16 pound Toledo Bend Toad!
Thank you to the Vidor Bass Anglers Association for assisting at this event as the weather and launch ramp layout out made tournament morning tough. Also, thank you to San Miguel Park for hosting the event.
Special thanks to sponsor partner McCain Rods and Swagger Tungsten. Please know that Swagger is offering a special promotional discount to Region anglers, so please contact your club president for more information.
Our next event will be held on Sam Rayburn out of Jackson Hill Marina, March 9th. See you at Big Sam!
-DT