As expected a much tougher day for the anglers fishing the Sabine River in Sunday’s final round of the BassChamps Team Championship with high pressure and the water moving out from the cool front. And that included Day One leaders Johnathon Simon of Orange and his partner Cade Durio of Lake Charles. “The water was gone,” said Simon. “And they didn’t just back off, they weren’t where we had been catching them and we were scrambling most of the day.” Simon/Durio finished sixth with a check for $3750 that included the big bass on Day One of 4.74.
The Central Texas father/son duo of Wendell Ramsey and Wendell Ramsey, Jr were second after Day One and didn’t think their 9+ pounds in Day Two would hold up. “We really didn’t,” Junior said. “We stayed with what got us here, spinnerbaits and Rage Tail minnows and cut tail worms up the Neches River. I can’t believe we won but it feels great. Not bad for our first trip here (Sabine River).” The duo won a FX20 Skeeter bass boat which retails for around 70K.
Cory Rambo of Orange and his partner Rusty Clark of Sam Rayburn finished third, missing out on second place by .o3 ounces after starting the day in tenth place. They picked up a nice check of $7000 for their two days of fishing.
Locals Trey Smith and his partner Hunter Gothia were one of the teams that benefitted from Day Two. After not reaching the first page of the leaderboard in Day One, they had a strong Day Two with 11.45 to finish ninth.
The new 12″ limit certainly helped the anglers put five in the live well. Of the 190 boats that fished, there were 94 who caught a limit both days and only 13 who zeroed for two days. There were 1407 fish weighed in with an average weight of 1.50 pounds. The big bass of the tournament came from Malcolm Williams of Hemphill who brought one to the scales that weighed 5.58 pounds.
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