Kerry Wins Purefishing Shopping Spree at Week End Warrior National Championship

Bass Fan Weekend Warrior Championship Wrap up 2008

I arrived on Saturday March 29 around mid day, and had driven about 11 hours, in my Chevy 2500HD, towing my 2007 Ranger Z20, loaded with all my Abu Revo reels, Fenwick Techna AV rods, Berkley Lures and line.

The drama started as stopped at the parking lot, and I heard a thump, bump, thump, bump. I backed in the Ranger, to unhitch only to find that the ball was just about to fall off! Can you imagine, all those miles and the only thing holding the nut on was a small cotter pin! So I headed to get groceries and a new 2" ball hitch from Wal-Mart.

Sunday, I tried to launch up on Wilson Lake, but apparently there was a bad, on-the-water accident, with a barge and recreational watercraft. The local officials had closed the waterway 3 miles up stream, of the lock looking for the 4 missing people, from the watercraft.

I had to get my Wilson map out and find a new launch site, only took me about an hour to find one big enough to park and launch from. It was the Locke 6 ramp, about 15 miles from the hotel I was staying at.

Sunday I had decided to simple spend the day going into each and every cove and major creek I could, on Wilson Lake. After looking for about 6 hours, I had to do some casting. I pulled into Shoal Creek and noticed a major creek a few miles up on the left. After checking it out 100% I noticed areas, that reminded me of Lake of the Ozarks, and decided to toss my Custom painted Mega Bass Jerk bait (thanks Mike Stetich), on my 7' Fenwick Medium action rod, with a 6:4:1 Revo STX reel, spooled with 10 pound Berkley Big Game Green and immediately caught a 3.6 pound bass! "How cool is that?" My very first cast on Wilson Lake, produced such a nice healthy fish.

1st Bass in Alabama

Then it happens, my new MinnKota 36vt, that I had carried as a spare, for 2 years, quit working. I had just mounted it on my new Ranger, tested it in the driveway, and now it was on the fritz.

Bald Eagle

Not know exactly what to do, I checked the switch and it was fine, so I call the MFG Rep. Dave Poort (thanks for taking my call Dave!) and he indicated to try moving the prop shaft, so I did and it worked! then it stopped, I moved the prop shaft and it worked, but each time I let off the pedal it would not work. I spent the rest of the day, giving my Techna AV's a quick bath to move the prop ¼ of inch and that got me through the day.

1000.00 Largemouth Bass

Monday, I decided to head to Huntsville, Alabama where the only authorized service center is located some 150 miles round trip, to get the trolling motor fixed, thank goodness that MinnKota has a 3 year warranty, because I had a bad armature, and fortunate for me Jimmy, at the "Prop Shop" had exactly what I needed. Jimmy did his best to get it done, so while I waited, I respooled some reels, organized tackle and listen to some good ole country music. After all it was 65 degrees outside!

Rainbow, something good had to happen

I made it back to the lake around 4 pm, dropped the boat in and decided to try swimming a white horny toad about 3 foot down, for some of the Small mouths that are suppose to be huge on Wilson Lake. I didn't get the Smallies to react; however the Largemouth's loved it! (See some pictures)

OOOO Yea!

Tuesday - Thursday, was daylight to dusk refining the swimming soft plastic bite, along with some spinner bait on windy main lake flatter bays/coves.

Skip Hutchinson had qualified through the TBF Central Divisional, so he and I cut cost and tried to help each other as much as possible. We attended the meeting on Thursday evening, great food, and with over 100 raffle prizes, you guessed it, I had a dud number, nothing drawn out! I watched Mustang Life Jackets (Skip got one!) Fenwick Rods, Garcia Reels, tackle boxes, Humming Bird GPS, MinnKota Trolling Motors and much more, flash before my eyes. Bass Fan and all the sponsors really did it up right!

Day 1: We launched I was boat 17 out of 55 of the Nations greatest Weekend warriors from 2007, from all around the United States. I had decided to lock into Wilson Lake, since it was only 15 miles long and Pick Wick Lake was 55 miles long, not to mention, I felt confident that I was looking at a 3 pound avg. up on Wilson.

I launched right around 6:15 am and had to be back in by 3:00 pm. I knew the risk element with Locking and lost time both ways, since it took an average of 45 minutes to lock up and then back down. This meant I was going to give up at least 1:30 minutes of fishing time, each day. I dropped the throttle to full Maximum Thrust and that Yamaha HPDI created a 225 horse stamped on the water! A quick glance at the GPS 71 MPH!

We got to the lock and 7 guys of the 55 were headed to Wilson Lake and we all hoped there wasn't a barge/tugboat locking up or down, but you guessed it, big Barge, first thing in the morning. We had to wait over an hour and by the time we went up, several of us had some keepers in their live wells, including me, mine was a scrawny 13" largemouth that sucked up the Mega Bass jerk Bait.

We got out of the lock at 7:50am, and it was a drag race to get to the best spots first. As I neared Shoal Creek, I saw one of the boats turn in on the main lake flat I wanted to start on, so I hit a smaller pocket that I had boated a 4 pounder in practice in. Within in the first 20 minutes I had a small limit, swimming a white super speed vibe on the belly hook. (Skip had a few extras, thanks!) As the morning went on around 11:00 am I had culled up to my 12 pound 2 ounce weight that I took into the scales.

Unfortunately, I made the check in area at 3:25pm and lost my whole days catch! Ouch, would have been in the top 20! First time in 20 plus year I was ever late, but that huge doublewide barge, took over 3 hours to lock, go figure. #$@%$&^%

So this left me with only one choice for Day 2: Go for the Pure fishing $1000.00 shopping spree with Conviction! We launched in reverse order on the second day and I had a 3:30 weigh in. We got to the lock, and went straight up and out. I was fishing by 7 am, vs. almost 8 am on Day 1.

The boat race was on again, and that 250 on the other guys boat, was just a scooch faster, and he beat me again to the flat in Shoal Creek. So I went where I started on Day 1. To my surprise, the water level was down about 18"s!! Also, with all the torrential rains on Day 1, the water had muddied up pretty bad, maybe around 3" visibility.

I did manage to catch a small 12" keeper in the first hour and knew I had to rethink what this day was going to bring. Water temp in the back had dropped 4 degrees and where I caught most of my bass was nearly dry land.

I fired up "Hank" (my Yamaha HPDI 225 hp) and decided to try some round secondary points in the back 1/3 of the major creeks. First stop, I grabbed the War Eagle Double Willow Spinner bait and caught another small keeper of a shallow stick up, near the drop on the flat. (the deepest water was 5 foot, in the area. As I trolled, around the flat, my Yamaha skeg bumped a big rock, and the water was so muddy, I never saw it. (no damge to the lower unit or prop).

So I backed off the rock and turned the boat around. I tossed the Spinner bait near where I thought it was and bumped it, the Killed the bait. "BAM, 3 pound fish, in the boat!"

I dropped the Spinner bait and thought this is my chance for the $1000.00 shopping spree! I tied on the ½ oz. Berkley Frenzy Rattl'r in Threadfin Shad pattern. Wrong color for the water, but it is the one I had the most confidence in, from years of using them.

The very first cast, I tried to hit that rock pile again. Sure enough, bump, I hit the rock and killed the retrieve on the Frenzy, "Bam" the Fenwick loaded up, my Big Game Green 15 pound test began to sing, and I cranked that Revo for all she was worth. The largemouth wasn't but a 2 pounder, but the biggest I had so far on the "Magic combo" for the $1000.00 shopping spree. I clipped his fin to make sure I would know which one he was.

I sat there around that little round point for the next hour and caught 20 keepers, on that Frenzy, but none bigger than what I had in the well. (everyone should own like 15 of these baits, it is a lipless crank bait)

I locked down, made it to the 1:20 to 1:40 window, weighed the bass and he was all of 1 pound 15 oz. I crossed my fingers and hoped no one else had one bigger.

3:30 rolled around and I weighed in the 5 fish limit for 9 pound 2 ounce, and when Tournament Director Randy McBride told me I won the $1000.00 Shopping Spree, I felt like I had just won the event! (see the picture of what a $1000.00 Bass looked like)

Can you say WOW!

All in all, I came home with $1,800.00 in cash and merchandise, and had a great time staying with Skip all week. Needless to say, Skip only let me eat Pizza one night!I would recommend for all week end warriors to sign up with BassFan Army, its free! (There was no entry fee's for this event, and it was the first true, event that was all about the anglers I had ever attended. Al Smith (The General) and the Bass Fan crew all did a fantastic job.

It was great to lock every day, and talk shop with Steve Quinn, from In-Fisherman! I think he was excited as I was after I told him about the $1000.00 fish!

I hope I can qualify again next year, I am sure it will be a bigger and bigger event!

So Remember:

Sunlight Penetration, Lure Depth and Speed of Retrieve....Master these and you will be a Master of Bass

By KaKBASS

Does it get better?

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"Kerry Kruep's never been so excited to show off a fish that weighed 1-15. He was all smiles today because that fish won him a $1,000 shopping spree out of the Pure Fishing catalog after winning an hourly weigh-in contest that required the lure, line, rod and reel to be Pure Fishing products."