Roger Kruep Wins Tournament of Champions
The 2008 Olathe Bass Club Tournament of Champions was held November 8th
at Truman Lake. The following anglers participated in the event: WayneByars, Charles Capehart, Morgan Davidson, Jimmie Folse, Dave Juda,
Tom Karigan, Roger Kruep, Paul Marsh, Phil Martin, Rick McLeod, Pete
Morrone, Gene Poppe, Sean Sachen and Bob Waller.
The TOC participants took off from the State Park Marina in cold, windy conditions.
The air temperature was 38 degrees with 10-15 mph winds, which gusted
to more than 30 mph later in the day. The water temperature was in the low to
mid 50’s and was stained with visibility of about 8-10 inches.
Several anglers struggled with their trolling motor batteries running low due to fighting big waves and relentless
winds. The inclement weather took a toll on the anglers. Through it all, a number of anglers caught some nice
bass. Due to the ‘winner-take-all’ format and cold, windy weather, we do not have a record of all the fish caught
or who caught them. Once an angler, determined someone else had a bigger fish, or heavier bag, he did not
bother weighing in.
4th place went to Phil Martin with 3 fish. He was in contention for big bass with a nice fish weighing 4.95pounds. Phil caught his fish on a black neon tube in cuts off from the main lake, trying to stay out of the wind.
3rd place went to Rick McLeod with 3 fish weighing 8.22 pounds. Rick caught his fish halfway back in coves,on rocky banks, with his boat in 15 feet of water. He had most of his success on a Lucky Craft Rick Clunn Deep
Knocker.
2nd place went to Dave Juda with 4 fish weighing in at 10.63 pounds. Dave spent most of the day on flat secondarybanks battling the wind and waves. He caught his fish on a Rick Clunn, RC 1.5 crank bait, in 1-2 feet of
water. It looked like Dave was a sure winner until Roger Kruep came along.
1st place went to Roger Kruep, who had 3 fish weighing 11.65 pounds, including big bass at 6.15 pounds.Roger caught 2 fish on the heaviest spinner bait he could find. On a tip from Phil Martin, he changed one of the
blades to a smaller, gold blade to help the bait get deeper, more quickly. The other keeper was on a fire tiger
colored, square billed, crank bait. All of his fish were caught on rocky banks, halfway back in coves. He positioned
his boat where he could make parallel casts along the bank. He caught all of his fish close to the bank.