This weekend The Wappapello Bass Circuit held their annual end of season Championship Tournament. 86 Teams qualified to fish the 2023 Lake Wappapello Classic. The tournament held out of Redman Creek Recreation Area has a grand prize of $10,000. With the summer’s relentless heat finally starting to gave way to some cooler evening fall temperatures, the lakes water temperatures have started to drop. With the dropping water temperature the bass are starting the transition to their fall patterns. The tournament timing was such that the fish seem to be in full transition and not locked onto any pattern. After day 1 it was apparent that finding quality fish was proving difficult for most teams with the majority of weights only being in the 8-9 pound range. As always a few teams were on better fish. Randy Jackson and Scott Miller brought 17.65 pounds of Wappapello Largemouth to the scales to take the day one lead.
Overnight rain showers greeted the Anglers for Day 2. With some lingering cloud cover before blast off there was a variety of dock talk, from going for a top water bite early to running up the river looking for some big fish. As the teams started pulling the boats out it became apparent that several teams on the leaderboard struggled on the last day of the tournament. With a majority of the fish being brought to the scales all being very similar in size. The need for a bigger fish to separate you from the pack was needed.
Former BassMaster Classic Qualifier and Wappapello Classic leader Randy Jackson recognized this immediately, Randy and Partner Scott Miller looked for some key big bites each day targeting the river channel adjacent to the flats. These guys knew that as all the smaller fish moved towards the flats and coves the better fish would move in later as they were eating up on the bigger shad still in the channels. This strategy proved successful as they brought in almost 13 pounds of fish on day two to give them a two day total of over 30 pounds to take the win by over 4 pounds.
For their effort they received a pair of beautiful Classic Champion plaques and a check for $10,000.00. Coming in 2nd was the Dynamic Duo of Lake Wappapello, Gale Breckenridge and Doug Cheatham, these guys who are a threat to win every tournament, received a couple of nice plaques and a check for $4500.00. In third came the Father and Son Team Royer collecting nice Plaques and $3000.00
…..Lake Wappapello Classic top finishers……
While the Classic ends the season for The Wappapello Bass Circuit, there are still a few events left before winter sets in. Next weekend is the Chaonia Open at Chaonia Landing Marina, there will be fish fry for all competitors and spectators and a chili cook off challenge with the Angler’s being the judges. Along with the Open tournament, Angler’s Choice will go out of Chaonia Landing Marina next weekend as the fishermen battle to qualify for the A/C National Championship next spring on Lake Guntersville.
RB Bass Outdoors Angler
Jeff Jewell
