ABA National Championship Tournament 2005
Day One
From the looks of it there were well over 200 boats participating in the American Bass Anglers National Championship Tournament that kicked off the first official day of competition this morning on the Red River here in Louisiana. They launched out of the Stoner Launch which is located on the Shreveport side of the Red.
The anglers reported that the tournament launch was well organized and things ran smoothly this morning despite the large number of boats and participants that we there this morning to try their hand at competing for the prize money and boat.
We did our best to get the weights of the Louisiana members that fished the tournament and had a bag to weigh in this afternoon. You might recognize some of the names below.
| George Perez 7.21lbs. Steve Alexander 5.73lbs. Matt Morris 1.58lbs. Ricky Lee 1.03lbs. Brandon Collins 3.17lbs. Ben Clemens 7.39lbs. Fred Revils Jr. 3.78lbs. David Sherrer 4.68lbs. Jr. Burt 3.22lbs. Cliff Swift 2.75lbs. Mike Stephenson 7.35lbs. Mike Woods 2.77lbs. |
Galen Bennett 8.68lbs. Marty Strickland 8.99lbs. Tommy Shuttlesworth 2.11lbs. Jeff Pate 11.40lbs. Sonny Landry 5.70lbs. Rich Godwin 4.00lbs. Dallas Miller 4.66lbs. Lloyd Frizer 2.66lbs. Andy Holly 1.88lbs. Mike Cochran 6.59lbs. David Parker 6.44lbs. Jason Nance 1.66lbs. |
While the anglers were on stage I heard a number of them comment on the days fishing. "Just one of those days", "We spent too long in one place", "We had a long run and we just couldn’t catch ’em in 2 hours" and "I just couldn’t hook ’em" were the most common comments through out the afternoon. I spoke to one tournament angler that stated that he just needed that one good fish. Ben Clemens fished the ABA Championship for the first time this year. Ben has been fishing for a number of years here in the local Louisiana area. His take on the day…"They did one heck of a job!".
The Red River can have it’s good days and it’s bad. With 200+ boats on the water and to only see a handful of anglers bring to the scale bags over 10 lbs. tells me that it was a tough day. The weather should cool off some tomorrow and a breeze will bring a bit of relief to the anglers and possibly some larger bags of fish at the scales.
The pictures below were taken when the first flight came in and during the weigh-in. We hope you enjoy them.
Good Luck to all of the anglers that are competing in the ABA National Championship here in Louisiana this weekend. We look forward to bringing you a day by day report of the tournament.
