2019 Costa FLW Series Southwestern Division Lake Amistad Day 2: Hanselman Take Big Lead!

Land of the giants falls short

by David A. Brown

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Texas wizard grabs 10 pound lead.
(Photo: FLW)

Suffice it to say that Ray Hanselman’s plan definitely came together – just a little earlier than he anticipated. The Del Rio, Texas, pro’s not griping, of course, as his limit catch of 25 pounds, 15 ounces leads by a wide margin at the Costa FLW Series Southwestern Division event presented by Ranger on Lake Amistad.

Working the perimeter of a spawning bay, Hanselman looked for scattered grass in 15 to 25 feet. He targeted bass that were transitioning from winter patterns to prespawn staging spots.

Hanselman, who swept the division in 2015 in one of the most remarkable seasons of bass fishing ever, says he carried moderately optimistic expectations into his home lake this week and ended up pleasantly surprised to be carrying a lead of 9-7 into tomorrow’s final round. (After Thursday’s scheduled start was postponed due to severe weather, the event was shortened to two days of competition.)

“It’s an unbelievable feeling to catch a bag like that on your home lake,” Hanselman says. “I was thinking I’d get lucky and catch 15 pounds of fish. In practice I found schools of fish, but this cold weather must have really bunched them up, so I was fishing the way I like to.”

Hanselman found his fish on three particular clumps of grass.

“It’s just little patches of it. That’s the way you want it because that congregates them on [a few] good patches. This place was set up good with grass that was growing a foot or two off the bottom.
TOP 10 BELOW

2018 Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest Lake Travis Day 2: Jacob Wheeler Leaps into Lead!

Thomas Allen
BASS PRESS RELEASE

Junk fishing key for Wheeler's lead.
(Photo: BASS)

Jacob Wheeler of Harrison, Tenn., fished “a hodge-podge" of lures, techniques and depths Friday to catch 18 pounds, 3 ounces of largemouth bass and take command of the 2018 Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefiting Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on Lake Travis.
 
“The way I’ve been catching my bass this week has been through a long list of tactics, lures and locations,” he said. “I’ve been fishing ‘hodge-podge.’ That’s the best way I can explain it. But that’s really how I like to fish, and it’s been working well for me.”
 
This isn’t the first time the second-year Bassmaster pro has been in the lead. Wheeler has two Elite Series victories to his credit, but Texas Fest carries more weight than a regular-season tournament.
 
His two-day weight of 35-7 moves him closer to the $100,000 first-place payday and a coveted berth into the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.The 27-year-old said he had 18 rods on the deck of his boat during Friday’s second round of competition, but he claimed to have learned more about his pattern as the day went on.
 
“I dialed in on them a little more today,” Wheeler said. “Not enough to say I’m confident in winning this tournament. Not just yet. I used most of the rods I had out, and I caught fish from 6 inches of water to 40 feet and I hit a bunch of spots. It was a hodge-podge day.”
 
Most pro anglers keep their cards close to the vest at this point in major tournaments, but he did say his big fish were coming from a couple specific structural elements.
 
“I still think it’s going to take 15 to 17 pounds a day to win on Lake Travis,” he said. “I’ve kept myself in position to potentially win even if I have a tough Saturday or Sunday. I'm very happy with how my day went, and I hope I can stay consistent into tomorrow.”
 

FLW Rayovac Championship Ohio River Day 2: Texan Leading with Smallies!

Smallmouth Key to Leaders
by Rob Newell 
FLW PRESS RELEASE 

The smallmouth smackdown on the Ohio River continued on day two of the Rayovac FLW Series Championship in Paducah, Ky., hosted by the Paducah Convention & Visitors Bureau and the City of Paducah.
Heading into Saturday’s championship round, the top-5 positions on the leaderboard are dominated by big smallmouths caught from the same 15-mile section by anglers targeting mostly offshore current breaks. The bites in the area are generally scarce, but the quality of the fish is well worth the lack of quantity.

Smallmouth key to Championship leader Hanselman. (Photo: FLW)

On day two there was a flip-flop atop the leaderboard between day-one leader Dave Barnes, Sr. and the amazing Ray Hanselman of Del Rio, Texas, who now has the pole position.
Going into the final day as the leader, Hanselman is poised to do the unthinkable in FLW history: win an unprecedented four Rayovac FLW Series events in a row. He has already won all three Rayovac Texas Division events this season and he’s eyeing the grandest of grand slams – a Rayovac Championship win.

Friday Hanselman took the lead with an 11-pound, 14-ounce catch of smallmouths that gave him a two-day total of 30 pounds, 14 ounces, which constitutes a 2-1/2-pound lead over second-place Barnes.

FLW Rayovac Championship Ohio River Day 1: Barnes Leads with 21 Pounds of Smallies!

Two massive bags from stingy Ohio.

by Rob Newell

FLW Press Release

Smallmouth produce for leader Barnes.
(Photo: FLW)

First, David Barnes Sr. of China, Maine showed up with an eye-popping limit of smallmouths that weighed 21 pounds. Then, red-hot Ray Hanselman of Del Rio, Texas, who won all three Texas Division tournaments this year, proved he is still in the fish-catching groove with a limit that hefted 19 pounds – all bronze. For them at least, it was the perfect end to a perfect day.

After four rainy days of practice, Rayovac Championship qualifiers were greeted with bluebird skies and chilly temperatures down into the middle 40’s on opening morning. And apparently that fall weather tripped the big smallmouths’ trigger as Barnes and Hanselman are working similar patterns in swift river currents.

Ray Hanselman Clean Weep of All Three FLW Rayovac Texas Division Events!

Hanselman Trifecta Tops Texoma

by David A. Brown 

Originally post @ flwoutdoors.com

Third tournament win puts Ray in a league of his own. (Photo: FLW)

The 2015 Rayovac FLW Series Texas Division season is in the books - and every chapter begins with “Ray Hanselman Wins.” Freshly written, the most recent passage finds Hanselman holding the Lake Texoma trophy he earned with his three-day total of 58 pounds, 13 ounces.
Capping this dominant effort with a 12-pound margin of victory, Hanselman adds another piece of hardware to a now complete collection, also including first-place trophies from this year’s divisional events on Lake Amistad and Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
“This is overwhelming,” Hanselman says. “It’s a dream come true. You just have to put yourself in position to win in every tournament and if everything goes your way you will.
“Everything just fell into place. I didn’t lose any fish.”
Hanselman says his Texoma success came down to a couple of key decisions, the first of which involved leveraging recent weather and its impact on the lake.
Essentially, heavy rains the weekend prior to the tournament had quickly reversed a low-water scenario and pushed Texoma a couple of feet above normal spring pool. This sudden influx of water brought the usual clarity-diminishing inflows that probably frustrated a lot of sight-fishermen.