District 12 West Virginia and Virginia National Semi-Finals

It was tough fishing at Stonewall Jackson Lake on September 14-15, 2019 for the 2019 District 12 West Virginia and Virginia National Semi-Finals. Water levels were slowly falling and the water temperature was 82 degrees. Weather was mostly sunny with a few passing clouds the first day and blue bird skies on day two. Fish were being caught on topwater baits (frogs, buzz baits), spinnerbaits and soft plastic (creature baits and large worms). To make fishing even tougher, day two was shortened (little over an hour) due to a fog delay. Coming in first place on the boater side was Chris Fiore with 19.11 lbs, and also from Virginia was Tom Hayes with 16.19 pounds! Mitch Camden won the Ranger Cup award!

D12 1st Place Boater

The Bass Federation of Utah
District 22 National Semi-Final
Location: Bullfrog Marina, Lake Powell, UT
Date: September 7,8 2019

Event Summary

This Semi-Final event turned out to be a great event. The fishing on Lake Powell was supposed to have heated up by the second weekend in September. However, Mother Nature had other ideas as the heat during the event was record breaking for this time of year. This kept the fish in their summertime patterns and the numbers of fish caught was significantly less than expected. That being said, our Tournament Champion, Zac Dinkins, crushed the field on day 1 with a 14lb sack of largemouth. That bag of fish left the rest of us feeling very envious. Stephen Tauriello led the NV Anglers and he came in with a 10lb sack of fish for 2nd on the first day. The 3rd spot was held down by Utah’s Justin Hicks with a 9.19lb limit. Big Fish of the whole tournament was brought in by Paul Morley. He scaled an impressive 5.53lb toad! Every competitor was able to catch fish the first day even though only 5 limits were brought to the scales.

Zac Dinkins Tournament CHAMPION Boater

On the Co-Angler side of things, the standings were ultra-close after Day 1. Jackson Hinkley of Utah had the lead with 6.33lbs on 4 fish. Adam Cacal of NV was in a close second with 6.32lbs on 3 fish. Spencer Lazara was not far behind and he brought the only Co-Angler limit to the scales. He finished the day in 3rd with 5.85lbs.

Day 2 turned out to be a bit rainy and very windy. The winds were out of the Southwest and sustained between 10-20mph.

A few anglers benefited from this change, but overall the weights dipped on Day 2. For the Boaters, Zac Dinkins was able to hold off runner up Jason Warren for the win. Stephen Tauriello from NV came in with just enough to edge out Justin Hicks of Utah for 3rd place. Justin Hicks was the events Ranger Cup winner with his 4th place finish. There were only 2 limits of 10lbs or more the 2nd day with both of those limits coming from anglers who didn’t do as well the 1st day. (Jesse Ortega-NV and Joe Johnson-UT)

JUSTIN HICKS 4TH PLACE BOATER AND RANGER CUP WINNER

The Co-Angler champion really separated himself from the rest of the field. Adam Cacal brought in an impressive 8.5lb limit of fish and finished nearly 4lbs ahead of Spencer Lazara. Spencer came in with a big fish weighing 3.94lbs and that catapulted him above the 3rd place finisher Jackson Hinckley of UT.

Adam Cacal 1st Place CoAnglers

The State Pride overall winner this year was NEVADA. Their Co-Anglers fished extremely well and made up the deficit that the Boaters left them. The NV team was able to edge out the UT team by 3lbs. Final tally was NV-84.06 to UT-80.82. This is the second year in a row the visiting state has handed the home team the loss.

Joe Johnson/Utah Bass Federation

District 19 Montana and Idaho National Semi-Finals

Another successful TBF event took place on Noxon Reservoir September 7-8, 2019. A total of 44 individuals took part in the District 19 Semi-Final. This included 9 boaters and 9 co-anglers from Idaho with 13 boaters and 13 co-anglers from Montana. Anglers had full run of this 38 mile impoundment to find their fish. On Saturday every contestant weighed in fish with a combination of Large Mouth and Small Mouth Bass. On the second day only 3 individuals blanked so it was a pretty successful outing. Weights were lower than normal for this reservoir but still fish were being caught with most contestants weighing in 5 fish limits.

D19 NSF Top 5 Boaters

Fishing was more difficult than normal for Noxon as the water was still warm and the area was going through rather drastic weather changes. Bright and sunny one day, rainy and cooler the next. Most fish seemed to come out of deep water on weed edges. Looks like this may have given the host team the advantage knowing the types of structure and where to find it that would be holding fish during these type of conditions.

D19 NSF Top 5 CoAnglers

Thanks to the Lakeside Resort in Trout Creek for providing their facility for us to operate from. On Friday Evening we had the sign-up banquet and everything else was run from the back yard which is beautiful with views of the reservoir along with the Cabinet Mountains. I would also like to thank Chris Adams (Idaho TBF President) and the other volunteers we had to help pull off this event.

If you ever have a chance to visit Montana make sure you bring your bass boat and check out this resort on gorgeous Noxon Reservoir.

Don Collins
Montana VP/TD