District 15 Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island TBF National Semi-Final

District 15 Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island TBF National Semi-Final on September 21-22, 2019.

The 2019 TBF District 15 National Semi-Final Tournament on the 1000 Islands is now in the books. Teams from CT, NJ and RI competed for a chance to advance to the TBF National Championship next spring.
Keith Cleary (CT) was the District Champion of the Boater Division with a two-day total of 39.47 pounds.
Ryan Kusmit (CT) was the District Champion of the Co-Angler Division with a two-day total of 26.33 pounds.
The “State Pride” competition was won by the Connecticut Team with a total weight for the eligible anglers of 200.52 pounds, New Jersey was second with 169.02, and Rhode Island took third with 153.95.

D15 Top 5 Boaters

Boater Division – Top 5
1st place – Keith Cleary (CT): 39.47 lbs
2nd place – Jeremy Sadowski (RI): 34.53 lbs
3rd place – Ken Bugden (CT): 33.45 lbs
4th place – Matt Marinelli (CT): 32.43 lbs
5th place – Nick Diamandas Jr (NJ): 31.27 lbs

Boater Division – Lunkers
Day 1 – Tim Thompson (CT): 7.68 pound smallmouth
Day 2 – Keith Cleary (CT): 5.40 pound smallmouth

D15 Top 5 Co-Anglers

Co-Angler Division – Top 5
1st place – Ryan Kusmit (CT): 26.33 lbs
2nd place – Brian Wisniewski (NJ): 24.54 lbs
3rd place – Jeff Misaiko (CT): 24.22 lbs
4th place – Brian Snowman (NJ): 22.26 lbs
5th place – Lou Basciani (NJ): 21.31 lbs

Co-Angler Division – Lunkers
Day 1 – Jeff Misaiko (CT): 5.48 pound smallmouth
Day 2 – Mike Wotanowski (NJ): 5.30 pound smallmouth

Advancing to the TBF National Championship next spring are the following anglers:
Connecticut – Keith Cleary (Boater) & Ryan Kusmit (Co-Angler)
New Jersey – Nick Diamandas Jr. (Boater) & Brian Wisniewski (Co-Angler)
Rhode Island – Jeremy Sadowski (Boater) & Scott Arruda (Co-Angler)

District 9 Wisconsin and Minnesota TBF National Semi-Final in La Crosse, WI.

District 9 Wisconsin and Minnesota TBF National Semi-Final in La Crosse, WI.

The TBF Semi-Final at LaCrosse was a great success on September 21st and 22nd, 2019. It started off with Registration on Friday, September 20th and a great meal provided by TBF member Jim Jones from Wisconsin. The next two days greeted the fishermen with overcast skies, a little rain and wind and really mild temperatures for the end of September. The 46 teams from Minnesota and Wisconsin fished two days and the fishing was pretty good.

D9 Boater Champion

Cade Laufenberg, of Wisconsin, had the most success of anyone. He brought the biggest limit to the scales on both competition days. He won the Boater side with limits of 15-02 and 17-09 for a winning weight of 32-11 pounds. The winning Boater from Minnesota was James Howland who racked up 27-08 pounds during the event. The Co-angler winners from each state were Dave Aldrich from Wisconsin who won the event with 24-12 pounds and Robert Beaman who finished second with 23-13 pounds. All four of these anglers punched their ticket to the upcoming Federation National Championship next spring.

D9 Top 4 FNC Qualifiers

There were numerous limits on both the Boater and Co-angler sides each day. As usual, many different techniques were used to catch their limits. Popular baits were spinnerbaits, frogs, swim jigs, square bill crankbaits and Carolina Rigs. Mike Brueggen of Wisconsin had the overall biggest bass of the event with a nice 4-07 lunker that he caught on day two of the event.

D9 Co-Angler Champion

Wisconsin won the Angler pride part of the event and will have bragging rights until next years TBF Semi-Final event that will be held in Minnesota.

District 12 West Virginia and Virginia National Semi-Finals

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

District 22 Utah and Nevada National Semi-Finals

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