The first day of the Southwest Divisional, on Clear Lake in California, is finished, but the standings sheet says the three day tournament is far from over. A total of 58 anglers took to the water this morning in hopes of punching their ticket to the TBF Federation National Championship in the Spring of 2016. Teams from Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah and the host state of California are fishing in this event for two coveted spots from each state, to advance on the TBF grand finale.
These Divisional events are special bass tournaments. They are really two events rolled into one. The bragging rights goal, is to have the most cumulative weight after the three day event. The other goal is that you don’t have to beat everybody else in the event, you simply have to beat only the other anglers that are from your state. The highest two anglers from each of the five states are the real winners this weekend.
Here is how the bragging rights part of the event went on Day 1. Bryan Leck, of Canon City Colorado, took top honors with a hefty 23.03 pound sack among the 158 anglers. Second place was Shane Moline from Kingman, AZ with 22.12 pounds. Third place belonged to Seth Rowe from Chowchilla, CA with 22.04 pounds. Holding down fourth place was Ralph Encizo of Fresno, CA with 22.03 pounds. Rounding out the top five was Inder Lopez of Spring Valley, CA with 21.03 pounds. Sixth & seventh place also broke the twenty pound mark as well. Victor Cole of Nevada had 21.00 pounds and Michael Moreno of California had 20.00 pounds on the dot.
The big bass of the day belonged to Bryan Leck of CO with a nice 6.15 pound lunker. If you look at the overall standings, a seven pound bass would put almost half of the field in the lead. This is going to be a really good event as it will go down to the wire on Day 3.
From the qualifying part of the event, the top two anglers, and the first angler out, in each state look like this after Wednesday’s competition.
CALIFORNIA: Seth Row – 22.04 & Ralph Incizo – 22.03 pounds. Lurking closely in third is Inder Lopez with 21.03 pounds.
ARIZONA: Tom Geffert – 19.02 & Jesse Parks – 18.12. In third is Jon Griffith – 18.02
UTAH: Bill Brown – 19-12 & Don Allphin – 19.03. Third is Cody Compton with 18.07 pounds
COLORADO: Bryan Leck – 23.03 & Brandon White – 19.00. Third is David Wilkins with 17-14.
NEVADA: Shane Moline – 22.12 & Victor Cole – 21.00 with David Hudson in third with 13.04.
The next two days should be very interesting as just about everyone is still in the hunt in each of their respective states. By the way, today all 58 anglers weighed in at least one keeper fish. You don’t see very many times when there are absolutely no zeroes in the weigh in line. It is going to be a shootout over the next two days. Weigh in at Konocti Vista Resort and Casino will begin at 2:30 on Thursday and there will be ten tickets punched to the Federation National Championship on Friday.
