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The Triton Boats Tournament Trail presented by Nichols Marine kicked off the 2007 season Sunday, March 4th at Lake Eufaula. Two hundred and Ninety-One teams (291) braved the early morning temps, continuing Triton’s tradition of being Oklahoma’s largest team trail. The teams were competing for the top prize a Triton boat powered by a Mercury motor. Second place was guaranteed a runner-up prize of $10,000 bucks. Included in the impressive payouts, a total of 71 places were paid, to satisfy a large number of competing anglers.
In addition, new for 2007, the Triton Team Trail proudly presents the Nichols Marine Customer Appreciation Award in each event. $1,000 dollars will be awarded to one team per event throughout the season.
The tournament got underway Sunday morning with a cold start; the early spring weather in Oklahoma had most anglers digging for their warm weather gear as the forecast again affected the anglers on tournament day. But clear skies and a brisk Oklahoma breeze slowly warmed things up throughout the morning and cleared off the frost as the anglers searched for that elusive big stringer of tournament bass.
As teams begin arriving back at Eufaula Cove Sunday afternoon to begin the weigh-in proceedings, it quickly became obvious that Eufaula wasn’t going to give up the big stringers without a fight, or at least for this weekend.
Jason and Jerry Christie claimed the first place prize, a Triton TR186 boat equipped with a Mercury 150 motor, with a HUGE five fish limit at 19.04 pounds! The winning team brought in over 19 pounds of Eufaula bass and easily outdistanced their nearest competitors. Second place went to Danny Holtsclaw and Mike Silger whose FOUR fish weighed in at 13.83 pounds and was good enough for the $10,000.00 GUARANTEED to 2nd place! In third place, Earl Hoskins and Harry Coker brought 13.48 pounds to the scales. The third place finish netted them a cool $5,000.00! The fourth place spot went to Tod Mercer and Jeff Belote with 12.92 pounds on their five fish and earned them $2,800.00. Rounding out the top five and taking home a check for $2,200.00 was Paul Smith and Wayne Diffee at 11.76 pounds. Gary James and Michael Haas brought the big bass of the event to the scales; the big 7.14 pound largemouth brought them the $1,000.00 big bass award.
After taking the win Jason Christie agreed to share a little information with the BASS ZONE viewers. Here’s what he said, “we fished yesterday but I was hurting pretty bad and couldn’t really move around because of the wind, we didn’t really do any good so today we made a long run, burned about $100 dollars in gas and went looking and found an area that was loaded up with shad. That was the key (the shad) because we caught those fish in about an hour! After the shad went down around noon we only caught two other little keepers that didn’t really help us. I don’t think those bass were staging or anything, they were just up eating. All our fish came in about 3 to 5 feet of water on a little flat. The water temp on that flat was 48 degrees but in the creeks and pockets I’ve seen it as high as 51 to 52 degrees but we just couldn’t catch anything out of them. We just hit the right area at the right time and just loaded them up!” Jason also wanted to thank his very generous sponsors for all that they do. “Ranger Boats, Mercury, Motorguide, Jimmy Houston Marine, BOOYAH, YUM, Rebel and Xcalibur.”
Jason fished the Stren Central division event on Bull Shoals prior to his trip down to Eufaula and at that event he fished for 6 straight days and had a 120 mile boat ride in rough water so coming into this weekend he was hurting pretty bad just from the beating of the big waves. He said, “on Saturday I looked out there at those 4 and 5 foot rollers and just decided I was hurting to bad to go out there. But, on Saturday night I got some really good rest and was prepared for the Triton event on Sunday!”
The BASS ZONE would like to again congratulate Jason and Jerry on their big win and we appreciate them sharing a few tidbits of information with the BASS ZONE! Again, great job on an impressive sack of fish.
Danny Holtsclaw and Mike Silger the second place team said, “our first keeper came fairly early this morning, around 7:30 (AM) and the rest were staggered throughout the rest of the day. We only had four bites all day and caught all four fish. We had one pretty good one about 5 ½ pounds and the rest were just solid keeper fish. We had a terrible practice and didn’t have much to go on so we just stayed down lake throwing a jerkbait for the balance of the day.” They added, “we just got lucky!” The pair also wanted to thank Nichols Marine. “He’s been really good to us and runs a really good tournament.”
The third place team of Earl Hoskins and Harry Coker had this to say about their productive weekend on the water. “Basically we flipped a jig all day long! We had five keepers and about 4 dinks throughout the day. It was a really good weekend, we fished an event yesterday and made a check and then nailed down third today! Just goes to show what really good teamwork can do.”
Big Bass winners, Gary James and Michael Haas had this to say. “After spending about 20 minutes thawing out with some heaters this morning I tied on a black and chartreuse jig and on the first cast, bam there he was. We ended up having to kind of flip him in the boat like a spatula with the net because it was frozen solid. We really didn’t know how big he was, we were thinking five or six pounds but 7.14 will work for us. That was our only bite of the day, but it was a good one.” They also wanted to “thank” Mom and Dad for all their support!
The BASS ZONE would also like to congratulate the rest of the top finishers for a great showing and thank them for the interviews.
The next Nichols Marine Triton Team Tournament Trail event will be held at Grand Lake on Sunday, April 15th. The tournament will be going out of Martin Landing so come join the fun!
Don’t forget to checkout the products of the fine sponsor’s of the 2007 Triton Boats Tournament Team Trail. Also, the entire Triton Boats Team Tournament Trail organization would like to give a special thanks to the very generous sponsors for the 2007 season, remember without them none of this would be possible: Triton Boats, Mercury, Nichols Marine, BSX, Budweiser, Quantum, United Ford, Lowrance, MotorGuide, Falcon Graphite Rods, Interstate Batteries, Hamby’s Protector and Fishin’ Pals. Nichols Marine is also very proud to be associated with all these sponsors. Please remember these sponsors and use them every chance you get. These sponsors help make your rewards become much greater. They sponsor these tournaments to say “Thanks” to you, the ultimate customer. Through their participation we hope these events will be a rewarding experience for you.
Nichols Marine is also a proud supporter of the Fishin’ Pals non-profit organization which is dedicated to providing great outdoors competition, friendships, and fun in the form of youth/adult fishing tournaments. For additional information about their activities visit them online at : http://www.fishinpals.homestead.com
For more information about the Triton Boats Tournament Trail presented by Nichols Marine you may contact Stan Honeycutt by phone at (918) 258-3474 or via email at tritonnichols@cox.net. You may also visit the Triton Boats Team Trail webpage http://www.tritontrail.homestead.com through the BASS ZONE tournament links. From the Region Coverage simply click on the Oklahoma Team Trails link then scroll down to the Triton team trail and click on the website link. Entry forms and inquires may also be mailed to: Triton Team Trail P.O. Box 140335 Broken Arrow, OK 74014-0335.
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The BASS ZONE would like to again thank the 2007 Triton Boats Team Trail and Tournament Director Stan Honeycutt for letting us be a part of the exciting action and events in 2007.
The BASS ZONE is the leader in providing bass fishing information to the anglers and bass fishing fans everywhere and we look forward to continuing our coverage.
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