Loughran does the math, wins BassTrakk prize

Ed Loughran wins the new BassTrakk Contingency Prize at the Tennessee River.

Ed Loughran won the new BassTrakk Contingency Prize of $1,000 at the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite on the Tennessee River. The prize goes to the angler whose BassTrakk estimates are closest to his official weights. For the first two days of the tournament Loughran estimated 19-5 for BassTrakk and his official weight was 19-7.

When he’s not fishing the Elite Series Loughran is an attorney in Virginia, so you’d expect him to be a details guy. 

“I’ve weighed my fish in the boat for the last 20 years of tournament fishing,” Loughran said. “But until this prize came along I always sandbagged a little on what went into BassTrakk. Once I saw that B.A.S.S. was giving away $1,000 I decided I was going to figure out a way to win it.”

Loughran used the St. Johns River tournament to learn how close his personal scale was to the official B.A.S.S. scale. He recorded each of his fish weights there in the Accu-Cull Culling Record Board. The device is about the size of a pocket calculator. And he compared those numbers to his official weights. There was a slight difference between the two scales.

“So I had figured out how much my scale was off.”

Loughran used that knowledge to make small weight adjustments for each fish he recorded on the Tennessee River. That strategy paid off with $1,000, which was added to the $10,000 he earned for finishing in 20th place.  After two tournaments he’s 11th in the Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings.

“I’m fairly technically challenged,” said Loughran. “If I can work the BassTrakk app anyone can.”

Here are the top 10 finishers at the Tennessee River for the BassTrakk Contingency Prize, and how close each angler was to his official weight:

Ed Loughran III: 0-2
Scott Martin: 0-5
Hunter Shryock: 0-6
Scott Canterbury: 0-6
Bob Downey: 0-8
Brandon Card: 0-12
John Crews Jr.: 0-14 
Ray Hanselman Jr.: 1-2
Jeff Gustafson: 1-7
Taku Ito: 1-8