NATCHITOCHES, LA — Brandon Koon and Kyle Winstead of the University of Tennessee at Martin brought in 13-5 to take the Day 1 lead of the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Central Regional on the Red River.
Koon and Winstead not only took the lead but also caught the only limit of the day. Extreme weather conditions seem to be the culprit causing poor fishing. A drastic 50-degree swing in temperatures from yesterday to today shut down most of the shallow bite these anglers had going.
As a front pushed into the Red River region yesterday, air temps plummeted from 82 degrees at 4 PM to 29 degrees by midnight. A sleet and snow mixture shuffled around by a 25 mile-per-hour winds greeted anglers as they launched at Grand Ecore this morning. The foul weather conditions caused a 2-and-a-half hour delay as tournament officials held the field until safer conditions finally took hold.
Of the 90 boats participating, only 36 registered one or more fish on Day 1. The potential maximum number of fish those 90 boats could have brought in would max out at 450 if they all caught a 5 fish limit. Instead, only 70 fish came across the scale on Day 1.
“We had a pretty rough practice,” said Kyle Winstead. “We scrapped everything and just tried something off the wall.”
That “off the wall” pattern seemed to work well on Day 1. When asked if they thought the pattern would hold up, UT Martin seemed fairly confident that not only would their primary area hold up, but that they could also expand on their pattern.
“It’s a unique pattern but we found one other place where we can duplicate it and one more place we think we can catch them in. We just didn’t have time to try it today,” said Winstead.
Tyler Craig and Blake Alford of Louisiana Monroe sit in second after Day 1 with 4 fish weighing 11-1, while Brock Enmeier and Colten Hutson of the University of Central Oklahoma hold down the third spot with 3 fish for 10-3.
Evan Smith and Aaron Sarna of Arkansas Tech University brought in the heaviest bass weighing 6- 3 to claim the Carhartt Big Bass lead.
Anglers will head back out onto the Red River Friday morning starting at 6:30 AM Central from Grand Ecore landing. Weigh-in will begin at 2:45 PM as anglers make their way in off the water. The public is welcome, but if you can’t make it out, feel free to follow along with all the action on Bassamaster.com.