“You’re simply the best

Better than all the rest”

-Tina Turner

The hottest anglers in West Virginia claim another win yet again this weekend at Summersville Lake. The father son duo of Brian Fitzgerald and Dylan Fitzgerald weighed in 11.39 pounds in route to win the second stop of the BASS Nation of West Virginia Buddy Trail. Giving them their third major win in West Virginia this year after just releasing the DockTalkWV West Virginia Bass Fishing Team Power Rankings for the month of April.

Dialing in their largemouth game and the time spent on the water at Summersville has proved invaluable for the duo. In the matter of two weeks the duo has almost cashed $4,000 on a lake they know like the back of their hand.

“I can’t believe we did it again,” said Brian. “Today was way different than winning the Marshall Super Series tournament couple weeks ago. We ended catching a lot of our fish out of the backs of the creeks this time.”

If anyone has proved that time on the water turns into wins it’s the Fitzgeralds. With the raising water this week and the wild weather, the Fitzgeralds have kept up with the fish and it shows.

“This week I went out for an or so hour on Tuesday in the freezing cold to see what was going on,” said Dylan. “I went Thursday for a little bit too, but Dad and I spent all day out there yesterday practicing. Biggest key for us was just eliminating water and finding productive spots where we thought we could win. We honestly only caught 8 pounds or so yesterday and knew we couldn’t win with that so we ended up eliminating all of that stuff”

It was only until the closing hours of the tournament that Dylan caught a spawning two and half pound largemouth that helped seal the deal for them. Almost identically like last year when Dylan and myself won the same May tournament on Summersville in the closing hours. 

“We caught a lot of our fish today just throwing a senko around the back of the creeks,” Dylan explained. “I’ll say this, it was scary throwing 8 pound line around trees and getting those largemouth out of the trees.”

The duo would cash a check for $2,240 and take home 100 points to the Team of the Year race for the BASS Nation of West Virginia Buddy Trail.

Finishing in second place was the duo of Rick Hamer and Billy Payne who weighed in 10.42 pounds.

Rounding out the top three in third place was Cody Huddleston and Nick Pahoundis who had 9.57 pounds and lunker of tournament which was a 4.95 pound largemouth.

John Smith and Wendell Taylor won Freedom Outdoors “Freedom Bucks”

69 teams competed. 

263 fish were weighed and 263 fish were released alive for a 100% live release rate.