Summersville, WV – There were a lot of storylines that came out of last weekend’s Marshall Bass Trail Cup and I will get to probably all of them at some point. But for now, let’s recap the tournament as a whole and talk about exactly what went down and how everything played out.
First thing is first, not one person picked Cody Huddleston or Zach Horrocks to win in our Marshall Bass Trail: Team Members make 2022 Cup picks and of course, Cody and Zach called me later after winning and reminded me of my bad decisions. But this is how I tie all of this recap together.
I originally thought going into this weekend, the fishing was going to be brutal. Everyone I had talked to throughout the week had been struggling and I thought this might go down like a typical Summersville grinder. With the forecast predicted for nice weather and the water being super clear I thought it could get tough and that is how I based my picks. What I didn’t know before arriving there Friday was the wind factor.
Saturday, the wind blew a constant 17mph with gusts up to 25 to 30mph and that made all the difference for the field. The wind plus roughly 25 to 30 boats practicing on Friday provided great watercolor on Saturday and ultimately pushed the fish shallow. And therefore the field caught them exceptionally well on Day 1.
The Day 2 cut weight was 7.62 caught by Cole Sowards and Mike Sowards who barely squeaked out 11th place finisher Travis Woods who had 7.22. There were 13 bags over seven pounds and 19 limits caught amongst the field. A large majority of those limits came shallow cranking.So again, my picks came solely on what I thought the conditions were going to be…
Day 2 was a whole different set of conditions and therefore the Top 10 was faced with much tougher fishing. Post-frontal conditions after a brutal storm Saturday night brought no wind and sunny conditions Sunday morning. Proving to put up a challenge for the competitors on Day 2.
With the tough fishing reported from anglers at the weigh-in, seven of the ten teams caught their limit, but only four bags tipped over the eight-pound mark. Aaron Hayes and Ben Halcomb weighed in the biggest bag on Day 2 at 8.73.
At the weigh-in on Sunday Cody and Zach would need to make up a difference of 0.87 of a pound to catch the Day 1 leaders of Tim Wade and David Riddle. When David and Tim rode up the hill and told us he had five fish, amongst the team members we thought it was over.
It turned out that Cody and Zach would anchor their Day 2 bag of 8.22 with a 2.09 largemouth kicker in the last 15 minutes of the tournament to just edge out David and Tim who had 6.99 on Day 2.
Finishing in the bridesmaid spot two years in a row now is the duo of Ken Bragg and Charlie Epperly who had a two-day total of 17.27, just 0.21 from the win. I am going to catch up with them at some point this week to discuss going back-to-back in 2nd place.
If you were at the weigh-in on Sunday I think you could describe it as “entertaining”. It was one of the most exciting weigh-ins I have ever been a part of and I think everyone enjoyed it by the number of phone calls I received afterward. To have it come down to the last boat to weigh in with so much on the line it was an absolute blast to see it all come together. The goal for 2023 is to do it all over again and crown new champions or possibly repeat champions once again!
