Forty five teams from eight states converged on Ky Lake this week to crown a 2016 NBAA Championship Team. The event is a three day cumulative weight tournament, out of KY Dam Village State Park. All the teams get to fish every day, and the leader board usually adjusts just about everyday as well.
Day one on Thursday, brought a variety of weather during the day. It started off pleasant enough with cloudy skies and a gentle breeze. However, as the temperatures climbed during the day, so did the wind velocity. By mid-afternoon, the gust were topping 20+ mph and above in some places. This made the river a tough place to be this afternoon.
However, as usually happens, the fish bite for someone. Today they bit for Mark Hewitt & Ron O’Keefe from Michigan. Their limit pushed the scales to read 20.03 pounds. They were the only team to break the twenty pound club for Thursday. As tough as it was for everybody, there were not many tips on how they caught their fish. Most said they only managed just a limit of keepers or only got to cull one time all day. However as tough as the bite was, the consistency was astounding. It took over ten pounds to place in the top 20 places. The biggest bass of the day belonged to Stanley Pearson & Aaron Fasel of Michigan with an impressive 6.07 lunker.
Second place belonged to Kent Stingley & Casey Clark of Montana with a limit that weighed 17-15 pounds. Coming in third was Stanley Pearson & Aaron Fasel from Michigan with 17-10 pounds. Each of these top 3 teams will get a bonus check on Saturday for having one of the three heaviest stringers on either of the first two days of competition.
Rounding out the top five on Day 1 was Lee Wubbles & Chris Wood in fourth place with 17.00 pounds. Fifth place belonged to John Fowler & Robert Schaulk with 15.04 pounds.
A total of 38 of the 45 teams weighed in fish on day 1 for a total weight of 364 pounds. There were a total of 16, five fish limits brought to the scales.
There are lots of great cash and prizes to be won at this NBAA Championship this week, including a new Ranger 178 bass boat with a 75 hp Evinrude motor, trolling motor and depth finders. A total prize value of right at $23,000 to the Winners. Cash and prizes will be paid to the top ten teams and prizes for the next 15 teams after that. Check back each day to see who comes in with the big catch of the day.
