Lake Amistad to host Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail event

Amistad is considered by many to be the 'crown jewel' of Texas bass lakes.

January 27, 2005 • MLF • Archives

DEL RIO, Texas – The $1 million Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail presented by Lay’s will make its first regular-season stop Saturday Feb. 19 on Lake Amistad near Del Rio. Hosted by the Del Rio Chamber of Commerce, the tournament will feature as many as 400 of Texas’ finest pros and co-anglers casting for their share of as much as $205,500 in cash and prizes.

Those anglers who fished the event last year will find a completely different fishery when they arrive this year according to local pro Karla Bullard of Del Rio. “Since Feb. 4, 2004, the lake has risen 44 feet,” Bullard said. “We have twice the fishery we had a year ago.” The bass will be in the prespawn stage, and she described the fishing as being “feast or famine” right now. “My husband and I fished together this past Saturday and had a limit weighing 24 or 25 pounds in about an hour and a half, and we were just messing around,” she said. “Then we went out Sunday and didn’t catch a keeper bass.”

The better bass just started moving up from about 40 feet of water to about 25 feet, but Bullard says a lot of smaller bass are up shallower than that. While someone will undoubtedly catch big limits to win the tournament if they find a good school of prespawn bass, Bullard believes that 9 or 10 pounds on the pro side will still make the top 20 because of how the fishing has been as of late.

Anglers take off at 7 each morning from Lake Amistad Marina in Del Rio. Saturday’s weigh-in will also be held at the marina beginning at 3 p.m., and Sunday’s weigh-in will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 2410 Dodson Street in Del Rio beginning at 4 p.m. The community is invited to attend daily takeoffs and weigh-ins.

The winning pro can earn as much as $65,000, which includes a Ranger 519 VX powered by a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Yamaha outboard, Minn Kota trolling motor, Garmin electronics and EverStart batteries plus $30,000 cash. Ranger will also award $5,000 to the highest-finishing pro in the Ranger Cup incentive program, and Yamaha will kick in an additional $2,500 if the Ranger Cup winner’s boat is powered by a Yamaha Outboard. Garmin will award the winning pro an additional $1,000 if the winner uses only Garmin electronics and at least one unit is a qualifying unit. All told, the winning pro could earn as much as $73,500 if all contingency guidelines are met.

The TTT’s next stop will be April 2-3 on Richland Chambers near Corsicana followed by an event April 30-May 1 on Lake Texoma near Dennison. The regular season will come to a close May 21-22 with an event on Toledo Bend near Many, La. The top 50 pros and co-anglers based on year-end points standings will advance to the $195,000 Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail Championship Oct. 15-16 on Lake Conroe near Conroe. The winning pro at the championship can earn as much as $71,000 in cash and prizes, including a Ranger boat.

In TTT competition, 200 points are awarded to the winner, 199 points for second, 198 for third, and so on. Every angler who receives weight credit in a tournament earns points. These points determine angler standings. Pros and co-anglers are randomly paired each day, with pros supplying the boat, controlling boat movement and competing against other pros. Co-anglers fish from the back deck against other co-anglers. Two hundred pros and 200 co-anglers comprise a full field.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail and seven other national tournament circuits offering a combined $30 million in awards through 214 events in 2005. The 27-year-old organization is the purveyor of America’s largest and most prestigious fishing tournaments, including the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, EverStart Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series.

For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, browse this Web site or call (270) 252-1000.

Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as title sponsor of the FLW Tour in 1997 and today is the title sponsor of all FLW Outdoors events. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.