TBF Central Divisional Championship, Day 1

Kansas leads team competition, Arkansas’ Melder leads anglers

MUSKOGEE, Okla. – The Arkansas River refused to give up its secrets to all but a handful of the 73 anglers participating in The Bass Federation Central Divisional Championship Wednesday. Only four limits were brought to the scales, and two dozen anglers either weighed one bass or none.

The 12-man team representing the Kansas Bass Federation accounted for two of those limits and sits on top of the team competition with 54 pounds, 10 ounces, just 1 pound, 2 ounces ahead of the home team, Oklahoma. Jay Glasgow of Ft. Gibson had the heaviest sack for Oklahoma, a five-fish limit that weighed just over 9 pounds.

Louisiana is in third with 50 pounds, 1 ounce, followed by Mississippi with 45 pounds, 4 ounces. Arkansas is in fifth and Missouri is in sixth.

Alan Melder, a member of Sea Ark Rod Benders in Monticello, Ark., only weighed four bass, but his 12-pound, 6-ounce stringer was anchored by a 5-pound, 5-ounce largemouth, the big bass of the day. His total catch was enough to take the lead on the first day of the tournament. Despite predictions that the river’s biggest sacks would come from main-river sandbar ledges, Melder caught all of his fish in less than 3 feet of water on frogs and lizards.

Melder, an electrician, said: “We stayed in one 200-yard section all day. Fortunately, my partner agreed to stay when it was his turn to run the boat, so we ended up catching a couple of others after my time in the front was up.

“The pattern really gets good in the middle of the day. I probably caught 10 to 12 total, but I lost a couple that would have been keepers.”

Melder tried fishing deeper water during the practice period, but he couldn’t get on a good pattern, so Melder decided to stick with his original plan. However, Donnie Cobb, the second-place angler after today, caught all of his bass from the main river’s sharp sandbar ledges. He used a Bandit crankbait to catch four keepers for a total weight of 11 pounds, 4 ounces.

“My partner and I caught 15 to 20 bass between us, and we both missed a couple of good fish, so I feel like I should have done better than I did,” said Cobb, a member of Mill Creek Bass Club in Russellville, Ark. “We just hit a bunch of the main-river ledges. Some of them give up bass and some didn’t. We went back and forth to probably 10 spots all day.”

Kansas angler Jason Baird is in third place with a 10-pound, 6-ounce limit. Baird, who “didn’t have a very good practice,” found a concentration of bass along a short section of shoreline. He flipped a tube to catch 25 bass, including his five keepers.

“I beat it pretty hard. I’m not too sure if it will hold up tomorrow, but I’m going to give it a try,” he said.

Tommy Chism of Amory, Miss., is in fourth place with 10 pounds, 2 ounces, and Matt Wolf of Overland Park, Kan., is in fifth with 9 pounds, 15 ounces. Both weighed five bass.

The river level dropped in at least one of the pools today, throwing some of the bass off their predictable patterns. For Robert Cartlidge, TBF president and member of the 12-man Oklahoma team, it put an end to the action.

“The river dropped at least 8 inches, which was enough to really shut down the action,” he said.

Three boaters, including Cartlidge, returned to the check-in late.

“We all got caught in the locks. I was in one coming upriver, and the other two boats were in the lock coming down to the weigh-in. I got caught behind a double barge that took four hours to lock through, but we only had to wait about an hour,” said Cartlidge, who was penalized 1 pound for the minute he was late.

One of the late anglers was penalized 10 pounds, dropping his 7-pound catch down to zero. The third angler didn’t have any fish to weigh, according to Cartlidge.

“There’s really no telling what tomorrow will be like,” said Cobb. “This is a river system, and they seem to change every day. It all depends on river levels, flows and barge traffic. The pattern I was on today depends on current, so I hope they’ll be some current tomorrow.”

The Bass Federation Central Divisional Championship is presented by the National Guard and is hosted by the Oklahoma Bass Federation and the Muskogee Chamber of Commerce. Daily weigh-ins start at 2:30 p.m. at Three Forks Harbor.