Farage Dominates Delta Co-anglers
California co-angler wins by more than 15 pounds
Adapt or die. That pretty well sums up co-angler Jack Farage’s runaway win at the Rayovac FLW Series Western Division event presented by Ranger Boats on the California Delta this week. Obviously, the Discovery Bay, Calif., co-angler adapted – he changed baits every day – and made all the right moves.
Farage opened the tournament with a massive 26-pound limit, followed with 11-11 yesterday and then blew the competition away with 16-14 today. His three-day total of 54-09 is 15-07 better than second-place co-angler Todd Kline’s.
The first day, Farage got on a reaction bite with a crankbait, jerkbait and ChatterBait, but it was the crankbait – a red craw 6th Sense Crush square-bill – that did the most damage. On day two, the crankbait produced only little fish in the morning, so Farage changed to a Senko. Today, he used the Senko and a River2Sea Whopper Plopper buzzing topwater, which produced a mammoth Cal Delta hawg at the end of the day.
“It was just an unbelievable day,” Farage says. “I kept catching small ones and was thinking I needed a big bag, but looking at the weights today, it looks like it was a lot tougher.
“I tried the topwater thing. That was my pro’s deal [he fished with Joe Uribe Jr.],” he adds. “He was doing so well doing it, that I thought to myself, ‘What are you doing? You need to do something different.’ I put it down, went to the Senko and got a limit. In the last 40 minutes I started throwing the towpater, and the big one bit. The fish had to be close to 9 pounds.”
Uribe was throwing the Whopper Plopper most of the afternoon, but he suffered from a rash of short-biters. Farage got his hooked but almost didn’t land it.
“When it hit that thing it was doing cartwheels behind the tules,” Farage recalls. “I lost some big ones on the first day, but today I got them in.”
For his victory, Farage won a brand-new Ranger Z117 with a 90-hp outboard and 250 points toward qualifying for the Rayovac FLW Series Championship.
Top 10 Co-anglers
1. Jack Farage – Discovery Bay, Calif. – 54-09 (15) – Ranger Z117 W/90-hp Outboard ($27,000)
2. Todd Kline – San Clemente, Calif. – 39-02 (15) – $4,536
3. Jordan Pinasco – Galt, Calif. – 38-15 (14) – $3,629
4. John Rossetti – Stockton, Calif. – 38-04 (14) – $3,175
5. Eric Hawkins – Sacramento, Calif. – 38-00 (15) – $2,721
6. Randy Bruno – Huntington Beach, Calif. – 37-08 (13) – $2,268
7. Daniel Leue – Colusa, Calif. – 36-11 (15) – $1,814
8. Paul Reutlinger – West Jordan, Utah – 36-09 (12) – $1,588
9. Rafael Ortiz – Roseville, Calif. – 33-10 (12) – $1,361
10. Tom Nokes – Riverton, Utah – 33-06 (15) – $1,134