RUSSELLVILLE - Jeff Lugar of McGaheysville, Va., unseated Doug Thompson of Mabelvale to win the BASS Nation Championship on Saturday at Lake Dardanelle.
Lugar won a fully-rigged Skeeter bass boat with a Yamaha outboard motor valued at $45,000, as well as an invitation to fish the Bassmaster Elite Series Tour in 2014. Both anglers qualified for the 2014 Bassmaster Classic on Feb. 21-23 at Lake Guntersville, Ala., as did the winners of the other four divisions.
The tournament pitted 56 of the nation’s top amateur anglers from the six BASS Nation Divisions, as well as anglers from Italy, Spain, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Canada and Mexico. The angler with the heaviest weight from each division qualified for the Classic.
Classic qualifiers also included Paul Mueller of Southbury, Conn., Mark Dove of North Vernon, Ind., Coby Carden of Shelby, Ala., and Tim Johnston of Kalispell, Mont.
Thompson led the tournament after the second round Friday, but Lugar caught five bass Saturday that weighed 14 pounds, 9 ounces for a three-day total weight of 41-13. Thompson caught five fish weighing 12-0 for a three-day total of 40-3 to finish third.
Lugar said making the Classic is a dream come true, and he said he’s grateful that BASS provides an opportunity for amateurs to compete at that level.
“I’ve been dreaming about this since I was 12 years old,” Lugar said. “I couldn’t affordto do it as a pro, so I took the route that a lot of guys take and tried to get here through the federation.”
The BASS Nation was formerly known as the BASS Federation.
Lugar said he caught his fish over coontail moss in Delaware Bay and Dardanelle Bay on spinnerbaits and chatterbaits. They bit a chartreuse/white spinnerbait Thursday, but they preferred the chatterbait Friday and then back to the spinnerbait Saturday.
Thompson qualified for the Central Division Championship at Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Texas by winning a state championship on Lake Dardanelle. He said he caught his fish on a variety of offerings, including an umbrella rig and a Yum Worm on a shaky head jig.
“The lake has been changing,” Thompson said. “Everybody came in to practice, but people think since I’ve got all this local knowledge I should be able to walk away with it. The guys that adapted were the ones that were sitting on the stage today.”
Carden finished second with a three-day total of 40-9. Carden also caught the biggest bass of the day, a 7-10 largemouth that anchored his final-round weight of 20-14.
Sports, Pages 27 on 10/27/2013