Monday, May 05, 2008
Cowden angles for double win
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
Recent columns
BURNT CHIMNEY -- Heading into the Cave Spring Optimist Club's 40th annual fishing tournament at Smith Mountain Lake, Ricky Cowden was confident.
"We were on the crappie," said Cowden, who had been catching lots of fish heavy enough to contend for prizes. "That's what we were really after."
But by the time the tournament started Friday, the crappies had shut down. Eventually, Cowden and his partner -- his 31-year-old son Bill -- had shifted to bass fishing.
The elder Cowden was pitching a plastic worm in the lake's Blackwater arm when he got a bump.
"I came back on it and it didn't move," he said. "I thought it was a log.
"Then it started swimming away."
Twenty minutes later Bill Cowden was sliding the net under a 35.12-pound flathead catfish, a fish not only big enough to win that category in the tournament but also big enough to set a tournament record.
Cowden, a heavy equipment mechanic, wasn't done. Saturday afternoon he was back at the weigh station, having finally found one of those big crappies that had been eluding him and his son. The 2.38-pound fish won that category, too.
Cowden's double was the highlight of the three-day event, which drew just a touch over 500 anglers to Smith Mountain Lake.
With the lake buffeted by high winds most of the weekend, fishing wasn't exactly blockbuster. But it was solid enough to produce a number of notable catches.
A plastic worm also produced the tournament's best largemouth bass, a 6.48-pounder caught by H.D. Ayers of Draper.
As is often the case, the top smallmouth was caught after dark on a topwater lure. Larry Horne of Wirtz caught the 4.18-pounder on a Thunderstick plug.
In their second year back in the tournament, stripers were a no-show.
And, for the 20th consecutive year, no one registered a muskellunge.
Somewhat surprisingly, the top two largemouth bass were registered Friday and managed to withstand all challengers throughout the weekend.
Ayers was fishing a black grape-colored Roboworm on a steep rocky shoreline in the Blackwater arm when his fish hit early Friday afternoon.
"I was just dragging it real slow and got a little tap," said Ayers, who has been fishing in the tournament for about 25 years and had never placed. "I set the hook and he started out."
When Ayers got the bass into the boat he knew it was a decent fish but didn't figure it would contend.
He didn't even rush to the weigh-in site, putting the bass in his livewell and continuing to fish for a few more hours. When he did get the fish to the scales and saw what it registered, he still wasn't confident.
"I didn't think it had a chance," he said. "Maybe third. I didn't think it would hold."
But it did, barely edging out a 6.4-pounder registered by Robert Mills of Glade Hill.
Randy Sayers also had a 6.4-pounder but registered his fish later than Mills, giving Mills the edge in the tie-breaker.
Horne was fishing by himself when he caught the winning smallmouth.
Like many anglers in the tournament, Horne was keying on the nighttime topwater pattern, hoping to find a big bass or striper that was in the shallows ambushing spawning alewives.
Action had actually been really slow Friday night and Horne hadn't caught a fish. Then, about midnight, the big smallmouth hit.
"I thought it was just a largemouth," Horne said. "After I got it in I thought, 'Well, I might be in the money.' "
The fish actually gave him a pretty comfortable margin over Barry Hunter of Christiansburg, who caught a 3.82-pounder Friday.
One angler found who was in the money in the smallmouth category, found himself out of the money after tournament officials disqualified him.
Tournament rules require all anglers in the top four in each category to be at the weigh-in site at noon Sunday. Wade Grindstaff of Rocky Mount, who had the fourth-place smallmouth, was seen at the area before noon but then could not be located.
By the time Grindstaff showed up at 12:20 p.m., saying he had thought he didn't have to be back until 2 p.m., tournament officials had elevated Mark Clingenpeel of Boones Mill into the fourth-place slot.
Optimist Club officers said they hope to add a second tournament in 2008, tentatively setting the dates for Oct. 3-5. The club is considering spicing up that tournament by offering a special bounty, possibly even $10,000 or $20,000, for the winning muskie.
