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130 two-man teams showed up
Saturday morning, April 29th, for the 26th annual Norris Craft Open on Watts Bar Lake. The
weather was perfect, with clear skies and warm temperatures. For some reason the fish didn't understand this though. Fishing has been
really tough all spring, and Saturday was no exception. This year's
winning weight was the second lowest in the history of the Norris
Craft Open.
Edgar Housley and Gary Berry of Lafollette,
TN., were the big winners this year with a winning weight of 13.20
lbs. The winning team stated they had prefished all
week, and like most of the other anglers, had had little success.
They decided to use the same pattern that had brought them a
second place finish in last year's tournament. The winning
pattern was fishing a DD-22 and a spinnerbait in 5' of water in
the upper section of the lake. Their winning stringer was anchored
by a 5+ pound largemouth, but this was not the winning fish. It
turns out that the biggest fish they had was a small 12"
keeper that was caught on their last stop on the way back to the
weigh-in. For their efforts they brought home a beautiful
new Y2K 2000 FXLD Vee Norris Craft on a Hustler Tandem Trailer. We would like to take this
opportunity to congratulate Edgar and Gary on a job well done.
This year we were able to award cash and prizes to the top 40 teams. We would like to
thank all the participants and our sponsors for making this year's Norris Craft Open a
success.
Below is a list of the top ten finishers, smallmouth and largemouth lunkers,
and weights.
|
| 2nd Sonny Lee
& Joe Lee |
12.48 lbs. |
| 3rd Andy
Morgan & Larry Miles |
12.08
lbs. |
| 4th Duane
Dalton & Mike Dalton |
11.42
lbs. |
| 5th John
Deak & David Rauch |
9.50
lbs. |
| 6th Wesley
Strader & Bud Strader |
8.64
lbs. |
| 7th Doug
Stooksberry & Rick Starling |
8.58
lbs. |
| 8th Tim
Wiley & Chuck Stringfield |
8.14
lbs. |
| 9th Jim
Allen & George Cain |
7.68
lbs. |
| 10th Bill
Bollinger & Bill Eubanks |
7.58
lbs. |
| Big Largemouth
Lowell Watts & James Bosley |
5.68 lbs. |
| Big Smallmouth
Sonny & Joe Lee |
4.16 lbs. |
