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Welcome to the Plano Tournament Tackle Box! In this new series we will highlight the winners at each 2009 College Bass event. After each tournament, you will learn what baits were kept in the tackle box, how they were fished, and where they were fished.
| Event: | West Super Regional |  |
| Where: | Lake Palestine Tyler, Tx | |
| Winners: | LSU Shreveport's Zach Caudle and Joe Landry | |
| Key Baits: | Zoom Ultravibe Speed Worm Yamamoto Swimming Swimming Senko LaserLure popper (Spicy Shad) Heddon Spit'n image |
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| Technique: | Fishing a stump filled flat in the back of a shallow creek. |
TYLER, TX - On a day when only one limit was caught out of the field of 34 competing teams in the 2009 College Bass West Super Regional on Lake Palestine, it was two critical keepers in the final 30 minutes that pushed Day One leaders Joe Landry and Zach Caudle from LSU Shreveport to victory.
"I'm burning up, tired and hungry - we haven't eaten at all today," Caudle said. "When we only caught three keepers today we thought it was over with. I really thought we needed to catch two more fish and have around 15 pounds to win, but this is just a great feeling - we have been having so much fun this week."
Their two-day total of 30.33 pounds was almost five pounds heavier than the second-place team of Austin Hollowell and Brandon Dickenson. The anglers from North Texas landed the only limit of the day, pushing their total for the tournament to 25.98 pounds. Northwestern State's Zach Hester and Adam McDonald fell one spot to finish in third place with 21.89 pound.
For Landry and Caudle it was their first tournament with College Bass and their first tournament victory as a team, but it didn't come easily on the final day. They caught their first keeper early in the morning, but then didn't boat another between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
"As soon as we pulled up we got a few bites and we thought it would be a great day, but then it just turned off," Landry said. "At 1:00 p.m., with about 30 minutes left before we had to start to make our way back in, we pulled up around another boat fishing a club tournament. They were catching a bunch of bitty fish, so we went out to go around them and threw a few casts out into deeper water and caught our two best fish on back to back casts."
After a less than stellar practice in which they learned not to fish the lower end or docks, Landry and Caudle looked at a map and decided to start the tournament all the way at the back of Flat Creek.
"We talked to a lot of guys that were fishing places like Kickapoo and they wouldn't be saying much, but occasionally they let slip little details like how deep they were getting bit," Landry said. "Based on that, we chose that area in Flat Creek which is all about 4 feet deep and that is where we spent the whole tournament except the time it actually took to get back there. It was probably a 45 minute idle through the stumps once you got to the area."
They relied on a Zoom Ultravibe Speed Worm to catch their bigger fish and a Yamamoto Swimming Senko to fill out their limit. Both lures were green pumpkin and fished with a 1/16-ounce weight.
Landry and Caudle also relied on a topwater, alternating between a Heddon Spit'n Image and a LaserLure popper in a spicy shad color. With those lures in hand, the anglers just kept going around and around in the same area at the back of Flat Creek.
"I was really hurting for a Power-Pole the whole time this week," Caudle said. "I really think we would have caught more fish if we had one. The key, especially on Day One after the rain passed through, was being really quiet."
Neither lack of sleep or tough conditions could keep the two anglers from claiming the first-place trophy at the end of the day. Weighing in last, their nearly 10-pound bag put the nail in the coffin and they easily walked away with the first-place prize.
