Goreville tandem wins fishing tourney

BY LES WINKELER, THE SOUTHERN thesouthern.com |Posted: Saturday, April 30, 2011 1:00 am | Loading…

MARION - When Marion Athletic Director Mike Chornak announced the weight, "16 pounds, 6 ounces," Goreville's Clayton Craig raised his fists above his head and screamed.

That announcement confirmed what Craig believed to be the obvious, that he and his partner, Andrew Nixon, had taken first place in the Wildcat Invitational Fishing Tournament.

Craig was indeed correct, that weight was nearly 2.5 pounds better than runners-up Dylan Vaughn and Trenton Easley of West Frankfort. The tournament, which was postponed because of bad weather two weeks ago, was on Lake of Egypt.

The winners were supremely confident they had the winning weight.

"We were pretty much done fishing after we caught the limit," Craig said. "We were thinking, ‘It's in the bag. Let's go take a nap.'"

And, it didn't take long for Craig and Nixon to catch their limit. They caught 16 to 17 fish on the day, but just the five keepers.

"We quit about 11 a.m.," Nixon said.

Although the lake was still high from torrential rains, Craig and Nixon did not target fish in new water. They caught the fish on deep-diving crank baits, skimming the tops of weeds in about 20 feet of water.

Although a lot of egg-laden females were brought to the scales, the winners said they weren't catching spawning fish.

"Ours had a lot of meat on them," Nixon said.

"Some looked like they had been fanning," Craig said.

Craig also took big bass honors with a 4-pound, 7-ounce fish. He said it was the big bass competition that had him nervous.

"I was really concerned about the big fish weight, not the collective weight," he said. "I knew we had the collective weight in the bag. I was concerned about the big fish."

Only one other four-pounder - 4-pounds, 1 ounce - was weighed in.

There were 40 boats from 10 schools entered in the event. Remarkably, 37 boats brought limits to the scales.

"That's unbelievable," Chornak said. "That's incredible, and these are high school kids. We have some very talented high school fishermen out here.

"It was an incredible tournament. The kids caught a lot of fish and it was a beautiful day."

Posted in More-sports , Goreville on Saturday, April 30, 2011 1:00 am

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