“Hollywood Can’t Script This Kind of Drama!”
by: Drew Gregory
The Columbus stop of the River Bassin Tournament Trail turned out to be a stop that will go down as one that will show the world what this format can do truly do. Not only were big fish caught, but some personal best river bass where landed by anglers and the title came down to a mere quarter of an inch! The drama couldn’t have been scripted.
However, before we get to all that we’ll need to set the stage by leading in to how it all began. On Friday evening the tournament saw 26 anglers from 5 different states sign in at The Outside World in Columbus, GA. In the mix were 5 
former champions, including Lance Coley, the reigning River Basser of the Year. Everyone knew that it would take their A game to pull off the victory.
The water in the Columbus area was low, clear and fishable and anglers took numerous approaches on how to catch their 3-fish virtual stringer. We saw some decide to hit big water on the Chattahoochee and some that went small to avoid crowds and in hopes that some seldom pressured fish would give in to the temptation of their lures. Others opted to find the most stained water within the boundary to give their presentations the best chance to be engulfed. As it turns out, all of those strategies paid off as all of the anglers in the top 10 were split between those gameplans.
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Paddle and Trail Young River Basser Division
The Paddle & Trail River Basser Division was won by Adam “The Beast” Parker, who landed some nice river bass! On stage he was quite the entertainer when he was asked by Drew Gregory what he caught his fish on. “Well, I caught them all on a Rapala J-11, which is what I caught all my fish on when I won in Macon last year.” Gregory went on to ask, “So, are you a one trick pony? What happens if they aren’t biting the J-11?” Parker riled the crowd with laughter when he said, “I pretty much just go home if they are aren’t biting the J-11.” No one has ever accused Adam Parker of not shooting you straight and that is another reason why he is a great champion.
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Kokatat Team Division
In the Kokatat Team Division we had the largest team stringer ever turned in! Tim Perkins and Lance Coley took a seldom used team strategy and fished separate water 80 miles apart from each other. It turned out they both got on some good fish for their efforts and the duo pulled out the victory over Mark Tidwell and Scott Starnes by 9 inches. Starnes and Tidwell had a great day catching numerous solid fish, but just missed out on the kicker they needed to take the title. The husband and wife tandem of Jason and Rachel Stutts came in third place and it marks the first time a husband and wife combo has placed in the team division. You could tell their chemistry and teamwork made it all possible. Perkins and Coley’s total ended up being a whopping 80.5 inches – a new team record for the team division and that is an average of over 20 inches per bass!
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Aqua Bound Individual Angler Division
The Aqua Bound individual angler division top 5 came down to Tim Perkins, Jason Stutts, Lance Coley, Scott Starnes and Brandon Hicks. Tournament MC Drew Gregory quickly cut the five down to three when the presentation revealed that Starnes and Hicks were 4th and 5th respectively with 54.25 and 51.75 inches. It was now down to Perkins, Stutts and Coley who all experienced tremendous days on the water. Perkins was in the lead after two fish had been scored and it would all come down if any angler would have a kicker 3rd fish to put them over the top.
Lance Coley was first up and he certainly proved to have a monster of a bass stashed away as the show revealed his 23.5 inch largemouth bass, giving him a great final score of 58 inches! On stage Coley stated that he caught the fish on a buzzbait on about his 3rd cast of the morning. “It was still so early in the morning that I still had my head lamp on and I couldn’t tell how big she was until I got her right by the kayak and my head lamp shined on her and I was like ‘oh my gosh!’” It turned out that it was also Coley’s new personal best river bass in terms of length and weight. He weighed the fish in at 8lbs and 6oz. So, would Jason Stutts or Tim Perkins have an answer?
Up next was Stutts and as incredible as Coley’s catch was Stutts had something even more spectacular in store for the crowd that filled The Outside World’s Columbus location. Due to Coley’s hawgzilla Stutts would need a 23 inch bass to take the lead. Would there be two monster largemouth scored at this stop? Nope, something even better as Stutts caught what is almost certainly the biggest shoal bass ever to be scored in any tournament – a 23 inch, 7lb 8oz shoaliemonster! This fish put him just 1/4 of an inch ahead of Coley and made it very difficult for Perkins to overcome. Perkins would still manage a nice 19 inch Alabama spotted bass but it still put him 2.5 inches out of the lead in 3rd place.
Stutt’s story and experience this day is one that will be tough to match as long as this tournament trail continues. The state record shoal bass is only 8lbs 3oz, which means that Stutts fish, just a month and a half earlier when it was in its pre-spawn state would have easily been a state record. To catch a fish like that is no doubt a fish of a lifetime but to have it happen on tournament day was beyond amazing! However, the story doesn’t end there. Stutts was the first angler to check in and right before he was about to give his cameras memory card over to the tournament officials his cameras screen went blank. He pulled out his card, gave it to tournament coordinator Brooks Beatty to put his photos onto the computer and the PC would not read his memory card. The card then got passed over to tour director Drew Gregory to try on a MAC and again the card would not be read. Stutts then put the card back into his camera and his own camera would not pull up the photos, claiming there were no photos on the card. At this point, needless to say, Stutts was getting a bit emotional about the thought of not just having a memory card fail but having it fail at the most critical time ever with one of the most amazing fish on it.
After about 30 minutes of scouring the internet for ways to recover files from a memory card the staff had no success. Seeing Jason about to have a heart attack, Drew Gregory continued to try and get the photos off the card and out of nowhere they briefly popped up as a drive on his MAC. Stutts breathed a huge sigh of relief only to immediately hear it disappeared again. However, it showed up briefly once so maybe it would again and then Gregory could pull the files off quickly before it lost connection. Time and time again they tried and finally for a brief moment the card read again and the files were dumped onto the trail’s computer and Stutts breathed the biggest sigh of relief one has ever seen. He then was able to properly enjoy his Country’s BBQ that was provided for the anglers at this stop and of course later on stage he found out how critical those photos were since he took the Columbus title by a mere 1/4 of an inch.
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Big Fish Award
Coley ended up taking the NuCanoe Big Fish Award with his beast of a largemouth bass – 23.5 inches.
Rachel Stutts, winner Jason Stutt’s wife, ended up winning the “top female” award as well so it was an all around good day at the Stutts household.
To view a slide show of all the Columbus photos check out our media gallery.
