Untitled

(Cedar Creek Lake) - When you hold 18 consecutive years of spring season, late March Tournaments in Texas, you know some of those years are going to encounter challenging weather conditions. This year's event was especially so with very cold North winds of 15-20 mph and rain greeting anglers vying for over 150 cash prizes in THE 18th ANNUAL KCKL 95.9 FM BIG BASS TOURNAMENT. Cedar Creek Lake water temperatures ranged from the mid 50s to the mid 60s, a level lower than normally seen during the KCKL event. These conditions made Saturday's fishing extremely tough on the competitors, but as always, somebody gets on a few fish. After the slow start Saturday morning, warming temperatures got the fish moving and helped first day anglers get on productive patterns enabling them to weigh in for Saturday's Hourly cash prizes and a chance to make the Top 50 Final Standings. After the 3:00 PM final weigh-in, with gusty north winds blowing and cold rain coming down, the annual BBQ and Door Prizes were moved indoors to the satisfaction of weather beaten anglers and Tournament Staff alike.

Sunday morning dawned a new day, which was warmer and partly cloudy, but the wind turned 180 degrees to the South and blew 15-25 mph. This made it really tough for anglers to make good bait presentations, especially with soft plastics such as Sluggos, Flukes, and lightly weighted worms and lizards which take so many good fish this time of year. Some anglers commented "at least they got to fish the opposite side of the lake on this second windy day". Even with tough conditions, the scales saw many four to seven pound fish weighed in by the hardy and determined wind blown KCKL anglers. In the final tally from both Tournament days, Cedar Creek Lake produced 422 big bass that were brought to the scales by the 1,000+ anglers.

Around mid-day, Justin Young of Houston proudly brought in a beautiful 8.49 big bass to take the Tournament lead. While fishing with his uncle and fishing buddy, David Weaver of Malakoff, Justin landed his fish at 9:45 AM. The big bass took a black/blue lizard in 5 feet of water in the Caney Creek area of the lake. Hoping for other big bass in the area, the duo fished a while longer until they could take the excitement no longer and ran to Tournament Headquarters to weigh in during the 11:00-12:00 hour. Taking the lead in this Tournament is a mixed blessing. In many of the recent KCKL Tournaments, the winning bass of the Tournament has been caught during the second day of the event. Accordingly, Justin, David, friends and family had a very nerve racking three hours until the final 3:00 weigh in was concluded. When the final fish was weighed, it became official - Justin David Young would be the 18th ANNUAL KCKL TOURNAMENT CHAMPION with his 8.49 lber. At 17 years old, Justin had just become the youngest winner ever in 18 years of KCKL BIG BASS TOURNAMENTS. For his win, Justin took home 1st Place & Hourly Prize money of $10,200 cash, an 18th Annual Tournament Kistler Graphite Rod, and a "2001 Tournament Champion" embroidered soft side tackle bag. This was one VERY happy young man and one very proud family

18th Annual KCKL
BIG BASS TOURNAMENT
Cedar Creek Lake
March 24-25, 2001

PL	ANGLER	BIG BASS WGT
1.	Justin Young, Houston	8.49
2.	Joe Perez, Waxahachie	8.01
3.	Kenneth Roberts, Seagoville	7.81
4.	Larry Gunnels, Malakoff	7.70
5.	Dwayne O. Kelley, Garland	7.20
6.	Ronald L. Stewart, Corsicana	7.19
7.	Duane Culpepper, Grand Prairie	7.04
8.	Robert Youngblood, Valley View	6.79
9.	Chrisi Davis, Azle	6.75
10.	Randy Hanna, Mabank	6.73
11.	Pat Patterson, Rockwall	6.71
12.	Robert Crawford, Payne Springs	6.68
13.	Todd Campbell, Ennis	6.62
14.	Lewis E. Brummett, Jr., Crandall	6.50
15.	Chris DiSanto, Chandler	6.45
16.	Skip Morton, Terrell	6.19
17.	Jody Bray, Arlington	6.05
18.	Mike O. Kimbler, Corsicana	6.03
19.	Michael Collum, Mabank	5.93
20.	Jerry Archer, Poetry	5.71