June 23-24. Rain and winds of 20 mph gusting to 35 made a tough first day of fishing at Sardis Lake Mississippi at the American Crappie Trail Super Clean two-day tournament. Tropical storm Cindy dropped three inches of rain, brought wind and a change in barometric pressure that turned good fishing during practice into a very tough situation for catching quality fish. Only ten of the 77 teams brought a seven-fish limit to the scales on day one. Day two provided more tough fishing but winds were tolerable.
Local teams had a good tournament with Terry & Cole Stewart, a father-son team, taking first place with a total weight of 21.46 pounds. The Stewarts slow trolled in 14 to 20 feet of water going 0.4 to 0.7 mph. They won a fully-rigged Ranger aluminum boat.
Brad Calhoon/ Clay Blare took second with 20.00. Michael Walters/ Rick Solomon had 19.47. Fourth place was Phil Brown/Patrick Stone 19.31. Tony Edgar/ Travis Lepley 18.39. Sixth was Charles Bunting with 17.91. Big fish was 2.60 caught by Warren Cotton/ Thomas Hill.
The ACT provided a class act with the final day weigh-in inside the Batesville Civic Center with each boat passing by the weigh-in trailer. It was streamed live and filmed for TV. Payouts were outstanding with many fishermen praising ACT for creating a different level of crappie fishing tournaments for the fishermen and the sport.
