Beckman & Lewis Take Ultimate One-Pole Challenge

Truman Lake, June 16 & 17

Crappie Masters One-Pole Ultimate Challenge proved to be a tough challenge with many of the teams struggling to catch a limit of seven fish. The artificial bait only tournament is thought by many fishermen to be what real fishing is all about.

First place team of Matt Beckman and Jeff Lewis moved around but kept to a strict game plan to win.

Matt Beckman and Jeff Lewis credits their win on making the right decisions for two days. They led day one with a weight of 10.48 pounds using primarily black/chartreuse Bobby Garland Slab Slayers MidSouth Tubes, and Muddy Water Baits. They fished on bottom in 9 to 11 feet of water using 10-foot Jenko Hypersense Rods. They won $7500 along with $1100 in bonus prize money.

Keith Mueller and Wes Cooper jumped from sixth place on day one to second place by catching the biggest one-day weight of the tournament with 11.29 pounds. They had a total of 20.86 pounds with a 2.09 kicker for big fish. They were fishing Bluegrass Bobby Garland baits. Good fish came with 45 minutes left. They won $4150.

Cooper and Mueller took second place with a good day-two stringer. They took the hotseat and held it until the last team weighed knocking them out of the win.

Third place was Rich Campbell and Travis Stevens with 19.13 pounds. Top male/female team was Kim Gray and Vic Finkley with 18.94. Top adult/youth were Don Brooks and Dylan Brown, a grandfather/grandson team.