At the time this up-date was written in July, there are only 4 Tuesday night events left in this years’ season before our Classic on Saturday August 13th. With less than 45 points separating the top 5 teams this seasons’ “Team of the Year” is going to be too close to call before our final Tuesday evening event. Last seasons’ winners, father and son team of Steve and Hayden Lester hold a small lead going into the final few events. When speaking with the pair they say they are going to fish hard and plan to win back- to-back season championships. This is something that hasn’t been done in the 8 years that Orlando CAM has been involved with this tournament series and never with a father and son team, Hayden at just 16 yrs. old has already proved he can catch them as good as the seasoned adult anglers that fish our events.
This team series has grown over the last several years to become one of the areas’ best evening tournament series, averaging over 25 fishing teams on Tuesday nights along the St Johns River. These teams can all catch them, week after week. With a 5pm start time and late summer weigh-in time of 8:30, it usually takes 20 pounds or more to win a Tuesday event. Our recent series on July 12th was won with a 5 bass limit at over 26 lbs., including one small keeper at just over 2 lbs. The team of Mike and Jonathan Winstead caught the huge 5 bass limit including the big bass of the evening at 7.35 lbs., in just over 3 hours of fishing time, pretty impressive! The pair had also just won our July 9th Saturday event with 22.48 lbs. Big Bass of the season is currently held by the team of Anthony Courtney and Sean Cunningham at 8.05 lbs., if it holds up it will be worth an additional $500 bucks on Classic Day. The year before last big bass of the season was caught on the very last Tuesday event of the year to over-take that seasons’ current leader, so anything could happen and is yet to come.
All teams that qualify for this seasons’ Classic Event will get a cash pay-out. Over 10,000 bucks will be in the pot for this seasons’ event due to the great turn-out of teams at each of our series events. All of our tournaments are open to the public to see our teams weigh-in their fish, so plan an outing with your family to come and see our top anglers weigh their fish. Weigh-in for our Classic is at 3pm sharp on August 13th. Come join in the fun with your family or friends and see who ends upon top this season.
Special thanks to our sponsors at American Tackle Company, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Jolly Gator Fish Camp Bar and Grill, Orlando Coastal Angler Magazine and Jerusha Poore our photographer/statistician for her hard work and weekly efforts to make this the best bass series in our area. Call Jolly Gator Fish Camp Bar and Grill for more info, 407-349-5554.
