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Duke Gunnell of Benton caught a largemouth bass in the Dumas Pool of the Arkansas River that weighed 8.14 pounds Sunday to win $100,000 in the Arkansas Big Bass Bonanza.
Fishing in Post Lake, a backwater area in the river, Gunnell used a white, River-2-C plastic frog to catch his prize-winning bass. He caught it at 9:45 a. m. while fishing over lily pads. The fish hit the three-quarter-ounce frog on the surface, Gunnell said, but it wasn’t an aggressive bite.
“She just sucked it down,” Gunnell said. “It was a beautiful fish, very healthy.”
Gunnell said he will share the prize money with his fishing partner, Dr. Hugh Burnett of Little Rock. Gunnell and Burnett fished Friday and Saturday at Lake Dardanelle but went to the Dumas Pool when they heard about all the big fish being caught there.
“I heard they caught one that was almost 8 pounds, so I told my partner if we’re going to win this thing, we’re going to have to go to Dumas,” Gunnell said. “We just got away from all the boats and got back in the real thick stuff.”
Gunnell finished second in the 2005 Big Bass Bonanza. He said his experience fishing previous tournaments helped give him the experience necessary to catch the winning bass. “I’ve led this thing a couple of times,” Gunnell said. “This tournament has been won in Post [Lake] before, and down in Dumas, there are three of four areas that produce large fish, and Post is one of them. We fished the other two and then went in there. Knowing the areas I fish was important, but luck played a big part, too. I hooked two other big fish that I didn’t get in. If I hadn’t gotten this one in, I probably wouldn’t have won.”
Approxiamately 2,175 fishermen entered the tournament. The Arkansas Hospitality Association paid $90,000 in hourly prize money, plus an additional $18,800 in bonus money to fishermen who weighed in their fish while wearing official Big Bass Bonanza hats and T-shirts. Over $200,000 in total prize money was awarded over the weekend to the participating fishermen.
The fishermen who caught the biggest bass in their respective pools of the Arkansas River each received checks for $2,200. John Higman of Evansville was the big bass winner in the Fort Smith Pool with a bass that weighed 7.81 pounds. Higman and his father, Jesse Higman, also won the $1,000 Willowleaf Award, which is given annually to the parent-child or grandparent-grandchild team that catches the biggest bass of the tournament.
Larry Gentry of Clarksville caught the biggest bass in the Dardanelle Pool (6.72 pounds), Randy McPherson of Mayflower caught the biggest bass in the Little Rock Pool (5.42), and Charles Puckett of Rison caught the biggest bass in the Pine Bluff Pool (6.58). Gunnell’s fish was the biggest from the Dumas Pool.
Anglers weighed in a total of 701 fish from all five pools. They weighed in 169 fish from the Fort Smith Pool, 167 from Lake Dardanelle, 145 from the Pine Bluff Pool, 115 from the Little Rock Pool and 105 from the Dumas Pool. For the statistics relating to this year's tournament such as hourly weigh-in results and overall rankings please visit the Arkansas Big Bass Bonanza website . |
