"THE" LAY LAKE OPEN 2009

Father-Son team wins the Mark's Outdoors Lay Lake Open!!!

The father-son team of Josh and Jerry Stracner won the Mark's Outdoors tournament on Sat. May 2 nd. in fine style. The team caught 20.77 lbs. of Lay Lake bass to win the largest tournament in Alabama by almost 4 lbs.

Like most of the other teams, the shallow water bite was key in the larger sacks. Josh and Jerry both mainly sight fished. By mid morning the team had a nice limit of bass in the live well. The cooler water temps have kept the better fish shallow and the team landed a 6-pound 8-ounce bass sight-fishing, followed by two 5-pound fish to add to the monster stringer.

Jamie Horton and Coby Carden followed the first place boat with 16.84 pounds from the shallow waters of Lay Lake. It seems that most of the Bassmaster pros that fished the event used the same style of fishing to land the all time record weight of fish in the 19 year history of the event.

Over 2000 lbs of Lay Lake bass were weighted in, despite the efforts to turn away any stringers of less than 11 lbs. Southeastern Pond handled the duties of keeping the catches alive after the event and has never seen so many quality fish in these numbers!

The team from Southeastern filled bags of bass fingerlings for almost 8 hours the night before the event to get ready for the single largest bass stocking in the country. Skeet Reese the current Bassmaster Classic Champion said "that every tournament in the country should follow this effort. Fish and Game Departments are cutting back under smaller budgets, and to see this type of stocking effort coming from a retailer is unheard of. "

Boyd Duckett a past Bassmaster champion also participated in the event for the second time and was impressed by the number of fished released prior to the start of the event. Everyone in the tournament received a bag of hundreds of baby bass to release before they started fishing.

To see so many diehard fishermen and women bending over the side of their boats at the perfect spot to let the fish go before competing was great. I only wish every bass fishing tournament would follow this lead. The effort from Mark's is a prime reason that the Bassmaster Classic is coming back to Birmingham next year. The release of the fish makes the lake one of the hottest lakes in Alabama and adds a ton of value to the homes and land on the lake. Just think how easy it would be to sell your lake house if it would sit on a top producing lake in the state or maybe the country!

The F-1 bass released into Lay Lake start life in Florida and Texas weeks before the event. F-1 bass are very aggressive fast growing bass that love to feed on any thing that swims. The bass are prepared in bags of treated water with a dose of pure oxygen and distributed to every boat in the tournament before the start of the event.

Kevin Van Dam said "it makes 1000 conservationists that morning handling the small fry, not just fishermen." This could be the ultimate going green that started some 19 years ago. To date over 2,4000,000 bass have been released in Lay Lake from the tournament.

It was truly a who's who of professional bass fishing at the tournament this year. Marty Stone, Kevin Van Dam, Scott Canterbury, Jared Linter, Skeet Reese, Randy Howell, Alton Jones, Bill Lowen, Boyd Duckett, Kyle Maybrey, Jeff Reynolds, Brent Chapman and the old master Jimmy Houston plus many more added some spark to the already fired up contestants. 500 boats once again totally filled the event. 163 parent child teams was the largest group of kids in the tournaments history.

It seems that almost every record was destined to be broken this year. Two bass came in with a weight on 6.96 and 6.95 lbs which is a water drop away from $25,000 in cash. The first bass coming in at 7.00 lbs gets a check for $25,000 bucks. Alton Jones also was casting for another $25,000 prize. The first bass that breaks the current 9.29 weight gets a bonus check of $25,000.

Alton fished for one bass that was 10 lbs plus for a over 4 hours and never got her to bite. "We threw everything we had in the boat and she never took the bait." Randy Howell also fished a long time for a record fish with the same results.

Another record fell this year! Not one but two Skeeter boats were given away this year. The draw prize was updated to the larger model Skeeter boat from the test drive days that happen the 3 days prior to the event. Over 800 folks took test drives in the newest models Skeeter and Yamaha had to offer. By test driving they are automatically entered in the drawing for the new boat. But this year there was a twist.

The winning team had no idea they had won another Skeeter-Yamaha rig. By winning the event and owning a boat that was bought from Airport Marine in the last 2 years you win a matching boat motor combo! The team of Josh and Jerry Strancer took home the first place check plus $500 for each of the top 10 big bass in the event and a $35,000 boat and motor from Airport Marine. Ken Hollis from Airport Marine was giving away boats left and right.

The weigh in was a sight to be seen. Over $30,000 in prizes were thrown to the 3000 plus that came to the weigh-in. It took over 10 min. to thrown tons of fishing tackle and clothes to the hungry crowd. During the weigh-in the companies represented there stepped up to the plate.

Costa Del Mar started the fight with paying for 50 parent- child teams to enter the 2010 event free! Not to be out done Daiwa matched the 50 parent- child teams! Then came Powell rod company with another 50 boats paid in full! Now Shimano comes out of the crowd with 75 parent- child teams to fish free in the 2010 Lay Lake Open.

Over $28,000 paid in under 3 min. for the kids to fish next year free. This is unheard of in the fishing industry or any industry, to have such a following of companies to support the youth is truly a record setter.

The team of Roger & Mark Abbott were the lucky winners of the "Draw prize" - A brand new Skeeter rig!!

Live video was provided by www.anglerschannel.com with 2 hours of non- stop live video for the world to see. The tackle toss video is well worth seeing. Also a few days after the event 800 high res. photos were posted to the Mark's web site for all to download.

(Click here to view all photo's)

About signing up for next year? You might need to call very soon. On the Monday following the tournament an all time record of 280 teams called in to sign up. The first two flights filled up before 10 a.m. that day. Teams also are signing up for 2011 and 2012.

We can't wait until next May to fish in the Lay Lake Open and see what other records are to be broken!!

e-mail: mark@marksoutdoors.com
phone 205-822-2010