Cooksey claims co-angler trophy at Erie
PORT CLINTON, Ohio – Bub Cooksey, 44, of Newark, Ohio, landed a healthy 17-pound, 8-ounce limit of bass in Saturday’s final round of EverStart Series Northern Division competition at Lake Erie to claim the $5,000 Co-angler Division victory.
Cooksey edged out Fred Williams of Dry Ridge, Ky., who caught five bass weighing 16 pounds, 12 ounces.
“It feels super, yeah,” Cooksey said. “It’s a great place to fish up here. It can be dangerous, but it’s a great place.”
Cooksey edged into the finals in 10th place by catching just one bass worth 2 pounds, 9 ounces on a tough-weather Friday. Saturday, conditions were just as windy, but Cooksey was paired up with the same pro partner he fished with on Wednesday, Don McCulla of New Baltimore, Mich.
“Don McCulla knows this place really well,” Cooksey said. “When I fished with him the first day, we were sight-fishing and we could see all the fish we were catching. Today, we had a northeast wind, which is the worst wind you could have up here. But it worked out well for me.”
In fact, Cooksey caught 10 pounds more than his pro partner Saturday, which he credits to his light-action rod. He used green-watermelon tubes that were “a little bit bigger than average” to land his limit.
It was somewhat of an emotional win for the Ohio co-angler. He was out of tournament fishing for two years due to a thyroid condition.
“No way did I ever think one fish (Friday) would get me into the finals,” he said. “It takes a lot of weight to win here, but people just couldn’t get to their holes.”
Williams said: “I took three days off with no pay to be here,” but found it was worth the trip after he collected $4,000 for second place.
Chuck Willis of Kettering, Ohio, caught five bass weighing 13 pounds, 2 ounces and collected $3,500 for third place.
Opening-round leader Trevor Jancasz of White Pigeon, Mich., caught four bass weighing 13 pounds even and collected $2,500 for fourth place. Jancasz continues to lead the Northern Division in points.
Two-time winner Mark McNeil of Ledyard, Conn., caught three bass weighing 9 pounds, 2 ounces and collected $2,000 for fifth place.
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 finishers in the Co-angler Division are day-three leader Mark Phillips of Fayetteville, Ark., (sixth, $1,900) with two bass weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces; Brad Baldwin of Dayton, Ohio, (seventh, $1,800) with one bass weighing 3-13; Thomas Bryant Jr. of Summerfield, Fla., (eighth, $1,700) with one bass weighing 3-10; Lewis Southard of Chandler, Ariz., (ninth, $1,600) with one bass weighing 2-3; and Bob Evans of Elkhart, Ind., (10th, $1,500) with no bass.
Coming up
The next EverStart Series tournament is the fourth and final Northern Division contest of the season. It will be held at Lake Champlain in Plattsburgh, N.Y., Sept. 24-27.
Day-four links:
Photos
Final results
Press release
`Vatalaro victorious again at Lake Erie’