BP pro Harrison wins Stren Series event on Detroit river

Laufenberg wins co-angler title

DETROIT – Team BP Pro Chip Harrison of Bremen, Ind., caught a five-bass limit weighing 20 pounds, 4 ounces Saturday to win the Stren Series Central Division tournament on the Detroit River with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 61 pounds, 5 ounces. For his victory, Harrison earned $21,713 cash and a fully rigged Ranger boat.

“I love smallmouth fishing,” said Harrison, earning his second Stren Series title. “I have grown up doing it and this lake [Lake St. Clair] has been really good to me the last two or three years. I didn’t think I would have this good a tournament, but I knew I would catch them. It really panned out good for me.”

Harrison opened the tournament in second place Thursday with five bass weighing 22-11. He then caught five bass weighing 18-6 Friday to make the crucial top-10 cut in third place.

Harrison caught his fish today on a green pumpkin with black flakes Poor Boy’s tube and a emerald shiner c-flash 44 Magnum crankbait.

“At noon today, I had maybe five pounds, but from noon to one o’clock, I caught a majority of my fish. It was wet early and a little bouncy. I did a lot of scrambling and bouncing around until I found that spot,” said Harrison.

“My Minn Kota trolling motor really saved me today because of the wind. It allowed me to hold my spots that I found using my Hummingbird. I was using the side imaging to key on the little rock areas I was fishing.”

Rounding out the top five pros were Jon Bondy of Windsor, Ont. (15 bass, 49-7, $8,685); Brian Hensley of Edwardsburg, Mich. (15 bass, 54-14, $6,948); Terry Baksay of Easton, Conn. (15 bass, 53-5, $6,080); and Shawn Murphy of Nicholasville, Ky. (15 bass, 50-8, $5,211)

Hensley caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the Pro Division Thursday – a 5-pound, 8-ounce bass – that earned him the day’s Folgers Big Bass award of $366.

Cade Laufenberg of Stoddard, Wis., fishing his first Stren Series event, won the Co-angler Division and a 177TR Ranger boat and trailer, with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 45-4.

Laufenberg caught five bass weighing 18-12 Thursday while fishing with pro Kaku Usui of Royal Oak, Mich., to open the tournament in third place. On Friday he added five more bass weighing 11-3 to make the top-10 cut in fifth place while fishing with pro Keith Pace of Monticello, Ark. Finally, on Saturday, he sealed the win with five bass weighing 15-5 while fishing with pro Ryan Chandler of Hobart, Ind.

Laufenberg said he kept his attack simple and used a Berkley Gulp! leech on a 3/8-ounce drop shot to claim his title.

Rounding out the top five co-anglers were Kenny Woods of Hazard, Ky. (15 bass, 44-8, $3,556); David Matual of Chicago, Ill. (15 bass, 44-3, $2,667); Craig Brown of Powell, Ohio (15 bass, 43-2, $2,222); and Erik Jacques of Harrison Township, Mich. (12 bass, 41-0, $2,000).

Ken Farrow of Belmont, Ont., caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the Co-angler Division Friday – a 5-pound, 7-ounce bass – that earned him the day’s Folgers Big Bass award of $183.

The next Stren Series Central Division event, hosted by the Fort Madison Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, will be held Aug. 20-22 on the Mississippi River in Fort Madison, Iowa. Boats will launch from Captain Kirk’s Marina in Fort Madison, and the final weigh-in will be held at the Walmart located at 324 West Agency Road in West Burlington, Iowa.

After four qualifying events are complete in each Stren Series division – Central, Northern, Southeast, Texas and Western – the top 40 pros and 40 co-anglers based on the points standings from each division advance to the Stren Series Championship on Pickwick Lake in Florence, Ala., Nov. 5-7 for a shot at $150,000 in the Pro Division and $60,000 in the Co-angler Division. The top 10 pros and 10 co-anglers from each division will also qualify for the 2010 Walmart FLW Tour® and Walmart FLW Series®, bass fishing’s top professional circuits. The highest-finishing pro and co-angler from each division at the Stren Series Championship also qualify for the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup, where anglers will compete for the $1 million grand prize – the most lucrative award in bass fishing

In Stren Series competition, pros supply the boats, fish from the front deck against other pros and control boat movement. Co-anglers fish from the back deck and compete against other co-anglers. Every angler who receives weight credit in a tournament earns points that determine angler standings. Two hundred points are awarded to the winner, 199 points for second, 198 points for third, and so on. The full field competes on days one and two, with the top 10 pros and 10 co-anglers advancing to day three based on their two-day accumulated weight. Winners are determined by the heaviest accumulated weight from all three days.

Total awards are based on a 200-boat field in every tournament.

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