King George’s Hughes Wins T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League Shenandoah Division Opener on Potomac River presented by Navionics

Waldorf’s Jenkins Wins Co-angler Title

MARBURY, Md. – Boater Jesepth Hughes of King George, Virginia, caught five bass weighing 21 pounds, 13 ounces, Saturday to win the 2018 T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) Shenandoah Division opener on the Potomac River presented by Navionics. For his victory, Hughes earned $4,948.

“I ran 15 miles south to Aquia Creek and fished two main patterns – targeting spawning fish in the mouth of Aquia and targeting prespawn fish that were moving out of the creek,” Hughes said.

“For the spawners I was just blind casting to where the beds usually are at, dragging a black and blue-colored Zoom worm. For the prespawn fish I had an area on a big flat – kind of a shell-bed hump with a few stumps. I worked that area with a ChatterBait.”

Hughes’ ChatterBait of choice was an Original Z-Man with a green-pumpkin-colored Strike King Rage Tail Craw. He said that he caught around a dozen keepers on the day – four dragging the worm, the rest on the ChatterBait.

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:

              1st:          Jesepth Hughes, King George, Va., five bass, 21-13, $4,948

              2nd:         Matthew Caffi, Fairfax, Va., five bass, 19-1, $2,674

              3rd:         Tom Bateman, LaPlata, Md., five bass, 18-13, $2,026

              4th:         Safulla Rana, Warrenton, Va., five bass, 18-11, $1,255

              5th:         Gregory Wilder, Millersville, Md., five bass, 18-0, $990

              6th:         Ryan Powroznik, Hopewell, Va., five bass, 17-14, $907

              7th:         Kyle Hoffman, Harpers Ferry, W.Va., five bass, 17-11, $825

              8th:         Aaron Bartlett, Mechanicsville, Va., five bass, 17-8, $742

              9th:         Scott Banton, Midlothian, Va., five bass, 17-2, $660

              10th:       Joseph Thompson, Coatesville, Pa., five bass, 16-8, $577

Complete results can be found at FLWFishing.com.

Bateman caught a bass weighing 5 pounds, 14 ounces – the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division – and earned the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $377.

Lew Jenkins of Waldorf, Maryland, won the Co-angler Division and $3,051 Saturday after catching a five-bass limit weighing 18 pounds even.

The top 10 co-anglers were:

              1st:          Lew Jenkins, Waldorf, Md., five bass, 18-0, $3,051

              2nd:         Roland Burton, Hopewell, Va., five bass, 17-11, $1,237

              3rd:         Jonathan Dietz, Corry, Pa., five bass, 17-4, $824

              4th:         David Williams, Fredericksburg, Va., five bass, 17-3, $627

              5th:         Billy Brown, Dahlgren, Va., five bass, 16-11, $495

              6th:         Lenny Baird, Stafford, Va., five bass, 16-10, $454

              7th:         Michael Nelms, Hartwood, Va., five bass, 16-3, $412

              8th:         Gregory Callas, Falls Church, Va., five bass, 15-13, $371

              9th:         John Henning, Lansdale, Pa., five bass, 15-8, $330

              10th:       Lewis Williams, Roanoke, Va., five bass, 15-7, $289

Jenkins caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division – a 5-pound, 8-ounce fish – that also earned him the day’s Co-angler Big Bass award of $377.

The top 45 boaters and co-anglers in the region based on point standings, along with the five winners in each qualifying event, will be entered in the Oct. 11-13 BFL Regional Championship on the Chesapeake Bay in North East, Maryland. Boaters will compete for a top award of a Ranger Z518C with a 200-horsepower Evinrude outboard and $20,000, while co-anglers will fish for a new Ranger Z518C with a 200-horsepower Evinrude outboard.

The 2018 BFL is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 128 tournaments throughout the season, five qualifying events in each division. The top 45 boaters and co-anglers from each division, along with the five winners of the qualifying events, will advance to one of six regional tournaments where they are competing to finish in the top six, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American. The 2018 BFL All-American will be held May 31-June 2 at Cross Lake in Shreveport, Louisiana, and is hosted by the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission. Top performers in the BFL can move up to the Costa FLW Series or even the FLW Tour.

For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.

About FLW

FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2018 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW and their partners conduct 286 bass-fishing tournaments annually around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa and Spain. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW" television show, broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros. For more information visit FLWFishing.com and follow FLW at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.

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