Southwest Custom Tackle – Weekend Warrior Series

Lyle and his team are off to another great start for the 2022-2023 Arizona Weekend Warrior Series. The first event was at Roosevelt Lake this past Saturday and the turn out didn’t disappoint. There was 114 teams that showed up for a fun day of fishing at Roosevelt Lake. For those that aren’t familiar with the SWC Weekend Warrior Series, Lyle hosts a great series he calls, “the working mans circuit.” This format allows guys to come out and have fun competitive series with out having to compete against fishing guides or tournament pros. Despite the rules, with their high turnouts you definitely don’t want to under estimate the talent that is fishing this circuit.

The turnout out at Roosevelt Lake, was just 6 shy of the 120 boat team record for the WWBS. The boats all launched out of Windy Hill at first light. You would think having an early boat number would be beneficial with the high turn out but it didn’t seem to be the case for the top 5 teams. 2nd place finisher, Johnny Pelto had the earliest draw of the top 5 with boat 33. While the winner, Trey Glasscock was boat 106. We spoke to Lyle and a few of the anglers to get some feedback on the first of 7 events for the SWC Weekend Warrior Series. From all of the feedback we got speaking to different anglers that fished, it seemed like a pretty difficult day. If you looked at the results the weights dropped off pretty significantly after the top 3-4 teams and if guys were catching a lot of numbers those fish were usually in the 1-2 lb range.

Roosevelt Lake – The Top 3

In 3rd place this past weekend was the Father & Son team of Rob & Mason Smook. These guys have been on fire for as long as I can remember and it doesn’t look like they are about to slow down. They came to the scales with 5 fish for 18.64, with a big fish of 4.10. We spoke with Mason and without a doubt they wanted the win but a Top 3 with 114 boats should feel pretty good too. Here is what Mason had to say. “We were on a topwater bite for the past two weeks or so with a few different baits. On game day we decided to go with something a bit more subtle, mainly targeting grass and banks with flat rocks. By 9:30-10:00 am we had about 15-16 blow ups and only got 3 big bites after 12 pm. Only landing only 1 of those 3. With the high sun and high pressure, the afternoon was tough but it seemed to produce the bigger fish. I think we ended up with around 9 fish on the day.” Rob & Mason took home $1750 for 3rd place.

2nd place was Johnny Pelto who ended up fishing this event solo while his partner Luke fished the MBC Championship at Bartlett. Johnny’s first words when I asked him about his day, “Brutal.” He said he had to cover a lot of water and never stayed put for too long. On the day he had 6 bites and 6 fish, he just got the right bites. He said he was next to Mason and Rob in the afternoon so both teams were obviously in a big fish area that was producing. Johnny didn’t get his limit until late in the afternoon and all of his fish were caught on a whopper plopper and square bill. Johnny came in with 20.02 and 2nd place big fish that went for 6.21. For 2nd place Johnny took home $1975 for 2nd, $100 for 2nd place Big Fish and $100 for the Ionic contingency.

The 1st place winner was another solo fisherman, Trey Glasscock. Trey brought 22.28lbs to scales winning $3,650 plus the $50 contingency. Its pretty awesome with 114 boats the top 2 boats beat a massive field fishing on their own. Trey had a few things to say about his big win at Roosevelt Lake. “Pre-fish was a very tough day for me only catching a handful of fish. By the end of the day I had an idea of what I was going to do. I ended up being boat 106 so I found an area that was still open and started fishing with what little I had figured out the day before. Like a lot of guys in the field on tournament day, I got a lot of bites but was blessed to get the right ones. It was definitely a day I won’t forget. It was a great event put on by Southwest Custom Tackle and we are looking forward to the upcoming tournaments. ”

 

The Big Bass of the day was caught by Hayden Frey weighing 6.69lbs paying $200. He also won a $50 gift card from Cashion Rods and a Cashion hat.

 

Check out the Roosevelt Lake full results and dont miss their next event at Alamo Lake on 10/15