The Cactus Cup Team Trail – Event #1 Bartlett
The Lifted Trucks – Cactus Cup Team Trail kicked off the season this past Saturday at a cold, tough Bartlett Lake. We had 64 teams show for our 1st event which was a record turn out for FishIn48 at Barlett. It was only a few boats short of the biggest turn out ever which was at Martinez in 2021. Out of the 64 boats we only had 17 limits, and 7 teams with 4 fish the rest were all 3 fish or under. The bite at Bartlett had been good in previous weeks but with Horseshoe dumping 6ft of water into the lake the week of the event, it changed the bite for most. Historically Bartlett can be tough this time of year but there is also some big bags brought to the scales in Jan/Feb. Besides the top 3 teams the rest of the field was bringing in your standard Bartlett bags with any bag over 8.92lbs getting a check. We had a lot of good prizes for teams outside the money some of which were $800 in Megabass rods donated by one of our loyal sponsors Liars Korner. Chad & Cory were the 2nd team out of the money and walked away with two brand new pairs of Bajio Sunglasses with a value of $600. We have a lot of new sponsors this year that have donated some awesome product for those that finish out of the money. Make sure you stick around the weigh in so you dont miss out on your prize. We paid down 19 spots with the Top 10 being in the money and the rest getting prizes.
Some of our new changes definitely seemed to help bring in a bigger field. This year we lowered the entry fee to $280 per team with $30 being held over for championship and a small portion to give to Q Bar & Grill for feeding the anglers at the events. Aside from the low entry, we have multiple options which allows those teams that want to fish for lots of cash the option to do. Conrad & Shelby took home one of our biggest payouts to date with a whopping $6,520 for 1st place. Had they won the big fish option they would have been right around $8,000 on a payout of 64 boats. We also gained some exciting new partners this year. One of the new sponsors, Sunline donated almost 100 spools of Sniper FC and Crank FC to give out to the anglers this season. Below we have some feedback from some of our top finishing teams along with payouts and some pictures from the event.
Conrad & Shelby – ” The first stop of the Cactus Cup Team Trail at Bartlett Lake was a tough but rewarding event. During practice after our first stop we had flung an ear on our prop causing us to troll back to the ramp. That ended up being a blessing in disguise because it put us on our primary pattern. We were targeting fish in less than 10 feet of water eating shad and craws, depending on what side of the lake we were on. Our big fish came in about 5 feet of water on a crankbait. Very fortunate to be able to win this one and set ourselves up for a great year. FishIn48 has some awesome payouts and prizes if you havent been to one of their events.”
Tim & Danny – ” We only caught 9 fish all day! We had to slow roll the bait to get bit. Tim caught two of our fish on a dropshot and we never got bit again after 12:30pm. It was nice that we had a later boat number, by the time we were in line there was not many people in line and we were able to get some good food from Qbar . It was a really fun and well run tournament!”
Roy & Sunny – “We had a great time! Anytime I get to share the boat with my Son that is a win. Overall fishing was good, we caught 15 or so bass in practice and also in the tournament. We caught almost everything on a variety of crankbaits. Bill Lewis MR6, Spro Fat John and a Lucky Craft CB350 were the best for us and I got one good one on a precision tackle “My Jig. It was a great run tournament and we are looking forward to the next one!”
PAYOUTS
- Conrad Demecs & Shelby Griffin – 13.30lbs – Red and Blue Option Winner, A&M graphics contigency = $6520
- Shane Edgar & Jake Domres – 13.13lbs – $2200
- Tim Rodan & Danny Adams – 13.00lbs – 1st place Big fish of 3.88lbs = $2860
- Jeff Martineau & Tom Loughran – 10.79lbs – yellow option = $2360
- John Lynch & John Hardee – 10.70lbs – $1000
- John Landis & Dylan Mladik – 10.21lbs – $800
- Fisher Griffith & Zack Hayes – 10.15lbs – Sunline package $700
- Roy Hawk & Sunny Hawk – 10.00lbs – 2nd place big fish of 3.52lbs = $1230
- Tom Kilduff & Patrick Whitaker – 9.70lbs – $450
- Laron Porter & Creston Carroll – 8.92lbs – $400
- Eric Sawyer & Chad Turner – 8.70lbs – Liars Korner package of Megabass rods
- Chad Harvey & Cory Sautter – 8.56lbs – Bajio Sunglasses
- Manny Madrid & David Rigo – 8.01lbs – Bling Sauce Package and PHX Marine Contingency – $100
- John Browning & Bobby O’Donnell – 7.16lbs – Qbar Bubba Package ( held over for championship )
- Nate Pennington Sr & Nate Pennington Jr – 7.07lbs – Rico Package
- Brian Scherell & Chad Rogers – 6.92lbs – Wickedbass Package
- Juan Diaz & Freddy Aguero – 6.83lbs – Persuader Package
- Chris Massey & Mick Pageler – 6.34lbs – Arizona Custom Baits package ( held over for championship )
20. Logan Boyer & Tony Boyer – 3rd place big fish -3.36lbs = $245
Full Results can be found here
NEXT EVENT IS FEBRUARY 17th at Martinez Lake
