D&R Sports Report
Randy VanDam and Miles Hanley, two top veterans who have won their share of tournaments over the years, hit the jackpot in the D&R Sports Center Series last weekend on the Grand River.
VanDam and Hanley had 17.43 pounds, anchored by a 4.04 pounder.
"We caught them on anything and everything,” says VanDam, D&R Sports Center owner, brother of Kevin VanDam and father of Jonathon VanDam. “We were junk fishing, honestly, working through the main river and hitting bayous here and there. Miles would cast to a spot with a Rage bug and I would go in behind with a Crush City bait and we tag teamed most of the water.
“The wind picked up and I pulled out a spinnerbait and caught a few on that - I actually had lost a few good ones that we thought were going to hurt us, but everything turned out just fine.”
It sure did. They won by nearly three pounds.
Cyrus and Foxx Ruel were second with 14.54 pounds.
“Foxx and I started the day trying some deep cover off the main river where we were able to boat only a single keeper,” Cyrus explains. “After an hour or so of fishing deeper isolated cover we decided to make a change and ran to another rather popular area with a little current and lots of shallow vegetation.”
They were flipping mixed grass and lily pads in 3 feet or less.
“We caught two keepers pretty quickly, targeting areas closer to the edge of the pads,” he adds. “We really took our time and picked that area apart, catching several keeper fish and filling our limit in one stretch less than 200 yards long.
“We passed another boat on the opposite bank that also flipping but we didn't see them boat any fish. We debated on fishing the other side where he had fished and Foxx thought we should run it because whatever we are doing, it was working. I'm glad we did, as our two biggest fish, both over 3.5 pounds, came off that bank and we were able to upgrade by several pounds.”
Third place went to Brian Burmania and Don Watts with 13.37 pounds.
David Hooker and Kyle Borst were fourth with 13.11.
Paul Simonis and Marc Rosel finished fifth with 12.76 pounds but they also had the biggest bass of the tourney, 4.97 pounder.