Dave Russell accepts First Place trophy from WON BASS Director Mike Kennedy for winning the Shasta Lake Invitational

First timer starts season with win at Shasta Lake
By BILL RICE
WON BASS Editor
REDDING, Feb. 19 Dave Russell of Chico, fishing his first Pro/AAA WON BASS Miller High Life Tour event, walked off with the championship Sunday in the $90,125 Shasta Lake Invitational over a record 137-boat field.
The 29-year-old California Department of Forestry firefighter, who owns a small aluminum fishing boat, borrowed his father's Ranger 392 bass boat to enter the tournament, and now has one of his own by winning the Ranger 518 bass, with a Mercury outboard, Lowrance electronics and MotorGuide trolling motor. His weight was 27.77 pounds for 10 bass, to win the prize worth over $35,000.
"I had planned to enter as an AAA angler but was doing so well in practice last week that I decided to go pro." said Russell. "This my first pro event, but I have been fishing the WON BASS team circuit."
Russell led the first round of the tournament with 17.00 pounds, including the second largest bass of the day at 4.51 pounds. He backed up the weight with another 10.77 pounds on Sunday and won by nearly 1 1/2-pounds. He said he catch was made in waters from 5 to 30 feet deep on a Crosstail shad soft plastic bait in a watermelon/purple color.
In second spot was Bill McLaughlin of Redding with 26.29-pounds, and he took home $7,850 for his efforts. Like most anglers in the tournament, he used jigs and caught most of his fish in waters 60 to 70 feet deep.
Third place was taken by Bill Hanan of Burney with 25.13-pounds of bass, good for $5,000 in earnings. He said his catch was made in deep water, too, on plastic worms.
In the Triple A division, the winner was Robert Morris of Fellows, CA, who posted weights of 13.52 and 12.34 pounds for a total of 25.86 pounds with "local" pro anglers, Charles Keller and Jay Tidmore, both of Redding. Morris went home with $1,250 cash winnings.
The second place AAA was Fred Lopez of Mariposa, who pocketed $1,000 for 25.41 pounds, while third place went to James Yoo of San Leandro, who won $800 for 25.35 pounds.
The fishing was awesome for the anglers even though it rained most of the time during the tournament hours on Saturday and Sunday. There were 1,325 bass weighed in, with 1,320 of these released after weighing. The vast majority of the fish were caught in deep waters as the anglers used jigs and plastic worms in waters from 25 to 70 feet deep. Incredibly there were 131 boats with limits on Saturday and 127 with limits on Sunday. It just can't get much better than that!
Almost all of the bass were spotted bass with only a handful of smallmouth and largemouth bass included. The largest fish caught was a 7.48-pound spot by Stuart Minugh of Shasta Lake, who earned $1,500 in the Miller High Life Daily Double on Saturday. Sunday's $1,500 bonus went to Leroy Bertolero of El Macero with a 5.79-pounder, barely edging out his team tournament partner, Bernie Gaunt of West Sacramento, who had a 5.48 pounder and won the
$500 runner-up prize.
The field at Shasta included anglers from California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and even one from Nebraska. The next tournament for the WON BASS North Region anglers will be at Lake New Melones on March 24-25.