Smith and Lewis Double Up for Douglas Win
May 14, 2022- Dandridge, TN–The 2022 Morristown Marine Team Trail made its final regular season stop Saturday with 224 registered boats on Douglas Lake. Of the 224 registrants, we had 209 boats in the water that went through blast-off. It was a fantastic Tennessee spring morning, with temps in the 60’s at blast off and warmed to above 80 with sunny skies occasionally marked with storm clouds. The fishing was phenomenal, as most anglers boated a 5 fish limit. The big ones, however, were hard to come by, but the smaller fish seemed catchable for most. There were a lot of 8-10 lb bags brought to the scales. In all, 164 teams weighed 5-fish limit and 170 teams weighed at least one fish. A grand total of 1,782.74 lbs of bass hit the scales yesterday. In all, 845 bass were caught and weighed with 830 being released alive back into Douglas Lake. Total payout was just over $46,000.00 across all contingencies and 37 places with a cut weight 11.98 lbs.
The team of John Smith and Damon Lewis took home the win with a monster bag of 19.99 lbs of Douglas green fish. The 3 ½ lb margin of victory was anchored by the Citizens Bank Big Largemouth of the tournament at 4.91 lbs and backed up by another stud greenie that was very close to the big fish. John and Damon said they only got to practice one day and did a lot of scanning to find 2 spots they concentrated on catching most of their fish off one of these two places. Check out the FaceBook Live interview with them on our FaceBook page for more info on their winning day. John and Damon’s win netted them a grand total of $20,330.00. This payout includes 1st Place, Highest Finishing Skeeter, 1st Humminbird/Minnkota, Citizens Bank Big Largemouth, Morristown Marine New Money and, because John bought a new Skeeter and is qualified for Skeeter Real Money, he will get an extra $5,000.00! Congrats on a great day of fishing guys!
Second place went to the team of Josh Osborne and Sam Meade with 16.52 lbs. Josh and Sam also got paid for 2nd Highest Finishing Skeeter, bringing their total payday to $6,000.00. Not too bad for a day of fishing! Way to go, Josh and Sam!
3rd Place went to the team of Joe Lee and Jake Lee with 15.32 lbs. Joe and Jake will receive checks totaling $3,650.00 for 3rd place, 3rd Highest Finishing Skeeter and 2nd Humminbird/MinnKota. Congrats Joe and Jake!
4th place belongs to Brad Padgett and Daniel Padgett with a total weight of 15.29 lbs, anchored by an absolute tank of a smallmouth that won the Citizens Bank Big Smallmouth award for the tournament at 5.12 lbs. Brad and Daniel will cash checks for 4th Place and Big Smallmouth for a total payout of $2,580.00. Great job, guys!
Rounding out the top 5 was Bill Jenkins and Benny Neal with a 15.10 lb bag. Bill and Benny will get paid for 5th Place and 4th Highest Finishing Skeeter, totaling $1,800.00 for their efforts. Way to go guys!
The Highest Finishing Skeeter Bonus is paid out to the 10 Highest Finishing teams fishing out of a Skeeter. It pays to run a Skeeter! They were awarded as follows:
1) Smith/Lewis $3,000.00
2) Osborne/Meade: $1,500.00
3) Lee/Lee: $1,000.00
4) Jenkins/Neal: $800.00
5) Ferrell/Shampine $700.00
6) Bryan/Bryan: $500.00
7) O’Quinn/O’Quinn: $250.00
8) Price/Humann: $200.00
9) Grimm/Drinnon: $150.00
10) Everett/Trent: $100.00
The Citizens Bank Big Largemouth went to the team of John Smith and Damon Lewis with a green fish weighing 4.91 lbs. The catch netted them a check for $1,080.00. Congrats on a giant green fish!
The Citizens Bank Big Smallmouth was caught by Brad Padgett and Daniel Padgett and weighed in at 5.12 lbs. That fish got them paid $1,080.00. Congrats Brian and Mark!
The Highest Finishing Gray Fox Insurance Agency winners were Grim/Drinnon with 12.85 lbs. 2nd Highest Finishing Gray Fox Insurance Agency went to McDeerman/Dilbeck with 12.63 lbs. Both teams took home an extra $250 just for insuring with Randy Heatherly at Gray Fox Insurance in LaFollette, TN. Give Randy a call and get in on the payback!
The Morristown Marine New Money awards went to Smith/Lewis with 19.99 lbs and Woods/Waddell with 12.69 lbs. Morristown Marine New Money pays back to the highest and second highest finishing new Skeeter purchased from Morristown Marine within the qualifying time period. 1st place took home an extra $1,000.00 and 2nd place an extra $750.00. All you have to do is buy your new Skeeter from Morristown Marine.
The Morristown Marine Used Money awards went to Goins/Hartgrove with 10.35 lbs and Wilson/Davis with 9.55 lbs. Morristown Marine Used Money pays back to the highest and second highest finishing boat of any brand purchased from Morristown Marine during the qualifying time period. 1st place received an additional $500.00 and 2nd place would have received an extra $250.00, but no one qualifying for this bonus weighed a fish. Get your next pre-owned boat from Morristown Marine and get in on the payday!
Morristown Marine would also like to thank Yamaha, Skeeter Boats, Humminbird and MinnKota, Citizens Bank, Rainey Battery, Gray Fox Insurance Agency, Old Stage Printing, Volunteer Trenching, ValuRX Pharmacy, Taylor Plumbing, Cumberland Gap Spring Water, Ridge Real Estate, Lake View Dock, Chris Watson Photography, and Smokey Mountain Fiberglass. Without the support of our sponsors, this tournament trail could not exist. Please help show your thanks by supporting these businesses. A big thanks to Lauren Hurdle at Visit Jefferson County, Dandridge Fire Dept for filling out weigh tanks, the Jefferson County/Dandridge Police Dept for assisting with traffic control and to The Carson-Newman Fishing Team for parking help inside the ramp area.
We would also like to thank our entire tournament trail staff for their long hours and hard work to bring this whole thing together. Most importantly, we want to thank the anglers for coming out to fish with us, being great sportsmen and stewards of the sport of bass fishing.
We compiled some statistics from this tournament we wanted to share that prove our anglers a tournament staff are truly some of the best in the nation. We had 224 registered boats, with 209 in the water at blast off. Thanks to the system we have in place and the knowledge and experience of our anglers, all 209 boats were safely blasted off in a total of 40 minutes. That’s an average of 5.22 boats per minute. The quicker and smoother we can make blast off, the faster you guys can get your fishing day started. So, a BIG Thank You to all of our staff and anglers for accomplishing this huge feat! Secondly, we weighed in 170 bags of fish across 5 flights in a total of 135 minutes (2 hour, 15 minutes) from scales-open to scales-closed. That equates to an average of 1.26 bags weighed per minute! Again, that’s a HUGE credit to our staff AND the anglers bringing fish up to the scales. The faster we can get your fish weighed, the sooner you can get home to your families. Thank you, to everyone involved for making this process so smooth and fast. We had asked that if you wanted to weigh a big fish to leave a cull tag in that fish to help speed up the process. That worked really well, so we will be asking that from here forward, if you choose to weigh a Largemouth or Smallmouth for Big Fish, please leave a cull tag in that fish so we can identify which fish you want to weigh and get it weighed first. Thanks!
Next up: The 2022 MMTT Classic on Oct 22/23, 2022 at Dandridge Free Launch (Dandridge, TN). We will be taking registrations starting Monday, October 17 at Morristown Marine and we will take them there through Friday October 21 daily from 8:30 am til 5 pm. Keep in mind, our annual Dinner Banquet will be held at The Field of Dreams center in Dandridge, as usual. We look forward to seeing everyone then!
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