Four pounds separates top 10
Zach Goutremout was in 124th place after Day 1 of the St. Croix Bassmaster Open at Lake Ouachita presented by SEVIN. The Chaumont, N.Y., angler jumped all the way into 9th place on Day 2 with the big bag – 22 pounds – and the big bass – 10-14 – of the tournament. Only four pounds separates first place Jeremiah Kindy of Benton, Ark., and 10th place Blake Schroeder of Whitehouse, Texas, going into Saturday’s final. In other words, anybody could win.
“I think I will need 18-plus to have a chance,” said Matt Baker of Glenwood, Ark., who is second, 1 pound, 2 ounces behind Kindy. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with anything under 20 pounds I’m sure.”
Baker has been consistent, totaling a five-bass limit weighing 17-11 on Day 1 and 16-15 on Day 2.
“I weighed all five yesterday on five different baits,” Baker said. “Today what I weighed-in came on at least four different baits. I’ve been burning, I’ve been dragging, ripping a jerkbait around, just trying to find a consistent pattern. And I really haven’t done it to be honest with you.
“(The other top 10 anglers) are dialed in. I’m just junk fishing.”
The temperature dropped about 20 degrees during the day and felt colder on a windy day than the upper 40s when the weigh-in ended late Friday afternoon. It’s predicted to drop to 31 overnight. The high for Saturday is forecast to be 47 degrees with north winds of 5 to 19 miles per hour.
Kindy hopes firsts hold out another day
It’s been a week of firsts for Jeremiah Kindy. He just hopes that trend holds one more day.
Kindy was the first angler to check into the docks after the first day of fishing. After Day 2, he’s first on the leaderboard heading into Championship Saturday.
The 45-year-old from Benton, Ark., added 16-5 to his Day 1 limit of 19-7 for a total of 35-12. That gives Kindy a 1-2 lead over second-place Matt Baker of nearby Glenwood, Ark. The 10th-place angler is just 4 pounds back.
Kindy said his game plan is the same as it’s been from Day 1.
“I’m going to try to catch good females,” he said. “I’m strictly going to fish places I think the females are going to stage up.”
While he had a limit, Kindy caught four of his best fish after a cold front and winds hit Lake Ouachita. Many anglers reported the bass really began biting.
“I caught four good ones in the last hour,” Kindy said. “I had a limit, but it was like 9 pounds.”
It had been more than 20 years since Kindy fished the 10 Opens on his resume, and he’s competed in MLF events, but he’s never been first in this big of an event.
“I haven’t been in the lead going into the last day,” said Kindy, who knows it’s anybody’s game Saturday. “It’s whoever catches them. That’s just the way it is.”
A win would complete a nice weekend of firsts.
Ostrander jumps into Top 10
Making the big move from California to fish the EQ, Christian Ostrander made a big move Friday to jump into the Top 10.
Ostrander, of Turlock, Calif., caught 12-13 on Day 1 to stand in a tie for 58th. With 19-14, the 25-year-old has a total of 32-11. He stood in third place with a flight or two left to weigh, which should give him a spot on Championship Saturday in his only second B.A.S.S. event.
He said he saved up his money from guiding and went all-in on the EQs, hoping his Golden State success will translate in the nine events spread across the east from Florida to Minnesota.
“All I fish is the Delta and Clear Lake, that’s where I learned how to fish,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of success in California. I’ve had highs and lows. I’ve saved up some money this year to fish this.”
Ostrander plans on staying on this side of the nation for the year, running with Andrew Loberg, of Grant, Ala. Loberg had 18-0 Friday to cash a check with 29-9.
“I guide as much as I can, have a couple people helping me out,” Ostrander said. “Stacked up the money, bringing it back here, see what’s going on.”
Pure California. In his first Open on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, Ostrander finished 42nd, and a Top 10 this week will put him high in the EQ standings. Tubular.
Goutremout takes big bass lead with a 10-14
Zach Goutremout had a limit of bass weighing “maybe eight pounds, if I was lucky,” at noon Friday. After catching five crappie in a row and no bass in the previous 45 minutes, he was pulling up his trolling motor to make a move. That’s when he happened to see what appeared to be a big bass on his LiveScope.
“I put the trolling motor back down, picked my rod up and threw to it,” Goutremout said. “It hit instantly, came up, jumped a couple of times, then took me down in the timber. It took me three or four minutes to get it back up and get it in the boat.”
The largemouth bass weighed officially 10 pounds, 14 ounces, and surpassed Evan Kung’s 9-14 on Thursday for tournament big bass honors so far. Interestingly, Goutremout, 23, from Chaumont, N.Y., in the Thousand Islands area of the St. Lawrence River, caught his previous personal best largemouth during practice on Lake Ouachita, an 8.75-pounder.
It took him awhile to settle down after landing the 10-14, which was caught on a white 1/8th ounce jighead minnow.
“Honestly, I don’t know if my feet are on the ground now,” Goutremout said after crossing the weigh-in stage. “I pulled it away from a few fish for about the next hour. I was shaking. I couldn’t control it. I finally settled in a little bit. I caught a five-pounder in the last 10 minutes and culled out a 1.25. It was a big help.”
Goutremout was in 124th place after catching a 9-12 limit on Day 1. With a 22-0 limit on Day 2, he was in contention to qualify for Saturday’s top 10 final as Friday’s weigh-in wound down.
No big bass for Kung on Day 2
Evan Kung caught the biggest bass of his life Thursday. It easily took big bass honors on Day 1, weighing 9 pounds, 14 ounces. You don’t catch a fish of a lifetime every day
“Yesterday the 10-pounder sort of saved the day,” said Kung, a 24-year-old angler from Pickering, Ontario, Canada. “It was a lot tougher today. I still caught about 15 or so, but a caught a lot of pound-and-a-halfers. I caught two that were close to three pounds in the last half hour.”
With a two-day total of 32-10, Kung will be close to the top 10, who qualify to fish on Saturday.
“I think I needed another half-pound,” he said. “But it was still a good tournament.”
Hargrove makes early move
Andrew Hargrove took the early lead on Day 2 after weighing 14-5. Combined with his 19-5, he had a total of 34-4 and stood in great position to make the two-day cut.
The 24-year-old from Moody, Texas, said he was fortunate after what he described as a trying practice.
“The Lord just truly blessed me this week,” Hargrove said. “Hopefully I can go tomorrow. I would really like to, be on FS1.”
The Top 10 anglers advance to Championship Saturday and will be featured on Bassmaster LIVE in the morning on FS1, then Bassmaster.com for the afternoon session.
Hargrove is no stranger to the EQ, finishing 46th last year. He made three Top 10s in 2023 but also had three bombs worse than 150th. Hargrove stood 45th in the Tackle Warehouse EQ points after finishing 61st at Lake Okeechobee, but his finish will climb him up the standings.
Hargrove, who looks forward to Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula, where he finished 10th last year. He said he doesn’t really have a plan of attack to be among the nine who make the Elites after the nine-event series.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I just try to go in every event and finish as high as I can. Depending on how practice is going, I just try to survive. I say alright, I’m just going to try to survive. This one, I’m going to go swing and try to win it.”
Well, that sounds like a plan.
Good start a key to Elite qualification
Two tournaments do not make a season. However, looking at the first year of the EQ, a hot start was critical.
Among the nine who qualified for the Elites from the 2023 season, only Kyle Patrick and JT Thompkins started 40th or worse in the points. Thompkins started 40th, but he cut checks in the next eight events, including four Top 10s, and won the EQ Angler of the Year.
It might be an anomaly, but in accumulating 1,659 points, Thompkins averaged a finish of 17th, scoring 184 points per event.
Patrick was 72nd after posting an 87th at Alabama’s Lake Eufaula, but he rose to 26th after finishing 13th at Toledo Bend. Winning at Lake of the Ozarks, which put Patrick in the Classic, certainly helped him finish as the ninth and final qualifier.
Of the other Elite rookies from the EQ, John Garrett was steady all year, never falling lower than third in points. After starting 17th in points, Trey McKinney never fell lower than sixth.
Robert Gee’s lowest spot in the standings was 22nd after two events. After two events, Tyler Williams dropped to 40th, but climbed with fantastic finishes.
The lowpoint for Wesley Gore and Logan Parks came after the sixth event, which saw them fall to 16th and 15th, respectively. Ben Milliken, who won at Toledo Bend, dropped down to 19th before the final two tournaments.
All that is not to say an angler can’t get on a roll and climb into contention, but a poor start in these first two events can spell doom.
Big bass good sign for Arkansas biologist
Jeremy Risley, who heads the black bass program for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, enjoyed seeing big bass caught on Lake Ouachita on Day 1.
There were a number of bass brought into the Open scales weighing more than 5 pounds, including a verified lunker. Canada’s Evan Kung, who stood third after the first round with 19 pounds, 9 ounces, had half his total in one fish, a 9-14 that stands to earn him $750 as the Phoenix Boats Big Bass.
Risley took notice, along with a small sample of that bass before it was released.
“We collected a fin clip so can study the genetics to determined if it’s a Florida strain bass vs. a largemouth bass,” Risley said. “It helps us to see how successful our stocking efforts are out here, and it helps us with future stockings.”
The AGFC has been stocking Arkansas fisheries for years, and began introducing the larger Florida strain bass into Ouachita around 2008. They stock around 100,000 or so every other year.
Being at the 199-boat weigh-in and seeing positive results had Risley smiling. Big bass almost certainly means the AGFC’s efforts are working.
“We hope. That’s our goal to see more of those,” he said. “We stock Florida bass to shift the genetics so we can produce larger fish.”
Arkansas lakes produce the occasional double-digit bass, including a recent flurry. In Ouachita pre-practice in December, EQ angler Jacob Bigelow landed a personal-best 11.57. In the past several weeks, anglers caught an 11.02 and a 12.6 from nearby DeGray Lake.
Risley said the AGFC hopes reports like these can entice more tournaments, which in turn increases coffers which get put back into fishery management.
“We appreciate B.A.S.S. coming into Arkansas,” Risley said. “We hope they come back.”
Big bass can’t hurt.
