Mark's Outdoors Lay Lake Tournament

Father-son team wins Lay Lake Open
Posted by Mike Bolton -- Birmingham News May 02, 2009 9:22 PM
Emma Tannenbaum/Birmingham News
One of 500 boats speeds toward a fishing spot in the Mark's Outdoors Lay Lake Open on Saturday.
The father-son team of Josh and Jerry Stracner of Vandiver won the Mark's Outdoors Lay Lake Open Saturday, Alabama's largest bass tournament.

The pair caught five bass weighing 20.77 pounds to win the tournament by almost four pounds.

One thousands anglers in 500 boats fished the event.


"We were mainly sight-fishing," said Josh Stracner who along with his father won $1,000 cash and a $35,000 bass boat. "We caught a limit of bass like that early. There were a lot of bedding fish on the lake today. They were everywhere we went."

The team caught a 6-pound, 8-ounce bass sight-fishing as well as two 5-pound bass using the same method.

Centreville's Jamie Horton and Calera's Coby Carden, two of the more than a dozen Bassmaster pros fishing in the event, caught 16.84 pounds to finish second. Bill Lowen of Cincinnati teamed with Corner's Johnny Rouse for third place with 16.59 pounds.

Craig Rosetta of Moody and Lynn Shipman of Riverside took fourth with 16.18 pounds and Bassmaster pro Kyle Mabry of McCalla and Ken Jernigan of Indian Springs took fifth with 15.42 pounds.



Sixth place went to John Hodges of Moody and Chris Colley of Leeds. Joe Minor of Clanton, who was fishing alone, took seventh and Joel McKemie and Billy Reynolds, both of Sylacauga, finished eighth.

Daniel Barrett of Sylacauga and Kevin Waits of Rockford took ninth. Ray Sudsberry of Calera and Eric Vining of Wilsonville finished out the top 10.

All of the top 10 teams won $1,000 each.

The most disappointed angler of the day was Waco, Texas pro Alton Jones, the 2008 Classic winner. A bonus of $25,000 was up for grabs for any angler breaking the tournament record of 9.12 pounds. Jones said he found a bass on the bed that he believed would top 10 pounds and he cast to that fish for more than four hours but the bass never would bite.