Pro Tommy Dickerson of Orange, Texas, brought three bass weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces, to the scale Saturday to win the Costa FLW Series Southwestern Division finale on Fort Gibson Lake presented by Mercury. Dickerson’s three-day total of 13 bass weighing 32 pounds, 6 ounces, was enough to earn him the top prize of $80,503, including a brand new Ranger Z518C boat with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard.
Dickerson actually finished with the same three-day total weight as Coweta, Oklahoma, pro Kyle Cortiana. However, according to tournament rules, ties on day three are resolved by day two standings. Dickerson was in first place after day two, and Cortiana in fourth, so Dickerson was declared the champion. The Texas pro caught his fish using a Santone spinnerbait in the back of a creek far up the Grand River.
Accessing the creek required him to pull and grind his way over a shallow shoal with his trolling motor – a perfect scenario to avoid the heavy fishing pressure from other competitors on the main lake. On day one, accessing the creek went smooth and easy. On day two, getting in and out was a much bigger challenge due to falling water. “I got stuck several times and began to think I wasn’t going to get back out,” Dickerson recalls.
By the final morning, the water had dropped enough that, despite 30 minutes of work, Dickerson couldn’t get in. He spent a couple hours fishing secondary areas on the main river, where he noticed a clue that eventually led to his winning move. “The current was running in the river, and the water was coming back up,” he says. “I’ve heard this lake can come up a foot in a couple of hours, so I decided to fish out on the river for a while, bide my time and try it [getting into the smaller creek] again later.”
When Dickerson returned, he skated easily over the shoal and into the deeper water beyond it. Dickerson slow-rolled his spinnerbait in waters that were about 4 feet deep, intentionally making contact with rocky areas and boulders that were about 2 feet down. “The water was too stained to see the rocks, so I just fluttered the spinnerbait down there until I felt the rock,” he says. “If I could get that spinnerbait to deflect off a rock, one would eat it.”
With his time cut short due to the falling water, Dickerson wasn’t able to work the creek over as thoroughly as he’d have liked, but with three keepers he weighed in just enough to get his third FLW victory. “Yeah, you might say it’s been a week of ounces and inches,” Dickerson adds. “That just shows you how hard it is to win one of these things. The last one I won was 12 years ago at Lake Texoma. And trust me, the older you get, the more you appreciate these wins because you just don’t know how many more chances you’re going to get.”
The top 10 pros on Fort Gibson Lake finished:
1st: Tommy Dickerson, Orange, Texas, 13 bass, 32-6, $80,503
2nd: Kyle Cortiana, Coweta, Okla., 13 bass, 32-6, $13,199
3rd: Brady Winans, Caddo Mills, Texas, 9 bass, 32-0, $10,371
4th: Cody Bird, Granbury, Texas, 14 bass, 29-14, $8,451
5th: Tommy Biffle, Wagoner, Okla., 9 bass, 29-14, $7,606
6th: Mitchell Webb, Skiatook, Okla., 13 bass, 27-11, $6,761
7th: Brandon Mosley, Choctaw, Okla., 11 bass, 27-9, $5,916
8th: Ryan Wilbanks, Wagoner, Okla., 10 bass, 23-6, $5,070
9th: Joel Baker, Talala, Okla., 9 bass, 23-5, $4,225
10th: Darrel Robertson, Jay, Okla., 7 bass, 22-15, $3,380
A complete list of results will be posted at FLWFishing.com.
Randy Despino of Colfax, Louisiana, caught a 6-pound, 7-ounce fish on Thursday that earned him the day’s Boater Big Bass award of $230.
Brady Winans of Caddo Mills, Texas, won the Boater Big Bass award on Friday with a 4-pound, 10-ounce bass worth $230.
Johnny Burke of Bristow, Oklahoma, won the Co-angler Division and a Ranger Z175 with a 90-horsepower outboard motor plus a $5,000 Ranger Cup bonus with a three-day total catch of 7 bass weighing 17 pounds, 2 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers on Fort Gibson Lake finished:
1st: Johnny Burke, Bristow, Okla., 7 bass, 17-2, $27,100 + Ranger Cup ($5,000)
2nd: Mason Roach, Willis, Texas, 5 bass, 11-0, $4,309
3rd: Tate Brumnett, Wagoner, Okla., 4 bass, 10-5, $3,407
4th: David See, Beggs, Okla., 4 bass, 10-1, $2,982
5th: Charles Parker, Broken Arrow, Okla., 4 bass, 9-14, $2,556
6th: Robin Babb, Tulsa, Okla., 3 bass, 9-14, $2,130
7th: Johnny Horton, Collinsville, Okla., 3 bass, 9-5, $1,857
8th: Phillip McBrien, Fairland, Okla., 4 bass, 9-5, $1,491
9th: Toby Wallace, Tolar, Texas, 3 bass, 8-14, $1,431
10th: Ronnie Kane, Gravois Mills, Mo., 3 bass, 7-14, $1,065
Toby Wallace of Tolar, Texas, caught a 4-pound, 13-ounce bass on Thursday that won the day one Co-angler Big Bass award worth $153. Johnny Horton of Collinsville, Oklahoma, won the Co-angler Big Bass award on day two with a 4-pound, 6-ounce fish worth $153.
The Costa FLW Series on Fort Gibson Lake was presented by Mercury and hosted by the Wagoner Area Chamber of Commerce. It was the third and final FLW Series Southwestern Division tournament of the 2018 regular season.
The next Costa FLW Series tournament will be the Central Division finale, held Oct. 10-12 on Lake of the Ozarks in Osage Beach, Missouri, and is presented by Evinrude. For a complete schedule, visit FLWFishing.com. The Costa FLW Series consists of five U.S. divisions – Central, Northern, Southeastern, Southwestern and Western – along with the International division. Each U.S. division consists of three regular-season tournaments with competitors vying for valuable points that could earn them the opportunity to compete in the season-ending Costa FLW Series Championship.
The 2018 Costa FLW Series Championship is being held Nov. 1-3 on Lake Guntersville in Guntersville, Alabama, and is hosted by the Marshall County Convention and Visitors Bureau. For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the Costa FLW Series on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.
About FLW
FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2018 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW and their partners conduct 286 bass-fishing tournaments annually around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa and Spain. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show, broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros. For more information visit FLWFishing.com and follow FLW at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.
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