September 9, 2003 Oneida, NY
Hart and Bowe Enter Victory Circle on Oneida

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You Catch them =====>>> You Win Them Bird And Croll Bird Moore And Baker Walters

Results

Hurricane Isabel has yet to touch land, but she offered a warning to the 10 deams competing in the 5th Angler's Choice Oneida Teams event on Oneida Lake just north of Syracuse, NY. The constant 25-30 MPH winds were a challenge from launching the boats at Oneida Shores Park to putting them back on the trailers at the end of the tournament.

The horizontal rain as well as the wind prevented the contestants from venturing westward on the lake toward the shoals that harbor Oneida's big smallmouth. Almost all teams opted to fish inside the canal or the Oneida River at the east end of the lake, only a mile or so from the launch. On this day, however, even the normally protected waters of the canal provided little relief from the swirling wind.

Thankfully, all teams checked in safely and on time for the 3:00PM weigh-in.
Although only a handful of smallmouth bass visited the scales, the green heavyweights again made an appearance at the weigh-in.

Finishing in 5th place was Jim Griffith and Norm Fey from New York. Their limit weighed 12.04 lbs. and kept them in the thisk of the extremely close Angler's of the Year race. In 4th place was Bill Sharp and Tom Bienkowski, also from New York. They have a knack for finding big fish on this lake and their 12.61 lb. limit proved it.

New York's Eric Barker and Carl Moore claimed 3rd place with a limit of bass weighing 13.02 lbs. They were awarded plaques and Okuma Rods for their efforts.

Our 2nd place winners, Stewart Bird and Steve Croll from New York have weighed in mostly big smallmouth in the previous 4 events, but proved they are not one-dimensional bass fishermen as they caught a beautiful limit of largemouth that weighed 17.03 pounds! In fact, they didn't even catch a smallmouth on this tough day on Oneida Lake. Stewart and Steve were presented $355 and 2 plaques.

Our Champions on Oneida Lake are from Pennsylvania. Regulars on the Angler's Choice DelMarVa trail, John Hart and Bill Bowe used this event as "pre-practice" for another tournament upcoming on Oneida. They fished topwaters in the canal to catch and cull a load of huge largemouth. Their best 5 bass tipped the scales at 20 pounds even! They also earned the Big Bass honors with a 5.85 lunker. John and Bill took home checks for $715 for the win, another $100 for lunker, 2 plaques, and a $1000 Bass Cat Bonus Bucks certificate. Congratulations, guys!

The next Oneida Teams event is September 27th out of Oneida Shores Park