Homer and Spencer McAlester	The Ross Brothers
Results

Angler's Choice Southern Oklahoma Team Tournaments was on Lake Texoma March 22, for their second event of the season. The father-son team of Homer and Spencer McAlester of Denison TX, won the event with five bass weighing 20.54 pounds, a very impressive weight for Lake Texoma. Homer and Spencer fished clear water from one to eight feet deep on the west side and north end of the lake. They caught bass all day fast fishing a Johnson white ½oz spinnerbait around rocks and wood in 58-degree water. Homer and Spencer won $1050.00 for first place plus an extra bonus of $250.00 from the angler's side pot for total winnings of $1300.00. Homer and Spencer, who are sponsored by Berkley and Ramey Chevrolet, moved into second place in the Angler of the Year race with this win.

After taking a year off from fishing the Ross Brothers, Steve and Mark of Ardmore OK, made a good come back with five bass weighing 15.80 pounds to capture second place. They fished rocky points with six to eight feet of stained water in the Washita Arm of the lake. All of their bass came early in the day with their biggest bass a lunker weighing 6.10 pounds coming on Steve's fifth cast of the day about 6:30, what a way to start the day. Steve and Mark caught all of their bass fishing very slow with Strike King perch color crankbaits and their own Ross Brothers perch colored spinnerbaits. Steve and Mark won $525.00 for second place and $230.00 for big bass and $150.00 from the angler's side pot for a total of $905.00

Third place went to Jay Symonds and Kelly McCollum, both of Coalgate OK. Symonds and McCollum fished drop offs on rocky points in three to five feet of murky 59-degree water using a Model A firetiger Bomber and a Smithwick chrome, blue back Rouge. They caught bass all day fishing the lake north to south. Symonds and McCollum won $450.00 for their five bass weighing 15.00 pounds and an extra $100.00 from the angler's side pot. Symonds and McCollum took first place in the Angler of the Year race with 224.98 points. They also received a $50.00 check from local sponsor J & M Marine for drawing out last in the take off numbers Friday night. Giving them total winnings of $600.00.

Lake Texoma was eight feet low and a lot of the anglers were concerned about their brush piles and fishing holes being out of the water, but they all seemed to find fish. There were 136 bass brought to the scales weighing 338.94 pounds for an average weight of 2.49 pounds per bass. 20 teams had a five fish limit. The weather was good for a Texoma tournament with hazy and partly cloudy skies, calm winds at take off which picked up during the day and changed directions all day as the wind so often does on Texoma.

Angler's Choice Southern Oklahoma Teams would like to thank the Marina Mart for the registration site and Lakeside Motel for headquarters, Catfish Bay Gas Dock for the take off and weigh-in site, and KKAJ 95.7 FM for being the official radio station for the Texoma event.

The next stop for the Southern Oklahoma Team Tournaments will be on Lake Eufaula April 19, going out of Eufaula Cove. Registration will be at Ken's Pizza from 7:30pm to 9:30pm Friday night or you can sign up at Eufaula Cove Saturday morning from 5:00am till the last boat leaves out. All boats should be on the water and ready to go at 6:15am Saturday, with take off at safe light. Headquarters is the Loyal Inn Motel 1-800-450-6576, and the official radio station for the Eufaula event is KFOX 102.5 FM.

Angler's Choice Southern Oklahoma Team Tournament's director Joe Copeland would like to invite all anglers to come and fish with his group this year. The Eufaula event is the last event a team can start fishing and qualify for the championship. There have been several changes made in the Oklahoma Division for the 2003 season. First of all, Oklahoma is no longer part of the Central Division it is now it's own Division called The Sooner Division. What this means to the anglers fishing Southern Oklahoma and Northern Oklahoma Angler's Choice Circuits is they will have their own championship here in Oklahoma with just teams from the two Oklahoma regions fishing in it. Both Southern and Northern Oklahoma will send 40 teams to the Sooner Championship to be held October 22 thru 25 on Lake Texoma. Mark Mendez the president of Angler's Choice has guaranteed a fully rigged BassCat boat for first place at the Sooner Championship. There will not be an entry fee for the anglers who qualify for the championship. Second, the entry fee for each tournament has been lowered to $130.00 per team with an optional side pot of $20.00. Also the points will be figured differently this season the first place team will receive their weight plus 100 points; second place will receive their weight plus 99 points. This procedure will be followed for each team weighing fish. All teams fishing but not weighing fish will receive one-half of the last place points. Example the last team to weigh in fish received 60 points for 40th place and 2.0 pounds of fish for a total of 62.00 points each remaining team who did not have fish will receive 29.5 points each (59 divided by 2=29.5). The 40 teams from the Southern Oklahoma region will be the top 35 in points who have fished at least five events, plus 5 wildcards from the last event of the season who have fished at least six events.

Angler's Choice Southern Oklahoma Team Tournaments would like to thank their national sponsors BassCat, Mercury, Lowrance, MotorGuide, Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, Bass West, Competitive Edge, KeepAlive, Sure Life. And also their local sponsors Shop and Tackle, Label Stable, Hart Tackle Co., Ryan Construction, Brannan's Bass Shop, Bailey's Outdoor Shop, Texoma Tackle, Oklahoma Hunting Show, Extreme Marine, Idle Time RV, and J & M Marine.

Contact Joe Copeland for more information on the Angler's Choice Southern Oklahoma Team Tournaments e-mail joe@simplynet.net or call 580-759-2088.