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Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Paul Mueller Wins Spotted Bass Slugfest

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Paul Mueller Wins Spotted Bass Slugfest

Connecticut’s Paul Mueller Wins Spotted Bass Slugfest At Lake Lanier, Georgia
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Former B.A.S.S. Nation Champion Paul Mueller proved he belongs in the big leagues of professional fishing by winning a spotted bass shootout on Georgia’s Lake Lanier. Mueller earned $100,000 by winning the Toyota Bassmaster Elite at Lake Lanier.

Desperate to fill out his five-bass limit with bigger spotted bass, Mueller returned to a deep ridge that had produced most of his big spotted bass on previous days. There, he managed to dredge up two big spotted bass that pushed him ahead of Texas angler Chris Zaldain by less than a pound.

“I struggled today,” Mueller said. “I had run out of options, so I went back to my primary spot and caught a 5 1/4 (pounder) and then a 4. Without those two fish, I don’t win.”

Mueller had 18 pounds, 8 ounces for the day, giving him a four-day total of 69-0. It could have been even more. “There were still fish on that spot when I left,” he added. “At the end of the day, I lost a couple of big ones. I could have had a 20-something bag today.”

He described the structure as a large, underwater ridge with two shallower areas on top and very deep water on each side. He caught most of his spotted bass the first day on a Reins Bubbling Shad on a Do It Molds Freestyle Jighead, but the big producer the rest of the time was a 3 1/4-ounce Reins Fat Rockvibe Shad Swimbait on a 1/2-ounce herring head underspin jighead with the spinner removed.

“Who would have thought you could win this tournament — a blueback herring tournament — off of one spot?” he said. In fisheries where the nomadic herring are a main staple of bass diet, spotted bass are notorious for leaving their holding areas unexpectedly and en masse.

That happened to Zaldain, who also had to contend with a wind shift today that moved his schools of bass. A sudden drop of temperatures into the low 40s didn’t help.

“I fished long, sloping points all week and had to switch to western banks today because of the east wind,” he said.

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