Our featured Angler for May is Virginia's Mr. Bass Champion, Ray Tweedy

Ray Tweedy has been here before. Virginia’s Mr. Bass champion for this year was the state Chapter Team Six-Man champion in 1990. At that time, there was just one Chapter Team event annually.

This is Tweedy’s fourth time as a state qualifier. He previously qualified by finishing 4th in the 1995 Chapter Team event, and by placing third in 1998.

If the current rules were in place at the time he qualified in 1990, he would have advanced to the Federation National Championship. He was the top finisher on the Virginia team at the divisional tournament, but he was 14th overall. At that time the top eight fishermen advanced rather than the top one from each state.

Tweedy, closing in on 49, is a Virginia native. He grew up in Appomattox, lives there now, works as a machinist at a technology firm, started fishing region events in about 1984, and is a member of Region 2’s Appomattox Bassmasters. A good club keeps its good fishermen. Tweedy says Appomattox is a “nice club, a real nice bunch of guys,“ and he’s been a part of it since about 1988.

Fishermen who were at this year’s Mr. Bass tournament on April 21-22 at Buggs Island know that the fish were scattered and that no pattern was particularly effective. Tweedy found his fish with a spinnerbait, saying “we just had to hit as many places as we could hit.” He says he didn’t have a very good practice day on Friday, that the spinnerbait bite he’d found on Wednesday and Thursday went down. He tried flipping, carolina-rigging and a jerkbait, but none of those produced winning bites. His partner, Michael Cole of Bass Snipers in Region 1, said that friends had said of Tweedy after Friday‘s draw that “you were the man to go with” and to trust his pattern, so out came the spinnerbaits. It was a good decision and the confidence boost Tweedy needed.

Tweedy had a good first day on Saturday and Cole blanked, and that’s when his partner made the courteous and generous decision to step aside. Tweedy says that on Saturday night Coles told him “the boat is yours,” adding “you’re gonna drive the boat, you’re gonna run the front of the boat, I’m gonna sit on the back of the boat and dilly-dally around , and stay out of your way and have the net ready.” Tweedy says he couldn‘t have asked for anyone better.

The two fished from Rudds Creek back toward Clarksville, sticking to water that had a little bit more stain than the rest of the lake. Good spinnerbait water. And as Tweedy points out, “anybody and everybody who knows me knows on Buggs this time of year that’s my number one weapon. I come out slinging it as many days I have to fish. It’s my confidence bait.” He finished with 7 fish for 18.56 pounds, edging runnerup John Cole of Mountain Bassmasters in Region 2 by about 1/3 of a pound. John Cole, who also qualifies for the state team, had two 4-fish limits for 18.24 pounds.

Next up is the Eastern Divisional in late September on Buggs Island. And Tweedy knows that Buggs “can be awesome” in the fall. A few years ago he helped put David Harp on fish that helped Harp win the Divisional on Kerr. Harp now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and frequents Kerr, and Tweedy’s hoping he can get some return help when the time comes. And he’s hoping the spinnerbait bite is on.

Mr. Bass runnerup John Cole of Buena Vista (Mountain Bassmasters, Region 2) also qualifies for the Virginia state team. Cole grew up in Buena Vista and lives there now with his wife and two children. The 40-year-old started fishing farm ponds in college while hanging around with a friend on weekends. He started tournament fishing in the late 1980s and eventually joined Rockbridge Bassmasters. Mountain Bassmasters spun off from Rockbridge about four years ago. Cole has a string of 12 straight appearances in Virginia 6-Man Chapter Team tournaments. This is the first time he’s qualified for the state team.

At the Mr Bass tournament he had a poor practice but found a jerkbait bite in pockets around the North Bend and dam area of the lake that helped his scrape out a limit on day one. On day two he threw nothing but a jerkbait, and the pattern made him the only fisherman to land a four-fish limit on both days of the two-day event. Cole’s total weight was 18.24 pounds. His fellow Mountain Bassmasters traveling partner, Jeff Staton, also used a jerkbait to catch 7 keepers for 14.24 pounds, good enough for 10th place.