Oklahoma’s Terry Butcher Leads Wire-to-Wire to Win Final

BASS Communications Seigo Saito DENISON, Texas – Bassmaster Elite Series pro Terry Butcher of Talala, Okla., claimed a bittersweet victory Saturday at the Bassmaster Central Open, the final Central Open division event of the season, weighing in five fish at 15 pounds, 14 ounces for a three-day total of 46 pounds, 8 ounces. Along with chasing a victory in the Central Open tournament, the top pros among the 30 who made the cut for the final day were vying for a 2009 Bassmaster Classic berth and an invitation to compete in the 2009 Bassmaster Elite Series, the premier level of tournament fishing. Butcher claimed the tournament’s top prize but missed out on qualifying for the Classic by just two points in the final Central Open division standings. Ironically, the Elite pro and good friend who loaned him a boat when motor problems plagued Butcher on the first day of the tournament, Jami Fralick of Martin, S.D., was the pro who squeaked past him to qualify for what will be Fralick’s second Classic. It would have been Butcher’s first. Butcher said his key strategy in winning the event was fishing rocks early, in about 4 to 5 feet of water, and cranking a 4A Bomber in a foxy shad color. He switched in the afternoons to a fat free shad in a chartreuse sparkle color, fishing 8 to 10 feet around brush piles. “I caught all my fish early in the day,” Butcher said. “My initial limit (on Day Two) I had in the first hour-and-a-half, weighed 13-9.” The Elite pro, who previously won a BASS event on another Texas lake, Sam Rayburn, said he set out Saturday with the same idea but got plenty nervous when the morning bite around his favorite rocks disappeared. By 10 a.m., he still had no fish. “I was starting to sweat, and then I backed out and started to fish the brush piles,” Butcher said, “and I got well in a hurry.” Butcher said he soaked a Yum ribbon-tail worm in plum candy color in the brush piles. For his effort, he earned the $1,000 bonus Saturday for Purolator Big Bass with a 4-10 smallmouth.