Charlotte, North Carolina angler Stephen Dyer is the winner of the Ego Net Contest. His story about the "Jumper" is below. Great job Stephen and your new EGO net is on the way.
I have to preface this story with a tidbit about the spinner bait I was using. While attending the Greensboro Fishing Expo last January I had a dozen custom spinner baits I call Thumpers made by a Fat Ratz Custom Lures, a vendor there. I have them made all the same, a ¾ oz. white/char head with matching skirt and a #7 Colorado blade. When I stopped by his booth to pick them there was a strange looking purple and chartreuse headed ¾ oz spinner bait blank laying on his work bench. He said it was a new design and that he had it in 3/4 oz. I had him fit one with the same blade as the others with a matching purple/chart (lake fork shad) skirt. After it was finished I thought gee what a mistake, this is the ugliest spinner bait ever made and it was soon forgotten.
During my club (Southfork Bassmasters) February 19th tournament on Lake Wylie I found myself up the up-river slow rolling one of my “Thumpers” in some deep lay-downs found in practice only after a few days of rain the water had become a bit more stained. My partner and I fished the bank a bit with no luck when I hung and lost my spinner bait. I was digging out another when I came across the forgotten purple-chartreuse monstrosity.
I figured what the heck, we are stinking up the show anyway and tied it on. I was shocked when on the third cast a 3lb large mouth was swimming in the net with the “Ugly-Thumper” dangling from his jaw, three casts later a 2.5, ten casts after that another 3. This is the stuff you can only hope for. I made a long cast to some rocks, was letting it sink when I felt a fish pick it up. I set the hook on a good feeling fish which immediately got me hung on a branch. I was trying to keep him on as I trolled closer when I felt the braided line break….I sat down on my deck disgusted this was the only one of these I had. As if adding insult to injury while I was tying on a new bait this very nice bass jumps out of the water a few yards in front of the boat shaking his head trying to throw my ugly thumper which was still buried in his jaw. You could even hear the blade clanking. I was now way past disgusted. The next thing I know the fish jumps just a yard or two in front of us, still with ugly thumper holding on for dear life. I thought, what the heck, and asked my partner to toss me the net. When it jumped the third time it was off the port side and just of reach. I readied the net, and when the fish made his fourth jump I stabbed out, and netted it out of the air with old ugly still hanging from his jaw.
I promise you will never see two guys fishing laugh so hard ever. He went in the livewell, old ugly back on my line, we went back to catching fish and we won the event. The jumper even took home big fish honors.
My net saved the day! 