Charles Jones aims for another FLW record
Who doesn’t love a good fishing story? And, it is safe to say during these trying times due to COVID-19 we need positive stories. Well, we’ve got three good ones, featuring an angler who refuses to let old age stop him from competing, two friends who turned a go-for-broke plan into a stunning victory and last, but not least, a fishing destination with a catchy, no pun intended, name and where thousands of pounds of catfish have been caught during the pandemic.
We’ll start with Charles Jones of Beech Bluff, Tennessee. Actually, Jones lives closer to I-40 than he does to Beech Bluff, but that’s the mailing address for his family farm, where he and his wife of almost 50 years love on their six grandchildren and where he calls home when he isn’t fishing.
In Jones’ case, he has done a lot of bass fishing in his life. He won his first tournament in 1979. In June, at the age of 75, he brought to scale on the final day of competition three bass weighing 12 pounds, 9 ounces to win the 2020 Phoenix Bass Fishing League presented by T-H Marine event on Kentucky and Barkley lakes. For his victory Jones earned $4,385 and a boat.
Already in the FLW record books for his BFL win as a boater on Kentucky and Barkley lakes in 2014, Jones became the second oldest angler to ever win as a boater in the BFL’S modern history. Only fellow Tennessean George Taylor of Dresden, has been older – he won a BFL event in 2014 at the age of 77.
Watch out George Taylor, Jones is after your record.
And to think, Jones’ love of bass fishing started when he was shining shoes in a barber shop in the mid-1950s in Mississippi. He was 11 when the shop’s barber asked him if he’d like to go bass fishing.
“My dad never really cared about bass fishing,” says Jones, who grew up in Nettleton, Miss. “When I was shining shoes, the barber was an avid bass fisherman. He took me in the summer time. We fished every Wednesday. He closed his barber shop on Wednesdays. We’d fish from daylight to dark.”
At 15, Jones figured it was time to test the bass fishing tournament waters.
Jones won his first tournament in 1979, and along with it the first of six boats he has won in his bass fishing career. He fished BASS circuits in the late 1980s and realized that he couldn’t compete at that level without doing it full-time. He worked 48 years for a chemical company, retiring three years ago, but remains with the company as a consultant.
After deciding to leave BASS, Jones has continued to fish regional tournaments, including several with his two sons, including two Lebonheur Classic titles with his oldest son when his son was 13 and 15.
“I am currently returning the favor of my mentor (the barber) by fishing with multiple high school teams and trying to foster the love fishing that I have enjoyed for all my life,” says Jones, who has been a part of the Strike King Lure Company family since 1979 when he struck a bargain with the late Charles Spencer.
All of which brings us back to breaking George Taylor’s record.
As for winning a tournament at 75, Jones says, “It felt good. It was a lot of fun. The difference in me and a lot of guys is that they are going there hoping they can place. Even at 75, I fully expect to win every tournament I enter. If my health holds, I plan to keep on competing. I am going to do this as long as I possibly can.”
The victory at Barkley and Kentucky lakes earned Jones a berth in the Phoenix Bass Fishing League regional championship on Lake Chickamauga in Dayton, Tenn., on Oct. 8-10.
Now, let’s move on to our next “good news’ story – Catch ‘em Lake.
This pay-to-fish series of small lakes located off Walnut Grove Road in East Memphis is operated by Walnut Grove Bait & Tackle through a partnership with Agricenter International. It has been a gathering place for anglers for years, thanks to its catchy name and location (an estimated 100,000 vehicles are said to pass the Agricenter each day either on Germantown or Walnut Grove roads).
Catch ‘em Lake, according to John Butler, Agricenter’s president, has seen a 5075 percent increase in business.
“It has been absolutely slammed,” Butler says.
Due to customer demand, the lakes have been stocked with 2,000-4,000 pounds of catfish a week during the pandemic as more and more people seek out a place to catch fish and social distance.
“We have been having to put fish back into the lakes just to keep up with the demand,” Butler says. “It’s really nice to see folks outside, some fishing for the first time. I can tell you that the bait industry, the tackle industry and some of my friends that own catfish farms in Arkansas have supply issues.”
The admission fee for the catfish lakes is $8 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under. The Games Lakes admission is $13 for adults and $6 for children 12 and under. Catfish is $2.50 per pound with additional fees for cleaning. For additional information on Catch ‘em Lake go to catchemlakes.com or call 901-737-1200.
Finally, there’s Chase Petty of Jackson, Tenn., who teamed with Braxton Dupont to win a recent American Crappie Trail tournament on Kentucky Lake.
According to Petty, it was “meant” for he and Dupont to win the tournament.
“Everything just kind of fell into place,” Petty says with a laugh. “We were there to win. We weren’t there to collect points. We weren’t there to finish second or third.”
It all started on Day 1 of the tournament when Petty and Dupont decided, like most of the other anglers, to stay close to Paris Landing State Park’s boat ramp. They ended up catching about 10 pounds of crappie on the first day.
Not bad, but you’ve got to remember Petty and Dupont were operating out of a rather small boat, an 18-foot aluminum Warrior with a 60-horsepower motor, a boat that Petty says he has taken everywhere, including on the Mississippi River duck hunting.
“We’re not scared to go kill ducks or catch fish in this boat,” he says.
Still, would it be enough to get Petty and Dupont to where they thought they’d catch the most crappie – 35 miles south of the landing spot on the Tennessee River, a drive of about 1 hour and 5 minutes?
Petty had found fish at that location earlier in the spring.
“We took roughly 14 gallons of fuel with us,” Petty says, still laughing. “During practice I pretty much ran out of gas trying to get down there. I wasn’t going to do that again.”
The scariest part, Petty says, was what if they boated that far and somebody already had their spot. If that was case, like he said before, “It wasn’t meant to be.”
Fortunately, no one was there when he and Dupont arrived at their long-shot spot.
“When we pulled up on the first stake bed. It was loaded, and we went to work on them for the next hour,” he says.
Then, it was time to head to the landing ramp.
“We kept eight fish all the way until Paris Landing,” Petty says. “You are not allowed to come into the wake zone with more than seven fish. I kept one. We stopped outside the no-wake zone and released that fish and made sure everything was OK. When I threw that smallest one out, I told Braxton I was going to weigh the smallest fish that we had. It was actually .07 pounds more than when I weighed it that morning.”
Once they got to the weigh-ins and discovered they’d won, Petty and Dupont were speechless.
“it was just surprising to us. But, like I said, when it is meant to be, it is meant to be.”
Now, here’s the kicker to Petty’s story. He and his wife had been hoping to buy a larger boat. They had been saving money.
“And, then I win one,” Petty says, still laughing. “I tell you I didn’t sleep for the next three nights.”
Larry Rea’s outdoors column appears on the first Sunday of each month in The Commercial Appeal; e-mail Larry Rea at lroutdoors@att.net or go to his web site at lroutdoors.com; listen to Larry Rea on Outdoors with Larry Rea on Saturday mornings from 6-7:30 on ESPN 790-AM and 92.9 HD FM in Memphis and 1520-AM and 95.3-FM in Brownsville, Tenn., and 6:30-8 on News/talk 101.5 in Jackson, Tenn.