Yamamoto Pro Judy Wong Catpures Women's Bassmaster Tour Championship
October 26, 2009
Describing conditions on Louisiana’s Black Bayou as a “perfect scenario,” veteran Yamamoto pro Judy Wong led wire-to-wire to win the 2009 Women’s Bassmaster Tour championship with a three-day weight of 36 pounds, 10 ounces.
The 20 championship qualifiers needed such conditions just to have a place to compete. Originally set for the Red River in Shreveport, the venue was changed the morning of registration when the river’s flow increased from 40,000 to 150,000 cfs and flooded out of its banks. The second choice, nearby Cross Lake, was also closed due to high water.
That left the twin lakes of Black and Cypress near Benton, just north of Shreveport, as the third option. The 700-acre Black Bayou, basically a residential lake but filled with bass, was chosen, and the site could hardly have been better.
Wong, winner of the 2007 WBT title as well as the victor last month in the regular WBT season finale on Tennessee’s Old Hickory Lake, used both a Yamamoto Senko and a Rapala DT-14 crankbait for her fish, alternating between the two lures. She fished the same tiny 100-foot long stretch of riprap and underwater rocks all three days.
“None of us had fished Black Lake and we only had one practice day,” the Many, La. angler explained, “and the riprap was just one of the places I visited that day. I caught two bass and shook off several more from that spot and decided to concentrate there. The lake is lined with a lot of boat docks as well as reeds and other vegetation, but I did better with the rocks.”
Wong not only fished shoreline riprap but also what she believes were several piles of underwater rocks slightly offshore in 10 feet of water. The lake has a 14-17 inch protective slot, and she caught about 20 total bass each day.
“In practice, I caught fish with a medium-running Strike King Series 3 crankbait, but when the weather changed the first day of competition, they stopped hitting it,” she continued. “I thought they might have moved a little deeper, so I changed to the DT-14, and began catching fish immediately.
“I’d run the crankbait into the rocks, let it ricochet off, and pause it just for a moment, and that’s when the bass hit.”
When the crankbait action slowed, she changed to a 5-inch green pumpkin/red flake Senko, Texas rigging it with a 1/8-ounce pegged sinker. She fished this around the same 
underwater rocks, but much, much slower, and when bass stopped hitting it, she returned to the crankbait.
“I think it was important to have two totally different lures and presentations as long as I was fishing the same water over and over,” Wong explained. “I could stand in the front of the boat and make one cast forward, and I could then move to the back of the boat and make one cast in that direction. That’s all the area I was fishing.”
Wong entered the WBT championship in fourth place, and her win moved her to third in the final standings. Pam Martin-Wells, who fished the tournament very close to Wong, finished second in the event nearly five pounds behind, but won the overall WBT Angler of the Year title.
“I went into this tournament to try to lead every day and to win it,” said Wong, “but for me to win the Angler of the Year title meant both Pam and Juanita Robinson (who finished fourth in the event and runnerup in the AOY standings) both had to stumble, and they don’t do that very often.”
Interestingly, Black Lake had been drawn down to allow homeowners to work on docks and seawalls, and had re-filled less than a week before the tournament.