Takes wins 7th fisherman of the year title

Thad Takes won his seventh Cedar Rapids Bassmasters fisherman of the year title during the past tournament season.

Ho hum? Not at all, said Takes, whose seven titles are three more than any other club member has won.

Asserting that the club's many good anglers always provide a high level of competition, Takes said, “There's always someone within striking distance. You can't afford to fall on your face.”

This year a single point separated Takes from runner-up Brad Teel, who battled Takes for the title in the season's seventh and final tournament, Oct. 8 and 9 on the Mississippi River at Lansing.

The year before Takes finished second in another final tournament battle with Blair Gordon.

In 2008 Takes edged Steve Harty for the title in a race decided during the season's last tournament.

The Cedar Rapids Bassmasters title goes to the angler who records the highest cumulative score in the club's seven tournaments, with 100 points to the winner of a tournament, 99 points to the runner-up, and so forth.

With three wins, a second-place finish, two thirds and one sixth, Takes finished with 690 points - one ahead of Teel, who finished in the top five in all seven tournaments.

“Brad is a very good fisherman. We had two or three lead changes during the season. It could have gone either way,” Takes said.

Takes established a new club record for total weight in a season - 170 pounds 9 ounces. Teel, with 159 pounds, also eclipsed the old record of 156 pounds 11 ounces set by Takes in 2008.

“I guess that says the bass fishing is still pretty good on the Upper Mississippi,” where the club holds most of its tournaments, Takes said.

Takes said higher than normal water levels during most of the season pushed bass into shoreline cover, making the pitching of jigs and plastic lures a key presentation.

Takes, 43, won three straight club titles from 2000 through 2002, then let his club fishing lapse while he took a shot at competitive bass angling's highest level. After returning to club fishing in 2007, he added titles in four of the last five years.

Others among the top 12 in the race for the 2011 title were Justin Lubbock, Dean Miller, Darren Corley, Bob Heath, Chad Smith, Roger Corley, Verlyn Hines, Tom Milder, Jim Roth and Lynn Smith.

The club's annual fundraiser, an ice fisheree on Pleasant Creek Lake near Palo, is set for Feb. 12.