Former FLW pro makes most of Toledo Bend know-how
George Jeane Jr. took a medical leave from his duties as a touring FLW pro this year to recover from surgery, but on his first tournament back in the saddle he proved he can still catch the big ones when he landed a 13-pounder during a late-May tournament.
Jeane, who won an FLW Tour event in 2006, was fishing the Everstart tournament on Toledo Bend when he sank the hooks into the lunker that weighed in at 13 pounds, 4 ounces.
“I caught it at 11 a.m.,” Jeane said. “That made my limit, and I left (that spot). I never caught another fish.”
The huge fish anchored a 25-pound, 6-ounce stringer that put him into the eighth-place finish.
Jeane, who has caught “seven or eight over 10 pounds,” said this was the heaviest bass he’s landed to date.
He was dragging a Carolina rig over the edge of a grass flat in 22 feet of water when the bass grabbed his watermelon/candy red Havoc Bottom Hopper trick worm.
But he didn’t have a clue initially that it a fish was on the terminal end of his line.
“I actually thought I was hung,” Jeane said. “I was fixing to pull (on the line), and when I pulled it tight I saw my line coming up.”
The fish cleared the water four times.
“All I could think about was getting her in the boat,” Jeane said. “I was just hoping my co-angler was good on the net.
“He was.”