Wayne Vaughan of Chester, Virginia, caught a five-bass limit Saturday weighing 20-11 to win the three-day St. Lawrence River Northern FLW Series. Vaughan's three-day total of 63-05 was enough to earn him the victory by a 1-09 margin of Scott Dobson and earn him $83,340, including a new Ranger Z518L boat with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard.
“I caught a few fish this week on a tube, but every fish that I weighed in came dropshotting a redbone-colored Z-Man Jerk Shadz,” said Vaughan, who earned his first career victory in FLW competition. “I fished basically from takeoff all the way down to Clayton, hitting 20 to 25 spots each day.
“The first day my numbers were not that great – I think I only caught 10 fish. On the second day I caught around 25, and today I only caught 10. I was fishing around the ends of points – I caught them all in 35 to 55 feet-of-water. Yesterday the current was moving really well, so it had the fish up a little higher – around 35 feet. Today, I couldn’t get them that shallow and had to go real deep. I caught one down 55 feet.”
When asked what he felt was the key to his victory, Vaughan was honest and blunt with his answer – “luck.”
“I had no keys,” Vaughan joked. “I think my key was luck. I had caught a couple of fish in practice, but the last day I caught a 6-pounder way out deep. I told myself, ‘That is definitely where the big ones live, and I’m committing myself to this.’ It was a grind – I was only getting one or two fish on each of those spots.
“It’s been a great year, and to win at the last event of the year is just a great way to end the season.
Here are the final total for the top 10:
1. Wayne Vaughan: 63-05
2. Scott Dobson: 61-12
3. A.J. Slegona: 59-07
4. Casey Smith: 58-12
5. Jason Burger: 54-10
6. Neil Deleeuw: 54-04
7. Ken Golub: 54-01
8. Brian Hughes: 53-08
9. Jonathan Kelley: 50-04
10. Bryan Thrift: 50-00
