Thrun, Moynagh win their fourth FF Bass Championship

By Mitch Calvert
Fort Frances Times

The formidable team of Joe Thrun and Jim Moynagh struck again.
The two Minnesotans weighed in 55.89 pounds over the three-day Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship to win the crown for the second-straight year and fourth time in eight tries.
Sitting in ninth place after Day 1 on Thursday, the defending champs had a 19.20-pound bag Friday to take over top spot, then hauled in 20.09 pounds on Saturday to seal their victory over Alex and Darrell Keszler of Winnipeg.
“These fish are spoiling us, but it’s never routine by any means,” Moynagh said after the final weigh-in.
“After practice, we really felt like we had a good area, but it didn’t produce any fish,” he noted. “So we just fell back on some other things, and one of the spots actually improved from [pre-fishing].”
Moynagh and Thrun first claimed back-to-back titles in 1998 and ’99, then they had two second-placed finishes in ’97 and 2000. In ’01, they dropped to 56th spot, before coming in third in ’02—the last year they fished here together prior to last July.
They were able to hold off a hard-charging Keszler team, which remained in second place all three days, thanks in part to some last-minute heroics by Moynagh.
“My rods were strapped in and [I] was folding down the net and tucking that away, and then Jim said he had one, so I had to jump up and get ready,” Thrun recalled of Moynagh’s final cast.
“I thought, ‘Oh great, a northern is going to make us late for the weigh-in’ but then he said, ‘It’s a big smallie,’ so we netted it up and locked everything down, threw our smallest one out, and drove back just in time.”
The pair actually caught two fish in the last 10 minutes which they ended up weighing in, which definitely gave them some much-needed breathing room over the Keszlers.
The father/son duo consistently is in the hunt at the FFCBC but has yet to net the top prize.
“What can you do, we were happy with our day,” Darrell Keszler said. “We’d rather lose by two-and-a-half pounds than by a point.”
Lauren Ras and Chuck Olson of Bemidji, Mn. made a big jump on the final day, holding the “hot seat” with their 18.37-pound bag before finally being ousted by the eventual third-placed team of Mike Luhman and Mark Raveling (51.83 pounds).
Trevor Guderyan and Dean Tacknyk rounded out the top five (48.70).
John Janousek and Chad Johnson, who led the tournament after Day 1, dropped down to 19th place when all was said and done.
“We wish we could’ve followed up with what we got the first day the last two days but that didn’t happen,” Johnson said on stage after bringing in just 12.95 pounds on Saturday.
“We still had a good tournament and a lot of fun, and now we’re just looking forward to next year,” he added.
The big fish of the tournament was 4.79 pounds, weighed in by Scott Walsh and Heath Iacarella on Friday.
Paul Jewiss and Mike Graham had the big fish Thursday (4.68 pounds) while Luhman and Raveling had the lunker for Saturday (4.53 pounds).
Janousek and Johnson had the biggest catch on Day 1 (18.98 pounds), with Thrun and Moynagh leading the way both Friday (19.20 pounds) and Saturday (20.09).
The champs weighed in nearly three pounds less than it took to win a year ago (58.36 pounds), and 418 fewer bass were caught overall.
Some factors may have been the late spring and cooler temperatures, meaning the fish were more scattered around still, or the fact mayflies are keeping them well-fed.