Well, the answer is “yes”

Going into this weekend’s big crappie tournament on Lake D’Arbonne in Farmerville, the big question was “can anybody beat Hayden Jeffries?” Jeffries and his dad, Dan, have been on a tear lately, winning everything in sight.

But they couldn’t overcome the field this weekend as former D’Arbonne Crappie Masters winners Matthew and Bruce Rogers of Missouri, another father-son team, caught two seven fish limits weighing 31.32 pounds to claim the$10,000 first prize check. Their win was anchored by one of two 16 pound bags caught Saturday, 16.07. Second-place finishers Keaton and Les Stanstipher caught 16.17 Saturday for a 30.92 total to win $7,000 as runners-up.

Locals and first-day leaders Chris Fields and Jared Riser couldn’t quite keep up Friday’s pace and finished third with 30.28 pounds to win $3,000. Team Jeffries ended up with 18.94 in seventh place. Weights stayed high all the way down through the top 20, even through payoffs fell off considerably with the 14th place team of Wesley Miller and Justin Smart cashing the last check of the day, $450. Miller is better know as Big Sasquatch and is guide frequently fishing the lake. Seventy teams fished the event, quite a big better than the previous pro ACT tournament on D’Arbonne in January that drew only 22 boats. And that included none other than the winners of that event — yep — Team Jeffries.

One thing you’ve got to say about the fishermen besides the fact that they can catch whopper fish out of a mudhole. They are a bunch of nice guys and fun to be around. On another note, I’ve asked the folks putting on the tournaments before, but with no luck. Maybe you can help. It would be nice to know the anglers hometowns so locals back home could glance at the list and celebrate “their fishermen” doing well. But Crappie Masters nor ACT supply that information. So we’ll all just have to pick out the ones we know and wonder where the other great fishermen are from.