Paul Rutledge has only been fishing Archusa Lake about four or five years and tournaments about that long as well.

However, he’s been called the King of Archusa due to his ability to find and catch big bass when the chips are down. Rutledge won the recent Media Bass tournament at the finicky lake near Quitman with a 5-fish limit of bass that tipped the scales at 14.17 pounds, good enough for $1,276.

The talented angler also caught the lunker of the tournament, a fine 4.98-pound bass which garnered him another $150. Ironically, Rutledge won this same tournament last year after finishing second three years ago.

Second place and $650 went to the team of Alan Hults and Matt Hults with 12.93 pounds. Third place and $250 went to Jimmy Keith and John Dearman with 12.86 pounds.

Anybody can win a tournament once, but if you do it consistently against the best anglers in the area, then you’ve accomplished a great deal and that’s no fluke.

When everybody’s gunning for you, it is really tough and even more so on such a small lake as Archusa. There’s no secrets on a small lake when you have a tournament, so you’ve got to be sharp and make all of the right decisions to consistently beat the competition.

And you can’t lose a big fish and still win. Almost everybody has a story about the one that got away.

But that’s not the case with Rutledge.

“I caught fish all day long and culled down to my best five bass,” said Rutledge. “The key on Archusa is to look for grass and fish the creek channel. Most of the fish in this lake relate to the grass so you will usually catch them there.”

While Rutledge likes to power fish in the spring when the bass are really active, he actually prefers finesse fishing with lightweight spinning tackle when the chips are down.

“Finesse fishing is my favorite because the fishing gets tough a lot of the year,” Rutledge said. “And when it gets tough you can catch more by downsizing and slowing down.”

When finesse fishing Rutledge prefers using a lightweight spinning rod and reel with 10-pound line.

No stranger to fishing Archusa, this talented angler regularly fishes Monday night fruit jar tournaments and wins a bunch of those too.

“Sometimes we catch might catch 15 to 20 bass on a spot and sometimes only one,” said Rutledge. “But I’ll usually catch a 4 or 5 pounder if there’s only one in some of my spots.”

And when it comes to catching lunker bass, Rutledge likes to use a big worm. Large bass usually don’t want a snack, but a full meal and this talented angler usually gives them what they want.

Now Rutledge doesn’t spend all of his spare time fishing, and there’s no doubt he’s pretty good at catching big bass during hot weather. But as soon as the temperature’s cool down and the bucks start moving, you can be sure that Rutledge will feel the urge to head to the woods and try his hand at finding and harvesting a big buck.

I can tell you first hand this talented outdoorsman is pretty good at catching those big bucks too- but he doesn’t play around with any catch and release while he’s hunting.

He lays the hammer down and takes them home with him. But until a chill comes down from the north, Rutledge will be cutting grass and catching bass!