Daniel West of Stearns and Frank Powell of Somerset captured the 2011 Lake Cumberland Red Buck Classic fishing tournament along with a top prize of $2,000 over the weekend at Pumpkin Creek Boat Ramp.

West and Powell reeled in 17.20 pounds of largemouth bass to take the classic championship Saturday afternoon. The win Saturday also allowed West and Powell to claim the overall top spot in the season's point standings as they won several Red Buck tournaments earlier this spring.

The fishing tournament, which had around 40 entrants, was sponsored, as were the earlier tournaments were this spring, by Red Buck filtered cigars, a Tantus Tobacco brand based in Russell Springs, according to Ross Haynes, the director of sales and outdoor events with the company.

The duo participated in the Red Buck tournaments last year but said they only started having success this year.

"We started off good this year, had a couple of bad tournaments and finished up pretty strong," West said. "We had one real good spot early."

Powell said the two only focused on largemouth bass and did not try for smallmouth, a strategy that seemed to work as the aforementioned fish generally grows much larger.

"We'll be back, for sure," Powell said. "This is one of the better ones on the lake," West added.

All tournaments were centralized at Pumpkin Creek Boat Ramp within the confines of the Lake Cumberland State Park.

Powell said the higher water level due to the recent rains changed their strategies the past few weeks as they had to figure out how the fish were taking to more water.

Evidently, they figured it out as they also reeled in the day's big fish, a largemouth weighing in at 4.77 lbs.

 "The weather was kind of bad half the day but I think everyone was pretty enthusiastic," Haynes said of the last Red Buck fishing event of the season. "It stayed clear for the money giveaway, which is what everybody likes."

Haynes said the fishing events this spring again had a lot of folks entered from around the area.

"We had somewhere between 30 and 40 boats every weekend, regardless of how cold it was or if it was raining," he said.

"This is something where we can give back to the community a little bit as well as get our name out there."

Haynes said there is a possibility in the future of Red Buck expanding out and hosting fishing tournaments on other lakes in Kentucky, such as Barren River Lake. Next up for Red Buck this year is the dirt racing season.

"We hit it pretty hard until the fall when we do our Big Buck contest again," Haynes said. "

In the tournament Saturday, the second place prize went to Gary Farley and Randy Hunter, third place went to Chad Irwin and David Duvall while fourth place went to Mickey Goode and Jim Mishler. Fifth place went to Ted Grigsby.

Tantus and Red Buck organized the fishing tournaments to keep going what the late Greg Wilson, the former owner of Lake Country Outdoors BP in Russell Springs, had started before his death.

To visit Red Buck Filtered Cigars on the Internet, go to redbuck.com for all of their upcoming outdoor events.