Quick Bites: FLW Atchafalaya Basin, Day 1

Wal-Mart FLW Tour
Atchafalaya Basin, Morgan City, La.
Opening round, Wednesday

In the zone … Texas pro Gary Klein came to the FLW Atchafalaya Basin event fresh off his BASS Tour victory at Georgia’s Lake Seminole last week and hasn’t slowed down a bit. He took the second-place spot Wednesday with a five-bass limit weighing 16-10. He also notched a solid 17th-place finish at FLW Lake Okeechobee in January. A two-time FLW winner, Klein’s been around a long time and has established himself as one of bass fishing’s elite. It looks like he might have once again found himself in a bit of a zone here early in 2003. “I had all fall to sit and think about returning to my strengths, and when you’re committed to the flipping stick, sometimes it’s easy,” he said. “I had two flipping sticks on the boat deck all day today.”

Back on track … Maryland pro J.T. Kenney, who in his rookie debut won FLW Lake Okeechobee in 2002, is starting to prove that he was no flash in the pan. He led all pros with a five-bass stringer weighing 17-2 Wednesday, which included two big bass – a 5-6 big-bass winner and a 5-4. He said the area that he’s fishing doesn’t really hold a lot of bass; he just got a few quality bites on day one. “I caught the first three on a jig off of some deeper stumps and one of the big ones with a spinner bait,” he said. “I’m running (the boat) pretty far out – it’s almost off the map, but I’m definitely going to go back there in the morning.” While Kenney qualified for the 2003 BFL All-American with a solid year on that circuit in 2002, after his FLW win he only posted one finish better than 100th place last year. Obviously, he’s glad to be back in contention. “Hopefully I’m on the right track again,” he said.

Not `ha-ha’ funny, either … A lot of pros had trouble filling out the five-fish limit Wednesday. While they caught 43 limits, 28 anglers in the Pro Division fell short with just four fish and said that the fishing was trickier than they expected it to be heading into the competition. “They’re just biting funny,” said 69th-place pro Wesley Strader, whose four bass weighed 7-14. Texas pro Clark Wendlandt (four bass, 13-3, 16th place) would have placed higher, but he just couldn’t hook that fifth fish. “I had it on three or four times today,” he said. “I’m just going to go out tomorrow and see if I can’t get him.”

Fish everywhere? … Overall, the weights were slightly lower than expected for the competitors, who were jazzed about the prospect of so much prime bass habitat on Atchafalaya coming into the tournament. Maybe too much habitat. “It looks like there’s fish everywhere,” pro Rob Kilby said. “That can really be kind of a hindrance because you waste a lot of time fishing dead water.” In what could be a recurring theme throughout the 2003 season, other anglers pointed to a lack of practice time on the water caused by the heavy pro fishing schedule between the FLW and BASS tours. “When you only practice three days, it’s not enough,” said Aaron Martens, who came to Louisiana straight from the BASS event at Lake Seminole last week. On the other hand, Gary Klein won in Georgia last week and is hot out of the chute in Louisiana this week, and he doesn’t buy the no-practice line. “One problem might be that some guys get too much practice,” he said. “Two weeks is just enough time to get confused about what you want to do. … Shoot, it’s perfect right now. These fish are really setting up.”

Hot rookies … Keep your eye on pros Billy Bowen Jr., Dave Lefebre and Matt Herren. At FLW Okeechobee, Bowen top-10ed, Lefebre top-30ed and Herren top-50ed. Wednesday, they respectively placed fourth, fifth and sixth. Not only that, both Lefebre and Herron are true FLW rookies and Bowen only has one FLW tourney under his belt prior to 2003.

No lack of talent … Another angler on a roll from Okeechobee is co-angler Alton Lackie. He won in January and hasn’t relinquished the top spot on the leaderboard yet. Said Lackie, “If the fish are there, I’m going to catch them.”

Sound bites

“Yeah, I like it. It’s kind of fun going places you think you can’t go.”
– Pro David Dudley, on the swampy Atchafalaya Basin. He won the 2002 Ranger M1 tournament under similar conditions on Alabama’s Mobile Delta by enlisting the services of a chain saw to get at some hard-to-reach fishing holes. He caught five bass and placed 23rd Wednesday.

“When they’re biting, it all looks good. When they’re not biting, it all looks bad.”
– Pro Charlie Hartley, on Atchafalaya. He placed 150th with one bass weighing 1-13 Wednesday.

Quick links, Day 1:

Photos
Results
Tomorrow’s pairings
Press release
Kenney climbs atop leaderboard at Atchafalaya Basin