Anybody’s ballgame
Blaukat leads Champlain, but everybody still in it
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – Like a cadre of all-star sluggers smashing one meatball after another over the fence in a homerun derby, Wal-Mart FLW Tour pros weighed in bass after bass in Friday’s first half of the Forrest Wood Open finals at prolific Lake Champlain. In the end, Randy Blaukat of Lamar, Mo., emerged with the lead, but only by the narrowest of margins.
Blaukat checked in with a five-bass limit weighing 16 pounds, 2 ounces, and really took the Pro Division lead in specifics only. All 10 of the finalists caught limits Friday, so it was just a matter of sorting through the numbers when they came off the lake. Following right behind Blaukat were second-place Dan Morehead, just 1 ounce off the lead with 16-1, and third-place David Walker, 2 ounces back with 16-0.
Also sitting within just over a pound are fourth-place Aaron Martens with 15 pounds, 4 ounces, and fifth-place Jonathan Newton with 15-1.
The next three pros – sixth-place Chris Baumgardner (14 pounds, 13 ounces), seventh-place Scott Martin (14-12) and eighth-place Charlie Hartley (14-5) – are all within 2 pounds.
Of the last two, ninth-place Rob Kilby is still just 3 pounds off the lead with 13 pounds, 2 ounces, and 10th-place Jason Kilpatrick is under 5 back with 11-5.
In other words, competition going into this tournament’s final day is so tight, they might as well start again from zero Saturday.
Blaukat wants to bank one
Of course, they won’t start over tomorrow. Blaukat will take his well-earned 1-ounce lead into the final day.
He spent Friday fishing a large rocky flat toward the northern end of Champlain. Throwing Lucky Strike tubes and Megabass jerkbaits, he worked the area targeting seemingly random smallmouth bass. After initially catching four northern pike, he said he wondered where the bass had gone. He eventually covered hundreds of yards of the flat and caught 12 keeper bass, mostly smallmouths, saying the key to catching them was finding rough bottom.
“I think the ones that I’m getting are either prespawn or postspawn bass,” Blaukat said. “I had to work my butt off to get those. It’s just the nature of that area; it’s so giant.”
Blaukat took little satisfaction in grabbing the day-three lead, however. He knows as well as anyone how random the ultimate outcome tends to be for Friday’s leaders, especially in a competition this tight at a bass factory like Champlain.
“I’ve fished enough of these tournaments that I just can’t get excited about it,” said Blaukat, who has had three near-victories in FLW Outdoors events (2002 Ranger M1 and FLW Tour in 1997 and 1998). “The main thing is that I’ve finished second three times in FLW events. I really just want to win a dang tournament.”
Morehead just misses again
While he fished almost well enough to lead and is still sitting pretty for tomorrow, Morehead is starting to feel the effects of enduring a string of near misses this season.
In the May EverStart Series event on the Red River, he lost the tournament by a final-day tiebreaker and finished second. In the FLW event at his home lake, Kentucky Lake, he missed the cut into the finals by a single ounce.
“I’ll tell you what, this 1-ounce business is starting to get old,” said Morehead, who hails from Paducah, Ky.
Walker runs south again
Walker, of Sevierville, Tenn., again made his epic 130-mile round-trip run to the Ticonderoga, N.Y., end of Lake Champlain and went fishing for shallow largemouths again. He earned the lead on day one and second place on day two with the same strategy.
“The bite wasn’t nearly as good today,” he said. “It took me almost an hour to catch a limit.”
Walker also weighed in his first smallmouth of the week Friday.
Martens jumps on the beds
Martens, of Castaic, Calif., did a little running around of his own Friday.
“I probably checked 80 to 100 (GPS) waypoints today,” he said, explaining that he filled his limit with bedding smallmouths. “These were mostly new fish I caught today. For tomorrow, I have some 4- and 5-pounders on waypoints that I haven’t checked in four days. Maybe they’ll still be there.”
Newton fifth
Newton, an FLW rookie from Rogersville, Ala., is gunning for his first FLW title after recently claiming an EverStart victory at Kentucky Lake.
The final day of FLW competition at Lake Champlain begins Saturday at 6:30 a.m. EST as the 10 pro finalists take off from Mooney Bay Marina in Plattsburgh. The heaviest two-day weight from Friday and Saturday combined will determine the tournament’s $200,000 winner.