Farley takes Lanier

Local pro edges Baksay by 13 ounces in inaugural FLW Series event

GAINESVILLE, Ga. – The hometown crowd that turned out to root on Tim Farley at the Wal-Mart FLW Series weigh-in got what they wished for Saturday as the Lula, Ga., native nosed past leader Terry Baksay to win the first FLW Series event in history.

“This is something else,” said Farley as he accepted the $100,000 cash prize. “I’ve got to thank my family; they are my biggest support network. Without them I couldn’t have done this. My wife and I have been married for 20 years, and she’s never kept me from going fishing – she has always encouraged it.”

Farley brought in five bass for 10 pounds even today to take the lead with a four-day total of 56 pounds, 5 ounces.

Farley worked two patterns all week. One was for spotted bass, where he used 1/2- and 3/8-ounce Swarming Hornet Fish Head Spins teamed with pearl Zoom Super Flukes in 8 to 24 feet of water.

“I was targeting creek channels that ran up against flats in pockets,” he explained. “I’d cast the Fish Head Spin out on the flat, let it sink to the bottom and then begin the retrieve right off the bottom.”

The largemouth pattern was a custom-painted MegaBass Vision X-110 cast up along side floating docks.

“I’d twitch it ever so slightly and just let it sit there next to the dock,” he said. “The big ones would come out and eat it when it was sitting still.”

Baksay endures pain

Finishing second might be painful, but it pails in comparison to the pain Terry Baksay of Monroe, Conn., endured during his fishing day after throwing his back out early this morning.

“I was lifting my tackle into the back of the truck, and I just buckled to my knees, and that’s pretty much where I’ve been all day long – on my knees,” Baksay said. “Every time I hit a wave today, I screamed into the mic, right in the cameraman’s ear.”

Despite the torture, Baksay fished through the painful day and managed to boat four keepers weighing 8 pounds, 6 ounces for a four-day total of 55 pounds, 8 ounces worth $50,000.

He used three primary lures: a 1/2-ounce Swarming Hornet Fish Head Spin teamed with either a white Zoom Super Fluke Jr. or a Lunker City Finesse Fish; a 1/4-ounce Bite-Me jighead teamed with a Reaction Innovations flirt worm (watermelon); and a Rapala X-Rap jerkbait.

Baksay mostly fished in one pocket in a creek near the dam. The pocket was loaded with bait and bass all week, but the bite turned off today, and his lucky loon, which had stimulated a feeding frenzy the first two days, was gone.

“But I did have some more loon luck today,” Baksay added. “I didn’t have a fish at about 11 a.m., and I bailed on my best spot to fish some bridge pilings. I pulled up to the first piling, saw a loon pop up, I made a cast toward it and caught my first keeper of the day.”

Fukae third

Shinichi Fukae of Mineola, Texas, held onto his third-place position today with a limit weighing 12 pounds, 6 ounces for a four-day total of 41 pounds, 14 ounces worth $40,000.

Fukae finesse-fished around floating docks in 10 to 20 feet of water all week.

He used 3/32- and 1/8-ounce jigheads with a Yamamoto Cut-tail worm and an unnamed 6-inch straight worm, both in green pumpkin, on 6-pound-test fluorocarbon line on the lower end of the lake.

Strader fourth

Wesley Strader of Spring City, Tenn., finished fourth with a four-day total of 53 pounds, 12 ounces worth $30,000.

Strader fished a chrome and black Bomber Long A on 12-pound-test Izorline in the very backs of pockets.

“The pocket had to have a little ditch running out of it,” Strader said. “I’d throw that Long A back there as far as I could and just slow-reel it on the surface – like you might do a Red Fin for stripers – and those spots would come up and fight for it.”

Strader noted that the same pattern worked on docks for largemouths.

“It was kind of the same deal. I’d throw down the side of a dock and slow-reel the Long A down the side, and largemouths would get it. If I couldn’t get them to bite the Long A, I’d skip a pearl-white Zoom Super Fluke under the docks, and sometimes they’d react to that better.”

Auten targets largemouth

Mike Auten of Benton, Ky., came to Lake Lanier with intentions of catching spotted bass. However, he could never get a spotted-bass bite going to his liking, so he went to the back of a creek, started largemouth fishing and plugged into a solid largemouth pattern.

Throughout the event he weighed in all largemouths to finish fifth with a three-day total of 53 pounds, 4 ounces. He collected $20,000 for his finish.

Auten also weighed in the heaviest limit on day three, 13 pounds, 8 ounces.

“I targeted the backs of creeks all week long with a Lucky Craft RC 1.5 crankbait (chartreuse with a black back),” Auten said. “I’d go to the very backs of creeks on the lower end of the lake and start fishing on the channel-swing banks. The water was red mud back there, so there weren’t a lot of spotted bass, but the largemouths didn’t seem to mind.”

Marty Sisk of Evansville, Ind., finished sixth with a four-day total of 53 pounds, 2 ounces worth $19,000.

Jody Cordell of Flowery Branch, Ga., finished seventh with a four-day total of 52 pounds, 7 ounces for $18,000.

Tom Mann Jr. of Buford, Ga., rallied to eighth with a four-day total of 50 pounds, 15 ounces for $17,000.

J.T. Kenney of Daytona Beach, Fla., finished ninth with a four-day total of 49 pounds, 15 ounces for $16,000.

Tim Peek of Sharpsburg, Ga., finished 10th with a four-day total of 48 pounds, 7 ounces for $15,000.

Next up

The second FLW Series event of the 2006 season will take place May 3-6 on Lake Cumberland at Somerset, Ky.