Myers wins Champlain co-angler title
Collects $20,000
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – Mark Myers of Minneapolis took a long ride south with pro Tracy Adams Friday and profited greatly after winning the Co-angler Division of Wal-Mart FLW Tour competition at Lake Champlain.
Myers caught a five-bass limit of largemouth bass weighing 14 pounds, 6 ounces, edging out runner-up Bill Gift for his first FLW Tour title and collecting $20,000.
“It feels great,” Myers said. “We fished to my strengths today, which is a little deeper in the grass. The ride back was a little bumpy – my back’s a little sore – but Tracy put the nose of that Ranger up and kept it right on going smoothly.”
Myers, who fished the southern end of Lake Champlain at Ticonderoga, caught his largemouths on green-pumpkin Senkos. He added an 1/8-ounce weight to 10-pound fluorocarbon line for fishing deeper edges of grasslines and used a 3/16-ounce weight on 12-pound line for fishing flats.
“It was milfoil and patches of coontail. That seemed to be the key, wherever you got that mix,” he said. “I didn’t lose a fish all tournament that could have cost me.”
While his first FLW Tour victory, Myers also won a Stren Series Northeast Division tournament at Lake Erie in 2005.
Gift, of Alix, Ark., finished in second place and collected $10,000 with a limit weighing 13 pounds, 14 ounces.
“I had a really good tournament,” said Gift, who caught largemouths on a big Zoom Mag II worm. “Today, we went south, and I was throwing the same stuff and I was fishing the same way as when I fish at home in Arkansas.”
Doug Weisner of Springdale, Ark., finished third with a limit weighing 11 pound, 1 ounce. He earned $9,000.
Fourth place and $8,000 went to James Schneider of Albany, N.Y., for a limit weighing 10 pounds, 14 ounces. He led on day one.
Rounding out the top five co-angler finishers was Matthew Parker of Whitesburg, Ga., for a limit weighing 10 pounds, 12 ounces. He collected $7,000.
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 co-angler finishers at the Lake Champlain FLW Tour:
6th: Jason Sherwood of Damascus, Md., five bass, 9-3, $6,000
7th: Dana Perrotte of Winooski, Vt., five bass, 8-13, $4,000
8th: Eddie Griggs of Richmond, Va., four bass, 7-1, $3,000 (opening-round leader)
9th: David Markey of Wolcott, Conn., three bass, 6-13, $2,500
10th: Ralph Mulleins of Cumberland, Va., one bass, 1-5, $2,000
Final round Saturday
Day four of Wal-Mart Tour competition at Lake Champlain begins as the final-round field of 10 boats takes off from Plattsburgh Boat Basin at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time Saturday. Friday’s weights carry over to Saturday, and the $100,000 Pro Division winner will be determined by two-day combined weight.