Lane leads raucous day two at Potomac
Freak storm batters Stren Series; Florida flipper still pounds out 23
LA PLATA, Md. – It was a chaotic scene as Mother Nature unleashed her fury on weigh-in proceedings Thursday afternoon at the Stren Series Northern Division competition on the Potomac River. Despite it all, the anglers caught a bunch of fish, and Bobby Lane proved that he can still flip grass with the best of them.
The thunderstorm hit Smallwood State Park just after 3 p.m. and basically shut down the weigh-in for about a half-hour. Before it did, though, Lane weighed in the heaviest five-bass limit of the week – 23 pounds, 3 ounces – and took over the Pro Division lead with a two-day total of 38-14. Lane’s catch Thursday included a 7-pound kicker largemouth, the Snickers Big Bass of the day.
“That’s always fun when you can do that here,” he said. “I started the same place I always have here – the place I caught a 5-11 fish yesterday – and I had my limit at 10 o’clock. I started culling some 12-inchers then, and between 11 and 12:30, I probably caught 30 fish between 3 and 4 pounds. I just could not do anything wrong today. It didn’t matter where my bait hit; it would just catch big fish. You hate to have to quit fishing on a day like that, but I had to quit. It was one of those days where, even if you catch another 5-pounder, you only gain a pound.”
The Potomac River is ideally suited for anglers like Lane, an FLW touring pro out of Lakeland, Fla., known for his grass-flipping technique on waters like Lake Okeechobee. The ability to plop your bait effectively through the thick stuff lining the banks of this river and in front of the fish living underneath it is key to any tournament-winning pattern.
In short, Lane’s flipping prowess translates well to this waterway, and he showed it off Thursday. Fishing a community hole among a cluster of anglers working the grass just south of Smallwood in Chickamuxen Creek, he flipped a Berkley Chigger Craw – sometimes in watermelon-candy color, sometimes green-pumpkin – all day. And he kept catching them.
“I’m not doing anything different from anybody else; I’m right in there among all the other boats,” he said. “I just love grass fishing. I love getting there and picking it apart. I caught a few in there on the tour (the FLW Tour Potomac event in June), and for me, it was the only grass I found in the whole river that didn’t have that yellow, slimy stuff in it. It’s good, clean grass; and if you find clean grass, you’re always going to catch bigger fish, you know.”
Lane said he also learned a thing or two about the tides during the FLW tournament: namely, where to be and when.
“I set my watch for 11 o’clock today, and that’s when they started biting. Tomorrow, it’ll be about an hour later. If you have the tides and confidence in your fishing, if you get a little limit, you can turn it into a big one in a hurry,” he said. “I caught 30 to 40 fish today and 40 to 50 yesterday. I went through seven bags of baits yesterday and six bags today, and I’m running out of baits. But that’s a good thing, really.”
Park second, Hall third
For the second day in a row, just two sacks over 20 pounds came in Thursday. After Lane, Ryan Park of Mount Joy, Pa., caught a 20-pound, 6-ounce limit to move into second place for the pros with a two-day total of 36-3.
Third place went to pro Michael Hall of Annandale, Va., a past winner of this event, for a two-day weight of 34 pounds, 6 ounces. Hall caught a limit weighing 15 pounds Thursday, which was a bit lighter than his day-one effort.
“I actually had more bites today, but just not big bites. The topwater bite was a little bit off, and I caught a lot on plastics,” he said. “I’m happy with that, though. A 15-pound bag’s pretty good on this river. I’m still living the dream.”
The storm
The leader, Lane, fished in an early flight Thursday. Sizing up the oncoming weather, he came in early, about 1:30 p.m., and was, in fact, the first angler to weigh in Thursday, right at 3 o’clock.
“Later in the day, we went back to (Chickamuxen Creek) to let my co-angler catch his limit. Right after he caught his fifth one, we came in early,” he said. “I saw that thing coming and I said, `Let’s get these things weighed in and get moving.'”
It was a veteran move, and it turned out to be a wise one because, literally a minute or two after Lane weighed in, a freakish and nasty storm front moved in to wreak havoc with the tournament. Torrential rain, scary lightning and, most damagingly, ferocious wind gusts basically laid waste to the weigh-in site on the banks of the river at the state park. Tent tops were blown away, garbage cans were toppled, and the stage awning was blown completely over the top of the weigh-in trailer, which knocked out the satellite feed for FLW Live.
As scary as that was for everybody on land, one glance at the water during the half-hour squall and it was clear that it couldn’t have hit at a worse time. Five- to 7-foot waves kicked up on the confines of the Potomac River just as most of the anglers were trying to run back to weigh-in. Thankfully, nobody was injured, and everybody eventually made it back safely, but the storm took no prisoners on several pros’ boats, swamping a couple and otherwise damaging others.
Pro Bruce Neal of Manheim, Pa., caught 17 pounds, 15 ounces of bass and claimed fourth place with a two-day total of 33-15. A veteran of Lake Erie tournaments, which are notorious for huge waves, even he was shaking when he came in.
“I had a great time today on Lake Erie,” he joked nervously. “I swear there was a time today when I could have put my fish in my pants, and they would have lived.”
Day-one leader Barton Wines is a local pro from Warrenton, Va. While he managed to stay in contention in fifth place with a two-day total of 33 pounds, 14 ounces, he said it was the worst weather he’s ever experienced on the Potomac in all the years he’s fished it.
“Oh, it was terrible. They were at least 8-footers; it was unbelievable. My boat is trashed,” he said, wide-eyed. “I’ve never seen it that bad – that is, when we could see at all. We basically couldn’t see anything further than the distance from here to that weigh-in line (a distance of about 25 feet), but we saw three lightning bolts hit all around us. There was literally fire, five feet high, coming out of the water.”
Again, everybody made it in safely – which, in retrospect, is a true testament to bass-tournament anglers’ seaworthiness, because this storm was ruthless – but there’s no doubt tonight will be a late night for the tournament and service crews trying to get everything back in order for Friday’s competition, not to mention the anglers.
“Normally, you can see it coming, and you have some time to get ready for it,” FLW Outdoors tournament staffer Tim Porter said. “But that was the fastest I’ve ever seen a storm hit.”
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 pros after two days at the Potomac River:
6th: James Kemper of Frankfort, Ky., 33-10
7th: Thomas Wooten of Huddleston, Va., 33-4
8th: Terry Olinger of The Plains, Va., 33-1
9th: Sparky Petersen of Laytonsville, Md., 32-11
10th: Nick Gainey of Charleston, S.C., 31-8
The limit count obviously dropped, thanks to the weather causing anglers to miss weigh-in, but the pros still caught 105 limits Thursday.
Timofeev tops co-anglers
Valeri Timofeev of East Stroudsburg, Pa., took over the Co-angler Division lead with a two-day total of 24 pounds, 8 ounces. He caught a monster limit weighing 17-10 Thursday, which was a top-10 weight, overall, on the day.
“I caught them on a frog,” he said.
Rest of the best
Charlie Reed of Hayes, Va., placed second for the co-anglers with a two-day weight of 23 pounds, 13 ounces. He caught 11-3 Thursday.
Day-one co-angler leader David Williams of Fredericksburg, Va., took third place today with a two-day weight of 23 pounds, 5 ounces. He caught 7-11 Thursday.
Fourth place for the co-anglers went to Michael Baker of Laurel, Md., for a two-day weight of 22 pounds, 4 ounces. He caught 8-7 Thursday.
Rounding out the top five co-anglers was Teddy Bradley of Mishawaka, Ind., with 21 pounds, 8 ounces. He caught 8 pounds Thursday.
Rounding out the top 10 co-anglers:
6th: David Slonaker of Howard, Ohio, 21-7
7th: Matt Greenblatt of Oldsmar, Fla., 21-6
8th: Alan Hench of Lititz, Pa., 20-14
9th: Gary Guilliams of Troutville, Va., 20-9
10th: Moo Bae of West Friendship, Md., 20-5
Sharon Balon of Clewiston, Fla., won the Snickers Big Bass award in the Co-angler Division thanks to a hefty 6-pound, 9-ounce largemouth.
The co-anglers caught 37 limits.
Day three of Northern Division competition at the Potomac River begins as the field of 173 boats takes off from Smallwood State Park at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time Thursday. Following tomorrow’s competition, the fields will be cut to the top 10 anglers apiece based on three-day cumulative weight.