The first cut day of the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup was an interesting one. Pros that excelled on day one were fishless on day two, and vice versa. However, a couple big name pros did what they always do: figure out a way to catch five good fish.

While the fishing seemed tough across the board regardless (we only witnessed a handful of fish caught), I was very impressed with the crowd of Georgians that turned out. And I’m not talking about at takeoff or weigh-in.

Every FLW Tour event has fans that take their enthusiasm to the water and watch pros from their boats. But usually that’s on the final day. Not at Lake Lanier. It seemed like almost every angler had at least one follower, and pros like Tom Mann Jr., Castrol pro David Dudley, National Guard pro Brent Ehrler and day one-leader Kevin Hawk had entourages of boats. At one point Hawk and Dudley were fishing a mere 50 yards from each other, and the armada of boats was pretty impressive. FLW Outdoors freelancer Rod Newell called me to see if I knew where Hawk was, and I simply told him, “Come a couple hundred yards and just look. There’s no way you’ll miss him.”

If fans are hitting the lake this hard already, I’m pretty excited to see how many spectators come out this weekend. I don’t know if any pro’s armada will get bigger than Folger’s pro Scott Suggs’ at the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita (estimates range from 30 to 60 boats the final day), but some pros may get close.

Slam the hooks!