Weekend Wrap-up
Last week was a pretty big one for FLW. Combined, the company had 678 anglers participate in the Rayovac FLW Series event presented by Power-Pole on Lake Okeechobee and the FLW College Fishing Southern Conference qualifier on Sam Rayburn. All told, three FLW records were broken – the overall field size record, the College Fishing field size record (one that was destined to fall in 2015 since there’s no longer a cap on field size) and the College Fishing single-day catch record.
Crushing College Records
On the College Fishing side of things, the University of Louisiana-Monroe duo of Brian Eaton and Tyler Craig contributed to both records, first as part of the 89-boat field, and more importantly (if you really like big bass), with a 29-pound, 5-ounce limit of Sam Rayburn studs that still had FLW College Fishing Tournament Director Kevin Hunt fired up the Monday after.
Eaton and Craig put in a day of practice on Rayburn in and around an area they knew held big fish. Not finding what they wanted up shallow, the pair started idling offshore and lit up the screen of the Lowrance on their borrowed boat. After a few casts to confirm that the fish they were marking were bass, the Warhawk anglers had a spot to hit on Saturday.
Their eventual winning spot was a classic prespawn location at the mouth of a drain leading back toward spawning grounds. As it turned out, the edge on either side of the drain was stacked with prespawn females just starting their transition to the backs. While many other teams fished grass with Rat-L-Traps, Eaton and Craig were catching their keepers before they made it to the grass.
On tournament morning, the ULM pair drew boat 39 and arrived to find the eventual second-place team of Garrett Hill and Quinton Evans of Lamar University on the spot. Bumped off their primary location, Eaton and Craig decided to start on the other side of the drain, about 100 yards from the Lamar team.
“We had about 20 pounds by 8:30 a.m. We felt we were in pretty good shape,” recalls Eaton. “I’ve never had a day like this in a tournament. It was just one of those days where we could do no wrong.”
After hammering them early, the ULM team was able to move back to its primary spot. That move resulted in a 6-pounder and a 7-pounder to cap off a giant limit.
Just as their spot was a tried-and-true for the prespawn, so was their bait. Eaton and Craig were casting a three-armed umbrella rig with two Zoom Swimmin’ Super Fluke Jr. swimbaits and one Keitech Fat Impact swimbait on 3/16-ounce Stanley Multi-Use jigheads. Eaton says they cast their rigs out to the top of the drop, let them sink to the bottom and then slow-reeled them in, sometimes getting bit on the fall and sometimes on the retrieve.
For full results, click here.
Big-O Beatdown
The 29 pounds, 5 ounces caught at the FLW College Fishing event was more than anyone in the entire 250-boat field at the Rayovac on Okeechobee could muster and more than any College Fishing team has ever caught in a day – truly an accomplishment for the ages. But, it wasn’t the only thing of note going on. Val Osinski’s tour de force on Okeechobee made the headlines and the videos and the podcasts, but a new bait also debuted on the scene. The Gambler Lures Burner Craw is a lot like a Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw, but it is built for punching and flipping on Okeechobee with broad flapping claws and a body sized specifically for a big straight-shank hook. Joe Holland (third place) and Osinski employed it to deadly and lucrative effect in the Rayovac.
The Rayovac on Okeechobee also produced some big things apart from the bait front. Due in part to the record-breaking 250-boat field, and in part to the excellent fishing, days one and two broke the Rayovac record for most total fish weighed in a day. Previously, the 2007 Rayovac FLW Series tournament on Clear Lake held the crown with 1,862 fish brought to the scale on day three (back when Rayovac events were four-day affairs). Day one on the Big O saw 2,140 fish cross the stage, with an additional 2,102 weighed on day two.
Interestingly, this year’s Rayovac on Okeechobee didn’t make much of an impact on the weight leaderboards. California and Texas fisheries dominate the records book for heaviest single-day combined weight by the entire pro field. Day three of that 2007 Rayovac FLW Series event on Clear Lake, when anglers brought in an amazing total of 6,149 pounds of bass, is the current record. You need to drop all the way down to 15th place to find day one of the Okeechobee event sitting at 4,325 pounds, 3 ounces.
For full results, click here.
The Week Ahead
With the tournament season still revving up to full speed, the only show in town is Saturday’s Gator Division Walmart Bass Fishing League tournament on Lake Okeechobee. It is setting up to be quite a show – 230 boats are on the field list at the moment, and temps in the mid-70s are in Saturday’s forecast. With any luck, it will be another banner day on the Big O.