Weekend Wrap-up
Toho surprises and giants caught at Guntersville
With the Walmart FLW Tour kicking off on Lake Toho over the weekend, all eyes were on central Florida. Toho didn’t disappoint. The system kicked out numbers of giant bass, which led to a final weigh-in that turned out to be a nail-biter.
What you might not have realized is that Lake Guntersville also churned out a plethora of giants in a Walmart Bass Fishing League event held there on Saturday.
Here’s a recap of last weekend’s tournament action.
Kissimmee-Toho Current
We covered nearly every detail of the Tour event on Toho, from JT Kenney’s 29-plus-pound catch on day one to the key moments that helped him grind out the win. That said, the extent to which current flow factored into this event was pretty surprising.
A huge chunk of the top finishers relied on the current rushing from Lake Toho into the rest of the Kissimmee Chain for their bass, including Wesley Strader, who camped on a shell bed, Zack Birge, Troy Morrow, Stetson Blaylock and others who hammered out solid limits from a variety of current breaks.
Had the South Florida Water Management District not decided to run the water, the fish wouldn’t have bit at nearly the same rate. Also, a cold front rolled in for the third day and kept a lot of big bass from moving into the shallows. Had those fish moved in, the weights from anglers targeting shallow areas would have almost certainly been higher, and the pros who keyed on current might not have risen so high in the standings.
BFL Giants
Clint Moore of Big Cabin, Okla., earned the win in the BFL Ozark Division tourney on Grand Lake, and Rob Jordan of Flowery Branch, Ga., picked up the win in the Bulldog Division event on Lake Lanier. While those wins are certainly worthy of applause, the Choo Choo Division event on Lake Guntersville stole the show.
Bill Bowling earned the Choo Choo win with a smoking 34 pounds, 6 ounces, but an incredible five bags of more than 30 pounds were weighed in during the event. Though the weights fell off after that, if the BFL anglers’ success doesn’t have you stoked to see how they catch ’em at the upcoming Rayovac FLW Series Southeast Division event on Guntersville then you aren’t human.
The Week Ahead
Coming up, there are six BFL events to keep an eye on next weekend (or you might consider entering one of them):
Arkie Division – Greers Ferry
LBL Division – Kentucky Lake
Music City Division – Dale Hollow
Okie Division – Grand Lake
Savannah River Division – Lake Russell
Volunteer Division – Lake Cherokee