Captain Dan
Local pro Morehead proves he still has home-lake advantage; Cooper leads co-anglers by almost 6 pounds
GILBERTSVILLE, Ky. – Dan Morehead knows it can be a little rough competing in a bass tournament on your home lake. At home, there’s the pressure of being the local favorite and having to meet the heightened expectations of not just fans and other competitors, but also yourself. There’s also the danger of fishing a comfortable, familiar pattern at the wrong time.
But Morehead overcame those obstacles Wednesday – even embraced them – to take the Pro Division lead on the first day of competition in the EverStart Series Central Division contest at Kentucky and Barkley lakes. He caught five bass weighing 19 pounds, 6 ounces and edged out second-place pro Patrick Hailstones by just over a half pound.
Morehead, who hails from nearby Paducah, Ky., was initially concerned that his familiarity with Kentucky and Barkley lakes might be detrimental to his efforts coming into this event. “You’ve always got the hometown plague,” he said. “You might end up fishing memories instead of patterns.”
But those concerns proved inconsequential as Morehead in fact capitalized on his home-lake knowledge on day one. He has won FLW Outdoors tournaments at Kentucky Lake before – four times. One of those victories came at an FLW Tour event in 1998. Morehead – who had come into this week’s tourney with very little practice on the water and was, in fact, on the waiting list to compete – simply went back to what won for him on the FLW Tour.
“I came straight here from Beaver Lake (Arkansas, the most recent FLW event) and just went out blind,” he said. “On Tuesday I went to the south end of Barkley and fished the same areas that I did when I won the FLW.”
The decision to run the 70 miles down to the other end of Lake Barkley worked to his advantage because, simply put, the fish were there. He caught one 4-pounder right off the bat and continued to fill out his five-bass total steadily. Using a spinner bait and flipping a jig into about a foot of water, he had to work the shallow-water bite patiently.
“I had to pick it apart and really work it because it was a slow bite,” Morehead said. “The way I’m fishing is a little bit of an advantage because, with the water being so low, I know exactly where those three or four key bushes are. That way I can effectively cover a lot more water without wasting time.”
He added that the water he fished Wednesday was a little more stained than in other areas, and that is shielding the fish from anglers. “I think a lot of people are just going by them,” he said.
Morehead is hoping to lie low Thursday and catch enough to make the cut, but isn’t banking on anything based on his day-one performance. “Quite honestly, I don’t really want to lead this early,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to me unless it’s on that last day. I don’t know what I’ve got left (in his area) tomorrow. I hope to catch 10 pounds and just go looking for more.”
Following Morehead was Hailstones – an angler from Cincinnati, Ohio, whose name alone seemed to fit with the stormy conditions that Mother Nature threw at the area overnight. He caught five bass weighing 18 pounds, 14 ounces.
Robert Urfer of New Philadelphia, Ohio, took third place with five bass weighing 18 pounds, 9 ounces. He felt “pretty good” to land such a competitive stringer, especially in light of the recent feisty weather. Many competitors talked about the rough rides to and from their locations due to the heavy south wind on both lakes Wednesday.
“No more thunderstorms,” Urfer pleaded. “Tomorrow I’m just going to make one or two trips through my area and if (the fish) aren’t there, I’m going to do something else.”
Rounding out the top five pros were Johnny Crase (4th place) of Lexington, Ky., with five bass weighing 17 pounds, 5 ounces and Gerald Andrews (5th) of Benton, Ky., with five bass weighing 17-4.
Nixa, Missouri’s Jim Eakins continued his winning ways by catching the biggest bass in the Pro Division with a 7-pound, 10-ounce largemouth that earned him $750. Eakins has made the both finals in the previous two Central Division tourneys of the year, including a second-place finish at Grand Lake, Okla., in April.
Cooper crushes for first among co-anglers
This morning Tony Cooper of Horn Lake, Miss., didn’t even have a license to fish in the area where he caught his Co-angler Division-leading stringer of five bass weighing 16 pounds, 2 ounces. His pro partner, Ray Barga of Gilbertsville, Ky., was headed for the southern end of Kentucky Lake – across the Tennessee state line. But no worries, all Cooper did was make a phone call to the state before takeoff and the license was his.
Good thing he did, too. Barga’s location yielded Cooper his biggest stringer of the year and the biggest, by far, of day one’s co-anglers. Next best was Bobby Reed of Cypress, Texas, with four bass weighing 10 pounds, 5 ounces.
“My partner was on fish,” Cooper said. “He even lost three big ones that would have outweighed mine. (Barga claimed 40th place with a three-bass weight of 11 pounds.) I just happened to get lucky.”
Cooper, who had notched a total of just one bass weighing 3 pounds, 6 ounces during the previous two Central Division tournaments, caught his limit Wednesday by 9 a.m. After that, he sat down and watched Barga fish for an hour.
“It was just my lucky day, I guess,” Cooper said. “I think I’m going to come back here for a vacation.”
The co-angler leader caught a mix of three largemouths and two smallmouths using a sniper spinner bait and Bill Norman crankbait.
Following Cooper in the top five spots in the Co-angler Division were Reed (2nd place) with four bass weighing 10 pounds, 5 ounces; Chuck Rounds (3rd) of Benton, Ky., with four bass weighing 10-1 ounce; Gary Kennedy (4th) of Saint Charles, Mo., with three bass weighing 9-12; and Robert Bogard (5th) of Conway, Ark., with four bass weighing 9-4.
Eric Ambort of Mabelvale, Ohio, and Daniel Cramer of Van Wert, Ohio, tied for co-angler big bass with a 4-pound, 13-ounce bass each. The competitors split the award money and received $125 apiece for their catches.
Day-two action begins Thursday as anglers take off from Moors Resort in Gilbertsville at 6 a.m. The top 20 anglers in both divisions following tomorrow’s competition will advance to Friday’s semifinal round.
Day-one links: