Quick Bites: FLW Kentucky Lake, Day 1

Wal-Mart FLW Tour
Kentucky Lake, Gilbertsville, Ky.
Opening round, Wednesday

Monsoor season … Pro leader Tom Monsoor caught the day’s only stringer over 20 pounds, leading the division with 20-3. As far as the La Crosse, Wis., native is concerned, it’s about time, too. “This is so satisfying, it’s unbelievable,” he said. Monsoor, who basically tore up the BFL Great Lakes Division from 1998 through 2002 (ranking first three times, second once and fifth once) and the EverStart Northern Division in 2001 and 2002 (ranking 13th and third, respectively), had a promising start to the 2003 FLW season with a 15th place at Okeechobee, but fell off the charts at Murray and Beaver. “At the last two tournaments, I was on so many fish,” he said. “I caught an 8-11 (single bass in practice) at Lake Murray, but I couldn’t catch it during the tournament.” Wednesday at Kentucky Lake, he finally caught them when it counted, and he caught them early. “I caught them all in the first half hour,” he said. “I only went to two main spots today.” For the record, Monsoor says he caught his bass on a custom-made “Tom’s Swimming jig,” and his biggest fish weighed 6-5.

The passive approach … Second-place pro Terry Baksay estimated that, between himself and his co-angler partner, Stephen Westfall, they combined for at least 75 landed bass on day one. But the pro from Monroe, Conn., said it was his two kicker fish that left him rethinking his fishing strategy. “My two biggest fish I caught after I had put down my rod to re-rig another rod,” he explained. “When I picked it up again, they were on the line. It happened twice, so I started doing it all day. In other words, they wanted (the bait presentation) really slow today.”

High on speed … One pro who used a technique that was the polar opposite of Baksay’s slower approach was third-place Kevin VanDam. Known as one of the fastest anglers around, the Kalamazoo, Mich., pro capitalized on the extremely high lake level at Kentucky Lake and his ability to cover so much water. “I like to fish fast,” he said. “When you get an opportunity when the lake is really high, you can do that. Most of the time, you can’t do that.” Like many anglers, VanDam focused his hyper-speed routine on the abundance of flooded cover, to where the bass have relocated in droves during this high-water period. “Not all the fish in the lake have spawned yet, so I’m trying to concentrate on areas where the fish seem to be spawning,” he said. “I was really fortunate to get some quality bites.”

Out of the jungle … While many pros are laboriously working their boats back into the flooded trees to find shallow, spawning bass, David Fritts caught his sixth-place, 17-pound, 10-ounce stringer by doing something a little bit differently. “I’m trying to fish something that everybody else isn’t fishing,” he said. “Everybody was in the bushes, but I was at the edge of the bushes. Most of the fish I’ve caught haven’t spawned yet.”

Survival of the fittest … Did you know that co-angler leader Bud Goeke tried out for the hit TV show “Survivor” back when it was still popular? He nearly made it, too, after two tries.

AOY watch

All eyes are on Angler of the Year leader, 2003 Beaver Lake champion and defending Kentucky Lake champion Dan Morehead of nearby Paducah, Ky., as he makes his bid to become the first pro to win back-to-back FLW titles. After Wednesday, he’s still in contention after placing 27th with a limit weighing 14 pounds, 1 ounce. His closest AOY competitor, David Dudley of Manteo, N.C., is hot on his heels in 34th place, but needs to make a huge push Thursday to try and make the cut and make up at least some of the 51-point difference between him and Morehead. The third-place points contender, Tommy Biffle of Wagoner, Okla., caught just three keeper bass Wednesday and suffered a 131st-place showing with a weight of 5-6.

Sound bite

“He was kind of quiet there for a while, but he was a good net man.”
– Co-angler Ralph Wilson, who out-fished his pro partner Wednesday, Rick Marsh, by four fish and over 11 pounds. Wilson caught five bass weighing 13-4 and placed 10th in the Co-angler Division while Marsh caught one bass weighing 2-2 and placed 157th in the Pro Division. Wilson’s no stranger to strong FLW performances from the back of the boat: He won at the Pascagoula River in 2000.

Quick links, Day 1:

Photos
Results
Tomorrow’s pairings
Press release
Monsoor grabs day-one lead at Kentucky Lake