Still Art
Ferguson holds lead into final day at Champlain
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – By Lake Champlain’s standards, the bass bite fell off a little bit Friday. Still, Art Ferguson, who led the opening round, managed to regain the top slot in the Pro Division after catching a five-bass limit worth 17 pounds, 11 ounces in EverStart Series Northern Division competition.
“I feel really good,” said Ferguson, who hails from St. Clair Shores, Mich. “I don’t normally like to be in the lead going into the last day, but when it’s this close it’s good to have that kind of cushion.”
Perhaps he means the other guys when he says that it’s close. Ferguson has almost a 2-pound lead over second-place Mark Zona. The rest of the pro field, second through 10th place, are all within that same margin – under 2 pounds – of each other.
Ferguson sort of changed his approach Friday to reach the same result he had Thursday. Instead of keying on one prime honey hole, he made a milk run, hitting spot after spot until he filled out his limit.
“I moved around a lot today,” he said. “I caught five fish in five different areas. I’m just moving, man, and trying not to get caught up in a rut.”
While he has been guarded about his baits, techniques and locations all week, he did say that he caught a few keepers today on a Yamamoto Senko. He has targeted depths mostly between 8 and 22 feet, and all of his keepers were smallmouths. He didn’t catch many fish overall – just around nine keepers, he said – but the ones he landed were quality. Plus, he said he was happy that he also found a couple more “options” later in the day.
“I found two more key baits,” he said. “My partner (co-angler Kenneth Witter) slowed down a little bit in one area and that helped me to slow down.”
Zona in familiar territory
Zona, too, discovered lately that a slower presentation was the key to the bite the last couple of days. The pro from Sturgis, Mich., took over familiar spot on the leaderboard – second place – with a limit weighing 15 pounds, 13 ounces. In 2003, he finished three Northern Division tourneys in second place.
“You ought to market lures called `Z-2 Baits,'” Ferguson helpfully suggested to him at weigh-in.
“Well, I’m just lucky to be standing here,” said Zona, who said he actually caught all of his fish Friday on a Jakob’s jig by Bite-Me Tackle. “Yesterday was just disastrous. I had three fish at 1 o’clock, but then I kind of figured out what was going on. I had to slow down. I was fishing way too fast in practice and in the first part of the tournament.”
Dobson rounds out Wolverine State trifecta
A number of anglers confessed to losing some good fish today, saying the bite wasn’t as strong as it can be at Champlain. Scott Dobson said he lost three bass over 4 pounds, but still managed to catch a limit weighing 15 pounds, 11 ounces and placed third.
“They were coming up on the jerkbait and just kissing it. They just weren’t biting as well today,” said Dobson, who switched to dropping a Hula grub on the bottom to land his keepers Friday. “The fish have been acting kind of weird all three days.”
Dobson hails from Waterford, Mich., and completed the one-two-three punch provided by Michigan pros Friday.
“Zona’s a great smallmouth fisherman and Art’s a great smallmouth fisherman,” he said. “I grew up fishing with those guys, so I guess it’s kind of rubbed off on me.”
Baksay fourth
While he also caught a limit weighing 15 pounds, 11 ounces, Terry Baksay of Monroe, Conn., made the cut in fourth place by virtue of a tiebreaker.
Baksay also professed to a slower bite, but he did manage to catch a kicker smallmouth in the 5-pound range.
“That big one, I owe it all to two people in a different boat,” he said. “They were a little ways away and I saw them catch one just as big. So I went over there and they were good enough to let me make a few casts. I caught it 15 minutes before it was time to come in.”
Workman fifth
Craig Workman of Fort Worth, Texas, qualified for the finals in fifth place with a limit weighing 15 pounds, 9 ounces.
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 pros to qualify for Saturday’s finals at Lake Champlain are Nick Gainey of Charleston, S.C., with 15 pounds, 7 ounces (6th place); David Wolak of Warrior Run, Pa., with 15-4 (7th); Charlie Hartley of Grove City, Ohio, with 15-1 (8th); Steven McGahan of Gales Ferry, Conn., with 14-13 (9th); and Steve Clapper of Lima, Ohio, with 14-0 (10th).
All 10 of the pros who made the cut caught limits.
Co-angler Witter also maintains first
Like Ferguson, his fishing partner Friday, Kenneth Witter of Pine Valley, N.Y., held onto the first slot in the Co-angler Division. The opening-round leader caught a limit weighing 16 pounds even, but it didn’t come easily.
“I broke one off early that was over 4 pounds,” said Witter, an EverStart rookie. “(Ferguson) just said, `Catch one at a time. When you get them they’re usually the good ones.’ But then I broke off two more later. I should have had even more than what I got. Those zebra mussels are rough; if you get a rock in front of the line, all you have to do is touch it and it’s gone.”
Brad Taylor of Catlettsburg, Ky., is a close 4 ounces behind the leader on the co-angler side with a limit weighing 15 pounds, 6 ounces. Chuck Willis of Dayton, Ohio, is just an ounce behind him with 15-5.
Rounding out the top five co-anglers to make the cut are Rob McMurray of Troy, Mich., in fourth place with a limit weighing 15 pounds, 2 ounces and Mark Grahn of Wautoma, Wis., in fifth place with four bass weighing 12-3.
Rounding out the top 10 co-anglers to qualify for Saturday’s finals are Dale Clark of Harrison, Mich., with four bass weighing 11 pounds, 9 ounces (6th place); Craig Brannon of Crooksville, Ohio, with five bass weighing 11-1 (7th); Lawrence Infurna of Fair Haven, Vt., with five bass weighing 10-15 (8th); Tony Holzer of East Palestine, Ohio, with five bass weighing 10-14 (9th); and Alphonse Gratton of Enosburg Falls, Vt., with five bass weighing 10-13 (10th).
Final round Saturday
Day four of Northern Division competition at Lake Champlain begins as the final-round field of 10 boats takes off from Mooney Bay Marina at 7 a.m. Eastern time Saturday. Friday’s weights carry over to Saturday, and each division’s winner will be determined by two-day combined weight.
The winning pro is guaranteed $10,000 cash plus an Evinrude- or Yamaha-powered Ranger 519 VS equipped with Garmin electronics, a Minn Kota trolling motor and EverStart batteries. If the winner is the original owner of a Ranger boat, he will receive a $10,000 bonus from Ranger for a top pro award worth $61,900. If he is a qualifying participant in the Ranger Cup incentive program, Ranger will award another $3,000 cash (or $1,500 to the highest-finishing Ranger Cup participant if not the winner), and Yamaha will match 50 percent of Ranger Cup winnings if the angler’s boat is powered by a Yamaha outboard. Garmin will award the winning pro $1,000 if he uses only Garmin electronics and at least one unit is a qualifying unit.
The winning co-angler is guaranteed $5,000 cash, and if he is a Ranger boat owner, Ranger will award him a new Ranger 519 VS for a total prize package worth $35,000. Co-anglers who make the final round of each regular-season EverStart Series event and wear an EverStart/Evinrude shirt and cap on stage are awarded points toward the EverStart Batteries and Evinrude Outboard Engines Co-angler Award. The co-angler receiving the most points by the end of the season receives a 2004 Evinrude 225HO Direct Injection outboard engine rigged on a Ranger boat equipped with a Minn Kota trolling motor and EverStart batteries that will be presented at the EverStart Series Championship.
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