Powers thunders into Beaver Lake lead

Wal-Mart Open rocked by noontime storms, sneaky new jerkbait technique

ROGERS, Ark. – A nasty storm front with straight-line winds and scary lightning cut across Northwest Arkansas Thursday, but that didn’t stop Craig Powers from reasserting his authority at Beaver Lake. The pro from Rockwood, Tenn., racked up another five-bass limit full of big largemouth bass and took the opening-round lead at the Wal-Mart Open with a two-day weight of 31 pounds, 4 ounces.

The storms – which will continue throughout the night – didn’t seem to shake up the anglers too much Thursday. In fact, when the wind and the lightning kicked up around them just before noon, many anglers were grateful for the inclement weather, because that’s when the Beaver bass started biting. Competitors came in with stories of catching fish after fish as they took shelter under a covered boat slip or in a protected cove.

Powers, however, needed no such help from the weather gods. On Wednesday the pro caught a fourth-place limit weighing 15 pounds, 9 ounces. Thursday, he bettered that weight by 2 ounces by catching a 15-11 sack that included a 6-8 kicker fish, which won the $750 Snickers Big Bass Award.

“It started slow, but then I caught that big one on the first bite,” Powers said. “Then I caught two more good ones in the first hour, and I knew I had a real good shot to make the cut. Then I left my main area and went and got two more keepers. When you relax and just go fishing, good things happen.”

Good things also happen when an angler zeroes in on a magic-bullet bait during a tournament. A lot of competitors are throwing a Shaky Head worm or other finesse baits on light line to try to deal with the clear-water, prespawn, staging fishing conditions on Beaver Lake this week. However, some of the bigger bags being dragged in are by anglers talking about throwing action baits, like crankbaits and buzzbaits.

One bait in particular, though, seems to be key. Powers, never shy about telling the truth, caught all of his fish the first two days on a Bomber Long A 15 jerkbait. While not all that revolutionary in itself, it’s the way he and several others are fishing it that turns on the bass bite. Instead of a jerky retrieval at depth, Powers is just swimming the bait slowly at the water surface. The fish, which are schooling in numbers off points waiting to spawn, can’t seem to lay off it.

“I’m catching them in 60 to 70 feet of water, and they’re just coming up and eating this thing. It’s the same thing that Wesley (Strader) and some other guys are doing,” said Powers, who finished second at the 2004 Beaver Lake Wal-Mart Open. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in it, and I’m positive I can get some bites with what I’m doing.”

Powers’ candor about his prespawn, jerkbait fishing technique – which he says he accidentally discovered while striper fishing near his home in East Tennessee as a teenager – might seem a little surprising, especially considering the tournament’s only half over. But two reasons explain his openness: One, he’s Craig Powers, and he’s almost always honest about his fishing. Two, the cat’s already out of the bag at Beaver.

“Yeah, I’ve been doing it for 25 years, and it makes me sick to my stomach to know that’s out there this week,” he said. “Thing is, that thing’s got a two-week window when it absolutely smokes them. After that, it’s dead as a turtle.”

He also knows just how fickle Beaver Lake can be, because it changes not just from year to year, but even from day to day.

“The last two days, it wouldn’t surprise me to catch 20 pounds a day,” he said. “Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me to catch 6, either.”

Thomas cranks into second

Day-one pro leader Jeffrey Thomas of Broadway, N.C., landed another solid limit Thursday – 13 pounds even – and qualified for the finals in second place with a two-day total of 29-10.

“I basically did the same thing that I did yesterday. That cloud cover really helped,” said Thomas, who went back to throwing a Custom Lures crankbait at staging bass over chunk rock and gravel on day two. “Historically, at this lake, you’ll catch them one day and not the next, so I feel really fortunate to get what I did.”

Omori third

Takahiro Omori of Emory, Texas, qualified in third place for the pros with an opening-round weight of 27 pounds, 9 ounces. Battling through the weather, he caught a limit weighing 11-14 Thursday.

“It was a very rough day for me,” he said. “I fished the same areas, shallow, up the White River. I’m moving around a lot, catching some in the main river and some in the backs of creeks. The way I’m fishing is only for big largemouths, and I have a good chance for 15 or 16 pounds a day.”

Robertson fourth, Wurm fifth

Darrel Robertson of Jay, Okla., who finished second here last year, kept his Beaver Lake ball rolling with a fourth-place pro qualifying weight of 24 pounds, 4 ounces. He caught a limit weighing 12-10 Thursday, saying he threw jigs.

Arkansan Mike Wurm, who hails from Hot Springs, grabbed the fifth pro qualifying spot with a two-day weight of 23 pounds, 8 ounces. He caught five bass weighing 13-2 Thursday.

“It was a good day,” said Wurm, adding that he fished standing timber for prespawn fish. “I caught a couple of quick ones on a crankbait, then I went with a little lead-head jig.”

Rest of the best

Rounding out the top 10 pros to make the cut at Beaver Lake:

6th: Toby Hartsell of Livingston, Texas, 22-14

7th: Shinichi Fukae of Mineola, Texas, 22-12

8th: Mark Rose of Marion, Ark., 22-8

9th: Clifford Pirch of Payson, Ariz., 22-5

10th: Koby Kreiger of Okeechobee, Fla., 21-15

All of the top 10 pros caught limits both days of the opening round.

Moyer leads co-anglers

Derek Moyer of Alexandria, Va., caught an 11-pound, 15-ounce limit and finished the opening round with 18-9 to lead the Co-angler Division in the opening round at Beaver Lake.

“I caught them on a Spotsticker worm and a Zoom finesse worm with a 3/16-ounce jighead,” he said. “Anything with green-pumpkin I had in the bag worked. I’d catch one and then switch it up with something else.”

Richard Strother of Tyler, Texas, placed second with a two-day weight of 15 pounds, 13 ounces.

Co-angler Chad Parks of Memphis, Tenn., grabbed the third position with an opening-round weight of 15 pounds, 8 ounces. He also earned the day’s Snickers Big Bass Award of $375 in the Co-angler Division thanks to a 4-pound bass.

Todd Lowe of Greensboro, Ga., nabbed fourth for the co-anglers with a weight of 15 pounds even.

Paul Addi of Las Vegas rounded out the top five co-anglers with a weight of 14 pounds, 13 ounces.

Rounding out the top 10 co-anglers to make the cut at Beaver Lake:

6th: Jess Carabello of Danbury, Conn., 14-1

7th: Pamela Wood of Bono, Ark., 13-8

8th: Greg Fleming of Holly Lake Ranch, Texas, 13-5

9th: Matthew Parker of Whitesburg, Ga., 13-2

10th: Janet Parker of Little Elm, Texas, 12-14

Day three of competition at Beaver Lake begins as the 10 pros and 10 co-anglers take off from Prairie Creek Marina in Rogers at 7 a.m. Central time Friday for the second half of competition. The co-anglers will wrap up competition Friday while the pros are fishing the first half of a two-day final round.

For this tournament, the top award for the winning pro is $200,000. The winning co-angler will earn $40,000.