Quick Bites: FLW Tour Lake Champlain, Day 3

Wal-Mart FLW Tour

Lake Champlain, Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Semifinal round, Friday

Lytle’s big oops … Curt Lytle’s day-three weight of 16 pounds, 11 ounces would have been enough to put him in third place today, and he says today went even better than yesterday. So why is he in 10th instead of in first? Blame it on what he calls the “Curt Lytle Culling System.” Like many anglers, Lytle uses a colored-string culling system, which differentiates the fish in his livewell. He attaches colored strings to each fish and then notes which color is associated with which fish. When he caught his sixth fish, he made the proper notation on his culling card but, in the heat of battle, failed to do the important part. “I said, ‘OK, white’s smallest,’ so I crossed out white,” Lytle said. “However, I forgot to take the fish out of the livewell.” As a result, Lytle checked in today with six fish, one over the limit, and it cost him his day-three weight as a penalty. But Lytle happens to possess one of the sharpest senses of humor on tour, and he took it all in stride. “You know what’s worse?” he said. “Terry Bolton losing on Kentucky Lake because of a freak dead fish. It’s not bothering me that bad. It won’t happen again, that’s for sure.” … Lytle also said if the culling system didn’t get him, his gas level might have, and if he had run out of gas and checked in late, he still would have suffered mightily from the penalties. “I was breathing fumes when I came in,” he said. “Everything we do is a risk, but today I messed up one of the controllable variables.”

Anybody bring a surfboard? … Lake Champlain is an enormous body of water, and when the wind blows on enormous bodies of water, enormous waves are created. With that risk hovering over anglers all week, it’s remarkable that at least three or four of the top-10 pros are making the long – and bumpy – drive south to Ticonderoga. No. 2 pro Tracy Adams is among the finalists booking chiropractic appointments for next week, and out of six practice days on Lake Champlain, he spent only two of them down south. But that was enough to convince him that there was no other way to bring in the big largemouths – and big money – this week. “That’s just where most of the largemouths are,” Adams explained. “But I sure do hope it calms down. I don’t know if my back can take another round.” Adams estimated that probably only 30 or 40 of the original 200 pros headed to Ticonderoga, and it paid off for about 10 percent of them, including Adams, Lytle and Dion Hibdon, who has led all three days of this event. Also, Adams’ day-three co-angler partner, Mark Myers, rode his Ticonderoga haul all the way to victory in his division. Seems the South did indeed rise again.

Lavictoire’s victories … Just last week, Thomas Lavictoire earned his third career Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League victory right here on Lake Champlain. However, it wasn’t the Thomas Lavictoire that’s currently in fourth place on the pro side. Rather, it was his dad, making it a pretty swell two-week stretch for the Lavictoire father-and-son duo. “We both live here and have fished it all our lives,” said the younger Lavictoire, who brought in 15 pounds, 5 ounces today. “I stayed out of the tournament he won so that I could fish this one.” Indeed, Lavictoire the son has racked up quite a few BFL accomplishments himself, and this week marks his second FLW Tour top-10 appearance. He’s hoping to make it a one-two Lavictoire punch by taking his own victory this week in the big show. “That would be very cool if we could bring them both home,” he said. “But it’ll be tough.”

Smallmouth king dethrones himself … Michigan pro Kevin Vida has a reputation as being one of the premier smallmouth fishermen in the country. Therefore, it seemed out of the ordinary to watch him weigh in not one but two Lake Champlain largemouths today. “I wanted to show (TV host Keith) Lebowitz I could catch something different,” he said. But talk to Vida about the smallmouth expert bringing in the buckets, and he will quickly inform you his reputation is incorrect. “I’m not the smallmouth king,” he said. “Scott Dobson’s a better smallmouth fisherman than I am.” Dobson, of course, is another Michigan smallmouth stalker who is currently in sixth place heading into the final day. What’s more, Vida the Former Smallmouth King says they’re not even his favorite kind to catch. “I prefer to catch largemouths,” he said. “People don’t understand that I took 15th place at a Stren Series event on the Detroit River – where I’m known for smallmouths – with largemouths.” Point taken.

Maybe he’s the new smallmouth king … Scott Martin is a well-known pro from Florida who lives on the shores of fabled Lake Okeechobee. And while he may be the picture of a Florida native with his perpetual tan and blond-haired kids, his Lake Champlain statistics make it look like he’s been moonlighting as a Yankee. The first time the FLW Tour visited here in 2002, he finished fourth. Two years ago, he won the whole thing. Now, he’s currently in eighth place and predicted on stage today that he’d win again tomorrow. What’s the deal, sunshine boy? “I’m big into GPS, and I’m a good open-water fisherman,” Martin explained. “Living on Okeechobee, I’ve become an open-water fisherman even though there’s grass.” In fact, Martin goes so far to say that swampy Okeechobee is similar to the never-ending depths of Lake Champlain. “Lake Champlain fishes that way, and smallmouth fish that way,” Martin says of the two lake’s similar open-water characteristics. “They are in really specific areas. I love catching these smallmouths. In Florida, there aren’t any.” … Indeed, while many of the leaders are gunning for largemouths this week, Martin is specifically hunting for smallies, and he’s loving every minute of it. “Any time I see an opportunity to target smallmouth, I want to do it,” he said. “Art Ferguson showed me tricks, and I’ve developed some of that.” Martin said he was targeting 17 pounds today but brought in only 13-11.

Quick numbers:

2: Ounces separating day-three leader Hibdon from No. 2 Adams.

$275,617: No. 3 Vida’s career earnings across all FLW Outdoors tournament trails since 1995.



$303,000: No. 10 Shinichi Fukae’s earnings this year alone on the FLW Tour.

15: Number of minutes it took No. 6 pro Dobson to catch a limit today.

22: Spots up the rankings that co-angler winner Mark Myers jumped to secure his first championship berth.

Sound bites:

“Two- and 3-foot waves, and he’s out there finesse fishing.” – Co-angler Jason Sherwood on the otherworldly fishing skills possessed by Fukae.

“I put an offer on a house a week ago, and that would make a good down payment.” – Myers, on the $20,000 payday a co-angler victory affords.

“I beat 190 guys with a strained finger. I’m going to catch them tomorrow.” – Lytle, on having already overcome the odds this week. He now has to bounce back from a zeroed-out weight on day three.

“I look good in them suspenders, don’t I? I used to make fun of guys who wore suspenders with a belt.” – Hibdon, after being caught on the TV cameras wearing what he apparently thought was a less-than-flattering getup.

Tomorrow’s takeoff is scheduled to take place at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time at the Plattsburgh Boat Basin, located at 5 Dock St. in Plattsburgh.