Yelas homes in on first FLW Tour win

Schoolers continue to dominate on Beaver Lake

ROGERS, Ark. – In Prairie Creek on Beaver Lake, there is one dock that holds the fate of the 2007 Wal-Mart Open under its floats.

Beneath that dock, the natural food chain is at work. At night, shad gather around the dock to spawn on its floats, and at the break of day, hordes of largemouth bass rush the dock for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.

For the last three days, Yamaha pro Jay Yelas of Tyler, Texas, has relied on that dock to produce consistent limits of largemouth bass.

This morning, right on schedule, bass began wolfing down shad around the dock, and Yelas was there to take advantage of the feed again to the tune of five bass weighing 11 pounds, 13 ounces, putting him in the lead of the Wal-Mart Open.

“It’s the same story as the last two days,” Yelas said. “I caught my limit first thing this morning by that dock on a swimbait, and then it got tough after that. I only caught one more keeper after the schooling bite was over.”

Yelas now has a 2 1/2-pound lead over second place, and if his dock produces tomorrow, the Wal-Mart Open winner’s purse could be in his pocket before 9 a.m.

“Anything can happen, though,” noted Yelas with humility. “You have to remember that the first day, all those fish came up on Andy’s (Montgomery, who is also fishing the school) side of the dock, and I kind of struggled. The last two days they just happen to come up on my side. Tomorrow, it could be his turn again.”

Given the roll Yelas is on right now, though, that seems unlikely. The Yamaha pro recorded a sixth-place finish at the Fort Loudoun tour event in March and a second-place finish at Lake Norman in April.

Yelas has yet to win an FLW Tour event, and now it looks as if his first victory is running out of places to hide.

Morgan second

Duracell pro Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., is in second place with five bass weighing 9 pounds, 6 ounces.

Morgan is catching schoolies too, but his window for catching surfacing bass is microcosmic compared to Yelas’ morning bite.

“I’m mostly throwing a shaky head – and catching a few on that – and every once and a while I’ll see a single fish bust or minnows fleeing on the surface, and if I can get a wakebait to them fast enough, they’ll eat.

“The trick for me is to keep them up when they come up for a short visit to the surface,” he added. “Today my partner and I had one or two flurries like that, and we caught a few when they were up. But when they go back down, I just have to go back to grinding until they surface again.”

Morgan’s co-angler partner, J.R. Grubb, won the Co-angler Division today with 11 pounds, 13 ounces.

“His string is a good indication of what’s there,” Morgan said. “He kept them on today; I lost my two biggest fish.”

Morgenthaler third

Chad Morgenthaler of Coulterville, Ill., moved up to his best position of the week, third, with five bass weighing 7 pounds.

Morgenthaler is also fishing schooling fish, but in a much different way.

“I have four or five places that are holding schools of suspended fish,” he explained. “The trick for me is to get them fired up. I’ll run to a place and make about 30 casts with a shaky head, and if I don’t get a bite, I go to the next place.

“If I do hook up with a fish, there are usually about 10 to 20 other bass with it. That’s when I’ll quickly fire a topwater back out there to keep them up.

“If that doesn’t work, I have two or three other shaky-head rods right there next to me, ready to go, and I just drop a worm over where I saw the fish go down.

“Getting the fish to fire up does not happen often, but when they do, I can usually catch three or four fish out of the school before I lose their attention.”

Powroznik fourth

Bounty pro Jacob Powroznik of Prince George, Va., made a move into the fourth-place position today with five bass for 6 pounds.

Powroznik is also fishing schoolies around Rocky Branch Marina.

“I’m just chasing them around with a topwater when they’re up and a shaky head when they’re down,” he said. “It’s classic schooling fish. I see them come up on one side of the cove, so I go over there and then they come up from where I just left. It’s just crazy.”

Browne fifth

Glenn Browne of Ocala, Fla., is in fifth place with four bass weighing 5 pounds, 15 ounces.

Browne continued his best pattern today, fishing deep trees in 25 feet of water with a Berkley Wacky Crawler on a Gambler Gigi head.

Rest of the best

Rounding out the top 10 pros in the Wal-Mart Open after day three:

6th: J.R. Beehler of Bella Vista, Ark., four bass, 5-10

7th: Andy Montgomery of Blacksburg, S.C., four bass, 4-13

8th: Ray Scheide of Russellville, Ark., four bass, 4-13

9th: Dwayne Horton of Knoxville, Tenn., four bass, 4-5

10th: Alfred Williams of Jackson, Miss., no bass

Day four of the Wal-Mart Open begins Sunday at 6:30 a.m. at Prairie Creek Marina.