Quick Bites: FLW Series Western, Columbia River, Day 4
Wal-Mart FLW Series National Guard Western Division
Columbia River, Tri-Cities, Wash.
Final round, Saturday
Charles in charge … While Charlie Weyer certainly took charge of this tournament from day two and never looked back, he also might have done the “Charles in Charge” thing in another way in the past: by serving food to `80s TV icon Scott Baio. For his day job, Weyer runs a craft services company in Hollywood, which provides meals for film and TV production crews. He has worked on the sets of Hollywood productions like “Seinfeld” and “Forrest Gump.” “In fact,” he said, “I’ll be back home tomorrow night, and by Monday morning I’ve got to go set up for a shoot. On tour, guys call me Charlie `Hollywood’ Weyer all the time.”
Dream partner … Weyer said the key to his victory this week was his wife, Mary Ann, who made the trip up to the Columbia River to practice with him before the tournament. “It really grounded me on this area quite a bit. It was the first time she’s been able to practice with me in a long time. She told me that she had a dream that I was going to win the tournament, and I told her not to jinx me,” he said. “But she hasn’t had that dream for three years, which was the last time I won a big tournament (at Alabama’s Smith Lake in a 2003 BASS event).”
Points race tight … With his second-place finish this week, Clayton Meyer has climbed to the top of the FLW Series Western Division standings with just one tournament left to fish. Meyer finished 18th at Lake Havasu, 12th at the California Delta and second at the Columbia River. With that, he now leads the AOY race with 571 points. Brent Ehrler, who led coming into this week, dropped to third place with 564 points, and Randy McAbee moved up into second with 567. For the record, in FLW Outdoors competition, Meyer has never top-10ed at the circuit’s final destination, Clear Lake, and neither has McAbee. Ehrler has done it twice.
Local advantage blown out … By far, the crowd favorite at Saturday’s weigh-in was Kennewick, Washington’s own Mitch Ratchford, and he obliged them by catching a decent limit weighing 8-11. Still, Ratchford was banking on the Columbia River to live up to its breezy reputation Saturday – which it didn’t really do – in order to give him that big local advantage. “Well, I wanted the wind to blow a hundred mph,” he said. “I’m fishing in my own backyard, so I wanted that wind to blow. I was fishing brush hogs on rocky humps that other people don’t really know about.”
Quick numbers
44: Combined age, in years, of two of this week’s hottest performers. Michael Bennett, who finished sixth in the Pro Division, is 23 years old. Justin Lucas, who won the Co-angler Division, is just 21.
41,286: Combined amount, in dollars, won by Bennett and Lucas this week. Bennett cleared $16,286 and Lucas $25,000. Bennett’s FLW Outdoors career earnings after this week? A mighty $248,712 – and he’s only been fishing pro-level events since 2004.
Sound bites
“I’ve been over here at this time of year for 30 days the last six or seven years, so I’m familiar with the river.”
– Neil Russell, who hails from Nampa, Idaho. He made a big push up the leaderboard to finish in third place with Saturday’s heaviest limit, 13-9.
“I’ve waited too long for this to waste time on being nervous.”
– Jason Hickey, on fishing in his first top-10 final round for the big dough.
“It’s pretty enough that, when I pass, my ashes will be here.”
– Kelly Vineyard, describing the impact of the scenic Columbia River.