Quick Bites: Wal-Mart Open, Beaver Lake, Day 2

Wal-Mart FLW Tour

Beaver Lake, Rogers, Ark.

Opening round, Friday

Phillips family affair…Among the 200 co-anglers this week, three are part of the Phillips family. Castrol co-angler Mark Phillips of Fayetteville, Ark., has been fishing for years on the FLW Tour but is taking a back seat this week as he watches his son Jonathan, his daughter Jennifer Parker and his son-in-law Yancy Parker compete. All of the three are BFL veterans but this is their first time fishing the FLW Tour. On day one, they all caught at least one keeper bass. In fact, Jonathan caught three that weighed 3-12. On day two Jonathan failed to boat a keeper while Jennifer and Yancy each caught one. Yancy finished the tournament in 158th place, Jennifer in 172nd and Jonathan in 154th, just barely maintaining family bragging rights.

Looking to deal…Four-year-old Austin “Booyah” Tiritilli is a diehard fishing fan. Living in Fayetteville, Ark., he calls Beaver Lake his home water. His angling heroes are his dad Mike and Kevin VanDam and his favorite lures are a worm and a crankbait. At last year’s Wal-Mart Open he visited the FLW Outdoors Family Fun Zone and received all the pros’ trading cards complete with autographs. This year, Austin decided to make a card of his own, as he really wanted to get involved in the “trading.” Tomorrow, as he receives a card from a pro, he will give that same pro a card of his own. Soon, everyone will know that young Austin likes to throw a worm and a crankbait and that his hobbies include fishing, reading and playing at the park. Also, his card claims that he first went fishing when he was six days old. Now if he could just stay awake for an entire weigh-in.

Thrift’s revenge…Although he took 44th place and earned a check for $10,500, Bryan Thrift was looking for bigger things at the National Guard Open last month. Norman is his home water and he knows the lake perhaps better than anyone. But in the days leading up to the event, he saw his home-lake advantage slip away as the fish made their way to the beds. “Norman played out a lot different than last year,” said the Shelby, N.C., pro. “I just could never get a solid postspawn pattern established. The fish I was catching should have weighed 3 pounds, but they weighed 2 pounds. They really hadn’t started eating and bulking up yet. If the tournament would’ve been two or three weeks later I really would’ve had an advantage.” Heading into the Wal-Mart Open, Thrift was in 10th place in the Land O’Lakes Angler of the Year race. After finishing 16th, he’ll be right in the thick of things with two qualifiers remaining.

Bohannan is back…After witnessing an incredible 2007 tournament season, many in the industry predicted a seamless transition for Greg Bohannan as he embarked on his first FLW Tour season. Although it didn’t start the way he planned, Bohannan has turned it around on his home lake. “It’s been a tough year,” said the Rogers, Ark., native who quit his job as a manager at Tyson to fish full time. “It’s been really frustrating to be honest. I struggled at the first tournament on Toho because I don’t like fishing grass and I had the fish on to do pretty well at the other two tournaments. I figure I’ve lost about $25,000 in fish.” Barely squeaking into the top-10 cutoff, Bohannan gets to start from scratch tomorrow as weights are zeroed for the final round. “It is just awesome to make a top-10 on my home lake. I watched my roommate Mark Rose take second two years ago and I’m real excited for tomorrow.”

Fog, sun hurt…Some anglers predicted that the fishing on day two would be as good or better than day one. Others such as Clark Wendlandt and Bohannan predicted weights would drop dramatically. The 94-minute fog delay this morning certainly didn’t help, but the sun and lack of wind all but killed what was a strong spinnerbait bite. National Guard pro Jonathan Newton went from 25 bites on day one to just three bites on day two. The total catch for the pros on day one was 1,605 pounds. On day two that number shrunk to 1,237. “I knew today was going to be extremely tough so I just went out to get five,” said Bohannan. “When this lake gets flat it gets real challenging,” said Arkansas pro Rob Kilby.

Quick numbers

2: Weight, in ounces, of how much co-angler Fred Harris missed the top-10 cutoff by this week.

5-7: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of the Snickers Big Bass on day two caught by pro Bill Day.



6: Weight, in ounces, of how much Harris missed the top-10 cutoff by at the National Guard Open on Lake Norman.

8-11: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of pro Randy Blaukat’s weight on both days one and two. For the record, it was good for 54th place and $10,000.

13-6: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of the heaviest stringer from day two caught by pro leader Alvin Shaw.

15-15: $10,000-check weight, in pounds and ounces.

22-8: Weight, in pounds and ounces, that Bohannan predicted Friday morning would be needed to make the top-10 cutoff.

22-8: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of Bohannan’s two-day total. He qualified for the final round in 10th place.

Sound bites

“I heard you were fishing the charity tournament (Children’s Miracle Network) Monday so I purposely saved fish just to beat you,” – Pro Jacob Powroznik, who caught 15-4 and has every intention of beating FLW Outdoors CEO Charlie Evans.

“It was luck but I’d like to think it was educated luck,” – Pro Rob Digh on catching his 6-pound, day-one kicker.

“I knew I was going to have a good day today because I beat Clark (Wendlandt) in two games of ping pong last night,” – Shaw.

“I’d sell that information for $50,000,” – Chevy pro Jimmy Houston, who figured out the bass this week and was willing to share his secrets with Evans for the right price.

Tomorrow’s takeoff is scheduled to take place at 6:30 a.m. Central time from Prairie Creek Marina located at 1 Prairie Creek Marina Drive in Rogers.