Harrison hooks FLW Series win from back of the pack

Indiana pro saves best for last, rockets from eighth place to first at Champlain

PLATTSBURG, N.Y. – Chip Harrison of Bremen, Ind., has fished a lot of tournaments on Lake Champlain in his professional career and has never weighed in a single largemouth during that time.

Not that Harrison has anything against largemouth bass; he just loves catching smallmouths. So when he comes to Lake Champlain, he targets smallies exclusively.

And from day one of the Walmart FLW Series event on Lake Champlain, Harrison stuck to what he knows best: the brown fish.

In return for his loyalty, his beloved smallies garnered Harrison a ticket to the top 10 in the BP Eastern Division event this week. He checked in brownie limits of 18-7, 16-1 and 17-15 the first three days to qualify in the eighth-place position going into the final day.

With a three-day total of 52 pounds, 7 ounces, the Iams pro entered day four some 4 pounds behind the leaders who were targeting weightier largemouths.

As he headed out the final morning to run his smallmouth game plan one more time, he could have never dreamed of what was about to happen.

After sacking a decent limit of smallmouths early in the day, Harrison made a move to one of his favorite smallmouth holes in 17 feet of water. The area was a text-book smallmouth location: positioned off a flat with a perfect mix of weeds and rock – a place that had produced nothing but smallmouths all week.

He picked up one of his favorite smallmouth lures – a drop-shot rig loaded with a Poor Boys D.S. Darter in a color called mango magic – and fired a cast into the flat.

And what happened next is basically inexplicable, even to Harrison himself.

“I got a bite, set the hook, and I could tell it was a nice fish,” Harrison recounted. “It got hung up in a big wad of milfoil, but I kept pressure on the fish and eventually tore the milfoil loose. I pulled the huge ball of grass up to the surface and dug through it until I uncovered a giant largemouth bass. I was floored. I had never caught a largemouth out that deep before.”

Minutes later, Harrison was still reveling in the amazement of catching a 5-pound largemouth out in the middle of a smallmouth flat when he felt another peck on his line.

“I jokingly told the camera crew that I’d love to catch another big largemouth, and I’ll be darned if that next bite wasn’t a second giant largemouth,” said Harrison.

The two largemouths culled Harrison up to a final-day weight of 21 pounds, 6 ounces – one of the biggest limits of the tournament – and allowed him to leapfrog over the rest of the field to take his first FLW Series victory with a four-day total of 73 pounds, 13 ounces.

“I’m still stunned,” Harrison said after collecting his winner’s check for $125,000. “I’ve never weighed in a single largemouth in my tournament career here at Champlain, and I caught two huge largemouths in the middle of a smallmouth flat on the last day to win the biggest tournament of my career – if that’s not meant to be, I don’t know what is.”

Harrison spent most of the week fishing the New York side of Champlain for smallmouths in a hole that he found on his depth finder during practice.

“It was a bare hole, about 16 feet deep, in the middle of a grass flat,” he explained. “During the first three days of the tournament, my co-anglers and I pulled over a 100 pounds of smallmouth off that spot.”

But when Harrison returned to it today, it had mostly played out.

“That’s when I headed to a spot I had been saving all week,” he continued. “I actually wanted to fish this place yesterday, but it was way too windy. So I saved it for today, and it got me started with several nice smallmouths.

“And later in the day I moved to another smallmouth spot, and that’s where I caught the two big largemouths – what in the heck they were doing way out there, I have no idea.”

Harrison’s main lures during the week were a Poor Boys tube (watermelon, copper, purple) fished on a 3/8-ounce tube head, a drop-shot Poor Boys D.S. Darter (mango magic), a drop-shot Berkley Gulp Leech and Nesty’s C-Flash crankbait.

Most of the baits were fished on 8-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line.

“I can’t say enough about that Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon,” Harrison said. “I landed both of those big largemouths after they got hung up in thick wads of milfoil.”

After grasping his first FLW Outdoors national victory, Harrison is now convinced of one thing: “When it’s your time, it’s your time; that’s all there is to it. I came into the final day of a Lake Champlain event 4 pounds behind, caught two kicker largemouths in the middle of a smallmouth flat and won. I still can’t believe it.”

Gluszek second

After leading the FLW Series event on Lake Champlain for three days in row, Pete Gluszek of Mt. Laurel, N.J., finished runner-up with a four-day total of 73 pounds, 1 ounce worth $46,488.

Gluszek’s day-four limit of 16 pounds, 7 ounces was not quite enough to fend off Harrison’s hard charge, and Gluszek fell 12 ounces short of victory.

All week, Gluszek fished the north end of Champlain within five miles of the Canadian border for a mixture of largemouths and smallmouths.

He targeted a variety of hard structure, including wood and rock, pitched a jig into thick milfoil beds and cranked outside flats and weedlines around the north end.

His key lures included a 5-inch black Senko, a 1/2-ounce Jig-X jig trailed with a baby Paca craw and a Storm Wiggle Wart in a spring-craw color.

“The Jig-X is an utlraweedless jig that works great in really thick, slimy grass,” Gluszek said. “And I used the Wiggle Wart to crank flats and outside weedlines.”

Moynagh third

BP pro Jim Moynagh of Carver, Minn., finished third with a four-day total of 72 pounds, 12 ounces worth $37,191.

Moynagh targeted largemouth bass in the Inland Sea most of the week.

His best area was a deep weedline where he cast a Zoom Brush Hog (watermelon-purple) on a 1/2-ounce Texas rig and a drop-shot rig to the outside edge.

“I chose to fish largemouths over smallmouths this year because my BP teammate Guido Hibdon won this event with largemouths last year,” Moynagh said. “So I put a strong effort into finding quality largemouths this time.”

Omori fourth



Yamaha pro Takahiro Omori of Emory, Texas, finished fourth with a four-day total of 71 pounds, 15 ounces to collect $27,893.

Omori spent the week drop-shotting in the middle part of Lake Champlain for smallmouths.

“I was keying on big ledges and rock piles in 20 to 35 feet of water,” Omori said. “My drop-shot was rigged with a 1/2-ounce Tru-Tungsten drop-shot weight, a No. 1 Gamakatsu drop-shot hook and a Gary Yamamoto cut-tail worm in green-pumpkin.”

Powroznik fifth

Jacob Powroznik of Prince George, Va., finished fifth with a four-day total of 71 pounds, 5 ounces, collecting $18,595.

Powroznik spent the week drop-shotting and Carolina rigging in the Inland Sea area.

He fished depths of 20 to 40 feet, looking for schools of perch and bluegills on his depth finder.

“There were hundreds of those white perch and bluegills in big schools on the bottom,” Powroznik said. “Whenever I would find a school of those, I’d look for the nearest rock on the bottom, and there would be some smallmouth there ambushing the perch.”

Powroznik’s two key lures were a drop-shot rigged with a 1/2-ounce Tru-Tungsten weight and a Berkley Gulp 3-inch Leech and a Carolina rig made up of a 1-ounce Tru-Tungsten weight and a Zoom 8-inch lizard.

Rest of the best

Rounding out the top 10 pros in the FLW Series event on Lake Champlain:

6th: Shinichi Fukae of Mineola, Texas, four-day total of 71-3, $17,666

7th: Jim Tutt of Longview, Texas, four-day total of 70-11, $16,736

8th: Boyd Duckett of Demopolis, Ala., four-day total of 69-12, $15,806

9th: Luke Clausen of Spokane, Wash., four-day total of 66-7, $14,876

10th: David Walker of Sevierville, Tenn., four-day total of 65-15, $13,946