Last weekend was a light one for FLW by most standards, but there’s still plenty of fishing news to report. While Casey Ashley was winning the Bassmaster Classic (he’s now won $400,000 on Lake Hartwell in under a year), Fred George went to Lake Okeechobee and earned the first Walmart Bass Fishing League win of his career, and the FLW College Fishing event on Texoma produced 15 new qualifiers for the Southern Conference Championship this fall.
Here’s a recap of last weekend’s action.
Overcoming on Texoma
The University of Central Oklahoma team of Colten Hutson and Brock Enmeier earned its first FLW College Fishing win with a five-bass limit good for 13 pounds, 15 ounces on Lake Texoma. Hutson and Enmeier ended up on top of a 62-boat field on a day when Texoma fished brutally tough. A cold front that blew in a few days before the tournament shut the fish down pretty effectively, and low temperatures and high winds only increased the difficulty.
The winners caught their fish off of one key brush pile and were especially happy to qualify because the 2015 Southern Conference Championship is set for Grand Lake – their home waters.
We’ve seen some huge fields and huge weights so far this year in FLW College Fishing, and this tournament felt like a return to the norm. Of course, the next FLW College Fishing event is the inaugural College Fishing Open held on Kentucky Lake March 20-21. The new format allotted to the Open will feel like anything but normal with 10 berths in the 2016 FLW College Fishing National Championship on the line.
By George!
Sorry, I had to do it. Fred George caught 22 pounds, 7 ounces Saturday on Lake Okeechobee to beat out a 199-boat field and earn a tick more than $6,000. Oddly enough, he caught the majority of his fish out of the rim ditch, which is the canal that encircles the lake, and wasn’t fishing the interior grass beds that typically dominate on the Big O.
With three tournaments in the Gator Division complete, the standings are beginning to take shape. The first-place boater in each BFL division earns a cool $1,000, and the top co-angler earns $500. Ty Fox has a pretty solid 25-point lead over Josh Bright in the Gator Division boater standings. Fox and Bright have likely earned their trips to the Regional on Lake Sinclair in October, but there are still plenty of anglers hanging around the 50th-place Regional cutoff who need to improve or hold steady to earn their way.
Records Galore
February seems to be the time to catch record bass. Hot on the heels of the new Tennessee state record largemouth, Lou Ferrante caught what appears to be the new world record spotted bass from Bullards Bar Reservoir in California. The pending world record spot was caught Feb. 21. Last year, Keith Bryan caught the standing world record spot on Feb. 22 out of New Melones Reservoir. If you’re planning a late-winter vacation for next season, Feb. 20 seems like a good day to plan a trip to the West Coast to chase giant spotted bass.
The Week Ahead
While most of the coverage on FLWFishing.com this week and through the weekend will be geared toward the fast-approaching Walmart FLW Tour opener on Lake Toho, there are also three BFL events scheduled for Saturday (and at the current pace likely a new record bass will be caught too). The Bama Division will see action on Lake Eufaula, the Cowboy Division is headed to Sam Rayburn and the North Carolina Division will start its season on Lake Norman.