Levy Leaps to Havasu Co-Angler Win
California co goes from 10th to first
The good thing about starting the final day in 10th place is that you have only one way to go. Andrew Levy knew this going into the final day of the Costa FLW Series Western Division event on Lake Havasu, but seeing himself holding the trophy just wasn’t in his wheelhouse.
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“I think it’s quite amazing and I would not have predicted that,” Levy says. “I was five pounds out of the lead and it was a very tough bite. I was really just hoping to move up a few places for the points; but to be able to win was a stroke of luck.”
Nevertheless, posting the heaviest sack of day three — 9 pounds, 9 ounces — bolstered his first two weights of 7-4 and 5-2 for a tournament total of 21-15. For his victory, Levy won a Ranger Z175 with a 90-hp Evinrude outboard.
Impressively, Levy tallied his final day’s weight with only two fish. He credits his momentous catches to an unconventional presentation with a key reaction bait.
Levy caught both of his fish on a white Z-Man ChatterBait with a Zoom Fluke trailer. Foregoing traditional presentations, he employed a technique more common to jigs and Texas-rigged plastics.
“It’s common to slow roll these baits or burn them to make them vibrate, but I was actually flipping it into cover,” he says. “Today, it started out very slowly and I didn’t have any bites, but (my pro partner) Justin Kerr was doing really good. All of a sudden, I got a bite and I thought I was snagged, but it turned out to be my biggest fish.
“After that, I stuck with that exact same pattern and exact same bait. It was one of the few things I could do behind him because he was covering water fast.”
Levy said he pressed himself to hit every target he could, in hopes of increasing his productivity. All the while, he had no idea he had the winning weight in the boat.
“I really thought if I could get a third fish equal in size to the two I had caught that I would have a chance of winning,” he says. “To win with those two, I feel lucky.”