Quick Bites: FLW Tour, Lake Norman, Day 1

Walmart FLW Tour

National Guard Open

Lake Norman, Charlotte, N.C.,

Opening round, Thursday

Bohannan’s newborn…Kellogg’s pro Greg Bohannan of Rogers, Ark., is now the proud papa of a healthy baby boy. On April 14th, Greg and Holly Bohannan welcomed their first son – Brock Bohannan – into the world. Baby Brock weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces. “That’s the exact weight of the biggest bass I’ve ever caught in my life,” Bohannan said. “And now I’ve got a great little fishing partner.” Perhaps in about 2028, Brock will be making his own waves on the FLW Tour. Bohannan gave up some of his practice time to be with Holly during the birth, which did not hurt him a bit as he now sits in 48th place with 9 pounds, 6 ounces.

Spawn or post-spawn…Coming into Lake Norman, many pros were a little unsure as to what stage the bass would be in their yearly spring ritual: spawn or post-spawn? Well that answer became a little clearer today as two of the Tour’s best sight-fishermen, M&M’s pro Greg Pugh and Iams pro Koby Kreiger brought in solid catches. Pugh sits in seventh place with 12 pounds, 11 ounces and Kreiger is in 14th with 11 pounds, 14 ounces. Both pros concur that the biggest wave of fish are just moving up. “I think it’s just starting to happen,” Kreiger said. “I have seen no fry and no empty beds and that tells me there has been little spawning activity up until now. All the fish I caught today were fish that I found today – ones that had just moved up. I could see the bucks moving in making beds while their bigger girlfriends were just 8 or 10 feet away sunning on top of the water; that’s pretty typical behavior of fish just starting to spawn.” While Pugh added, “The conditions were better today than they have been all week. The wind died, the big boat traffic subsided and the water cleared up a lot. For the first time I got to really study the fish and they are pairing up and floating around everywhere, which tells me it’s getting ready to happen.”

No shad spawn…While the sight-fishermen moved up the leaderboard, those focusing on post-spawn bass feeding on spawning shad at the end of Norman’s plethora of floating docks faltered. Shad-spawn specialist Andy Montgomery caught four bass for 7 pounds, 8 ounces, leaving him in 100th place. Kellogg’s pro Clark Wendlandt was betting heavily on the shad spawn this morning, but it did not happen. “My first two casts of the day produced bass around shad and that was it, I never got another shad-spawn bite the rest of the day,” Wendlandt reported. Instead, Wendlandt finished out his limit by “just fishing” to grab 17th place with 11 pounds, 6 ounces.

Hudson’s lost rod…At the last FLW Tour event on Table Rock Lake, FLW Tour pro Andy Morgan and co-angler David Hudson were paired together. Everything was going fine until Morgan hooked a hot 4-pounder right at the boat. In a rush for the net, Hudson threw down his rod and grabbed the net just as Morgan was moving to the rear of the boat to give the fresh-hooked fish some room to play. After the fish was netted and secured in the well, Hudson could not find his rod anywhere. “I accidentally punted it overboard during the whole melee,” Morgan admitted. Meanwhile, Hudson is still grieving the loss of one of his finest combos: a G.Loomis GLX spinning rod teamed with a Shimano Stella spinning reel. The cost of such an outfit: “About a $1,000,” lamented Hudson. But there is a bright side to this story: Morgan just happens to be sponsored by G.Loomis. “I’m going to get him another GLX,” Morgan promised. “But that Stella, hmm, I don’t know about that.” Incidentally, Hudson happens to be leading the Co-angler Division with 12 pounds. Should he win the tournament’s co-angler top prize of $40,000, he could probably buy a few more Stellas, which is entirely possible since Hudson also happens to be the defending co-angler champion from Lake Norman.

A tougher Norman, really…Anymore, pretournament talk is cheap. Going into an FLW Tour event, pros say things are going to be tough and then come tournament time, giant sacks of bass parade across the scales. So before the National Guard Open on Lake Norman began, the usual poor-mouthing began that things were going to be “much tougher than in years past.” Well this time, the pros were coming clean. There were still plenty of limits weighed in (114 on the pro side), but the weights were down considerably. When the FLW Tour first visited Lake Norman in 2007, there were 24 limits over 13 pounds weighed in on the first day, with half of those being over 14 pounds. In 2008, there were 21 limits over 13 pounds after day one with eight bags over 14 pounds. After day one this year, there were just six limits over 13 pounds with not a single one over breaking the 14-pound mark. What’s even more puzzling is today was a picture-perfect spring-time fishing day, with warming temperatures and light winds this afternoon. “I’m not really sure what’s going on,” noted Chevy pro Anthony Gagliardi, who sits in 19th place with 11 pounds, 1 ounce. “I did not catch a keeper until 12:40 today; it was a real struggle.”

Quick numbers

9: age, in number of days, of the Bohannan’s new baby.

1000: Estimated amount in dollars of David Hudson’s spinning rod combo that went over board at Lake Table Rock.

12:40: Time Anthony Gagliardi caught his first keeper bass.

Sound bites

“In my whole fishing career, I have never been as stressed out as I was this morning; I mean I was literally pulling my hair out.” – Gagliardi on not catching his first keeper until 12:40.

“Well, what did you do out there before noon? Eat breakfast? Take a nap? Sit back, relax and have a cup of Folgers coffee?” – Charlie Evans ribbing Gagliardi about not catching a fish until almost 1 o’ clock.

“I can tell you what they’re not biting: they’re not biting a Pop-R; I threw it for 400 miles today without a bite.” – Febreze pro Craig Powers on his favorite topwater technique.

“When you see a buck bass making a bed and his bigger girlfriend sunning on the surface 8 feet away, that’s good times.” – Kreiger on what the next few days might hold.

“I’m stumped.” – Berkley pro Kevin Vida on trying to make heads or tails of where Lake Norman fish are in their spawning cycle.

Day two of the National Guard Open on Lake Norman will begin Friday at 7 a.m. from Blythe Landing located at 15901 Hwy. 73, Huntersville, N.C.