Quick Bites: RCL Championship, Day 1
2003 Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Championship
Mississippi River, Moline, Ill.
Opening round, Wednesday
No “I” in “Keenan”… Tom Keenan can’t seem to lose at the RCL Championship. Last year’s winner, he also finished second at the event in 2001. Now it looks like he’s rolling once again here in Moline. So what’s the trick? How does he keep coming up big at the richest walleye tournament of the year? “I have a really good team,” he says. “We have four guys who work really hard and work really well together.” The “team” he’s referring to includes fellow pros Dean Arnoldussen, Patrick Neu, his brother Mark and himself, who all prefish together and help each other out during events. So, if it’s a team effort, how is it that Keenan keeps coming out on top? “I get lucky, I guess,” he says. Besides, he doesn’t always lead the way. In 2001, Keenan finished second – at Green Bay – behind none other than Arnoldussen.
Deja vu all over again? … Keenan isn’t the only leader making it seem like it’s last year. Scott Allar, the 2003 RCL Championship runner-up, is hot on Keenan’s heels again this year, having placed third on day one here in Moline.
Slotchky … This is a tough fishing tournament (see below). Not only is it a tough bite right now on this part of the Mississippi River, anglers are having to throw back a good number of the fish they do catch. The reason? A hard-core slot limit. Minimum size for keeper walleyes is 15 inches, which is no big deal. But the 20- to 27-inch slot limit is putting a big dent in what could be some sizable bags of fish. Keenan would have had a limit Wednesday but had to throw back a 25 1/2-incher. One of the hardest hit by the slot monster might have been pro Tommy Skarlis, who caught and dutifully returned one 26-incher and two just under 21 inches apiece. He ended up with just one fish weighing 1 pound, 10 ounces. There was plenty of slot angst to go around, however. “I had five bites, but, unfortunately, I had a couple that were too big, so we had to throw them back,” said pro Dean Stoflet, whose four keeper fish weighed a contending 6 pounds, 12 ounces despite it all. “But everybody’s in the same boat.”
Quick numbers
219: Number of boats fishing Wednesday.
69: Number of zeroes posted on both the pro and co-angler sides.
12: Number of limits caught.
2: Number of walleyes caught over the slot limit: Keenan’s 27-incher and Bruce Gruening’s 29-incher.
1: Number of fish of fish caught by pro John Balla while waiting outside the lock after failing to catch a keeper all day. It weighed 1 pound, 14 ounces.
Sound bite
“I’m not going to tell. Everybody’s going to be there tomorrow.”
– A sarcastic Tommy Skarlis, with just one 1 1/2-pound fish to his name Wednesday, when asked where he was fishing.