Quick Bites: FLW Walleye Tour Championship, Day 2

Franklin’s big fish worth five Benjamins, Skarlis strong on schools, and everyone knows it’s windy

Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour Championship

Lake Oahe, Pierre, S.D.

Opening round, Thursday

A perfect 10 … Bemidji, Minn., pro Richard Franklin and Thornton, Colo., co-angler Bruce Wingen landed a “perfect 10” Thursday, weighing in a fish that easily took the Snickers Big Walleye award and earned them each $500. In fact, the walleye was such a nice catch that it took two 10s to log the weight – 10 pounds, 10 ounces – and it helped Franklin, No. 4 pro, earn his second FLW Walleye Tour top-10. Even more interesting is the history between the two fishermen. Six years ago the two anglers met at a PWT event on Lake Sacajawea, only then Wingen was the pro and Franklin the co-angler. “We had boat troubles in the morning,” Franklin said, recounting their first encounter. “We had to borrow a boat, we had to wire the entire thing, we had a fog delay – we had everything go wrong. Then we went out and caught the heaviest bag of the day. We’ve been friends ever since.” Obviously the two anglers bring out the best in one another. Since they caught today’s monster trolling a crankbait on a stationery rod, they split the $1,000 award down the middle, so there were no worries about money coming between two pals.

School of fish … Though he didn’t make the top-10 cut today, pro Tommy Skarlis of Dorchester, Iowa, still made good use of his time on the weigh-in stage. During his decade of professional walleye fishing, Skarlis said he has used almost everything he learned from his formal education as a tool of the trade, and he urged children attending the championship weigh-in to stay in school. He said: “I had to learn to be a writer. I had to learn how to talk onstage. I had to learn to keep my fish alive … even used the science. I had to learn (public relations) skills. So kids, if you don’t think school is important now – it is.” Obviously Skarlis’ education has paid off in his FLW Outdoors career: Every year he has fished a full slate of FLW Walleye Tour events, he’s excelled. He ended both the 2003 and 2005 seasons as the No. 2 ranked pro, and he entered this year’s championship on the heels of a season-opening top-10 at the Detroit River and a 13th-place finish at Devils Lake.

Rough riders … It took a while for the infamous Dakota winds to make an appearance today, but when they came, they whipped the water on Lake Oahe into formidable waves. And angler after angler felt the pain. Syracuse, Ind., co-angler Keith Strauss (6th place): “Sometimes we had the waves coming at us from three directions. I’ve never seen that before.” Chisago City, Minn., pro Chris Gilman (28th): “It was a little rough … but I had my three kids already.” Mina, S.D., pro Rick Olson (10th): “I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore, and I’m feeling every year of my age today.”

Quick numbers

10-10: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of the largest walleye of the opening round, caught by Franklin and Wingen Thursday.

10-10: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of Franklin’s entire day-one catch over five fish.

11: Number of five-walleye limits weighed in by pro/co-angler teams on day two of the 2006 Walleye Tour Championship, down nine from day one.

303-2: Weight, in pounds and ounces, of the 121 walleyes to cross the scale Thursday, down 65 pounds, 9 ounces from Wednesday.

Sound bites

“If these fish knew how far we traveled to catch them, you’d think they’d cooperate a little better.”

– 12th-place pro Scott Fairbairn of Hager City, Wis., on the incredible distance most competitors have been running to find their fish.

“I’ve learned there are three things in my life I can’t control: Mother Nature, the fish and my wife.”

– 49th-place pro Rick Lacourse of Port Clinton, Ohio, who will have to report to his better half that he zeroed on both days of the championship opening round.

“I said, `You know, it just doesn’t get any better than this.’ And it didn’t’.”

– 32nd-place pro Pete Harsh of Sauk Centre, Minn., on what he told his co-angler after landing a 25-inch, 5-pound walleye 10 minutes into today’s competition, the only fish they weighed.