CLEWISTON, Fla. – Pat Fisher of Buford, Ga., who finished fourth in the 2002 Wal-Mart FLW Championship last September, extended his hot streak into 2003 by winning the Wal-Mart FLW Tour season opener Saturday on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee by more than 8 pounds. Fisher caught nine bass weighing 32 pounds, 4 ounces over the final two days to claim the top prize of $100,000.
“I think I graduated (Saturday),” said Fisher, who is enjoying his first win as an FLW Tour pro. Fisher won the Co-angler Division of an FLW Tour event on Lake Murray in 2000. “I started fishing seven years ago, and this is the first place I ever fished a tournament.”
Fisher caught his bass Saturday flipping a Zoom craw worm on 50-pound braided line in the heavy mats along the north end of the lake. “I fished mats that I hadn’t fished in practice,” Fisher said. “I hit one little stretch and caught five fish in an hour. I had an awesome day.”
The four-day, $500,000 Lake Okeechobee tournament presented by EverStart Batteries got off to a good start Wednesday thanks to sunny, warm weather conditions that brought several limits in excess of 20 pounds to the weigh-in stage. Anglers continued to catch heavy limits Thursday despite gradually falling temperatures throughout the day. But a late-Thursday freeze accompanied by extremely high winds presented a challenge to the 10 pros and 10 co-anglers who advanced to Friday’s competition. Sluggish bass coupled with hot spots lost in the wind meant lighter sacks and fewer bass brought to the scales.
Temperatures rose enough Saturday to motivate the bass into biting again, with six anglers catching limits. Thirty-three bass weighing 77 pounds, 7 ounces were caught Saturday by the 10 remaining pros, and 100 percent were released alive.
Rounding out the top five pros are Rick Couch of Ocala, Fla. (10 bass, 24 pounds, 1 ounce, $35,000); Dan Morehead of Paducah, Ky. (10 bass, 20 pounds, 4 ounces, $20,000); Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn. (six bass, 16 pounds, 4 ounces, $16,000); and Todd Faircloth of Jasper, Texas (five bass, 9 pounds, $14,000).
Co-angler competition concluded Friday with Alton Lackie of Germantown, Tenn., winning $15,000 cash plus a $500 Wal-Mart gift card from Castrol and $500 worth of Castrol products. Lackie’s winning catch of one bass weighing 2 pounds, 9 ounces was the lightest-winning weight since Frank Divis Sr. of Fayetteville, Ark., won an FLW Tour event on the Pascagoula River in 2001 with a two-bass, 1-pound, 14-ounce catch.
Morehead earned the Shop-Vac High Performance Award, which is given to the angler with the heaviest total catch weight after the first three days of competition, with a three-day catch of 46 pounds, 4 ounces. His prize was a 10-gallon, stainless-steel Shop-Vac.
Fisher won a $500 Wal-Mart gift card plus a selection of Stanley tools as the winner of the Stanley Accuracy Cast Award, which goes to the angler who pitches a jig closest to a specified target.
One hundred and seventy-five pros and 175 co-anglers kicked off the tournament from Roland Martin’s Marina in Clewiston Wednesday and competed for two days for one of 10 final-round spots in their respective divisions. The Lake Okeechobee event is the first of six regular-season Wal-Mart FLW Tour events, all of which lead up to the $1.5 million Jacobs Cup on the James River in Richmond, Va., Sept. 10-13. The road to Richmond, Va., is indeed paved with gold, as the Jacobs Cup champion will collect $500,000, the largest guaranteed cash award in bass-fishing history.
Coverage of the Lake Okeechobee tournament will be broadcast to 55 million Outdoor Life Network subscribers on “FLW Outdoors,” featuring fishing legends Hank Parker and Larry Nixon alongside hosts Charlie Evans, Carlton Wing and Taylor Carr. A tournament preview featuring Parker will air Sunday at 1 p.m. EST. Tournament highlights from Lake Okeechobee will air Feb. 1 and 2 followed by a tournament recap featuring Nixon Feb. 8 and 9.
The Wal-Mart FLW Tour will visit the Atchafalaya Basin in Morgan City, La., Feb. 12-15 for its second regular-season tournament. The Atchafalaya Basin tournament is also a $500,000 event, awarding $100,000 to the winning pro.
The Wal-Mart FLW Tour features a pro/co-angler format in which the pro supplies the boat, fishes from the front deck against other pros and controls boat movement. Co-anglers fish from the back deck against other co-anglers. Every angler who receives weight credit in a tournament earns points, with 200 points awarded to the winner, 199 points for second, 198 for third, and so on. These points determine angler standings, and the top 48 pros and 48 co-anglers following the regular season advance to the $1.5 million Jacobs Cup.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its six tournament trails. Wal-Mart has been the title sponsor of FLW Outdoors since 1997. For a complete list of FLW Outdoors sponsors and for more information about the premier products and services they offer, please browse this Web site.