$2.6 million Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour to visit Bull Shoals Lake

BULL SHOALS, Ark. – The Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour returns in 2005 for its fifth season, and Bull Shoals Lake near Bull Shoals will kick off this year’s tour April 6-9. With TV coverage on FSN and a $2.6 million total purse – including the no-entry-fee $650,000 Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour Championship on the Mississippi River near Moline, Ill., Sept. 28-Oct. 1 – the FLW Walleye Tour is bigger and better than ever.

As many as 150 pros and 150 co-anglers will take on Bull Shoals for their share of a $471,000 purse, including as much as $90,000 for the winning pro and $17,000 for the winning co-angler.

“Currently the walleyes are suspending 32 to 40 feet deep,” said longtime guide and area walleye pro Rick Culver of Bull Shoals, “but they won’t still be there when the tournament starts. The lake is sort of going backwards on us right now. Normally the water would be warming into the 50s, and lately it’s been cooling back down into the 40s.”

This phenomenon will possibly delay the migration of walleye to shallow points and flats to spawn and could make the tournament fish dramatically different depending on where the walleyes are relative to the spawn.

“They want to spawn in about 4 to 8 feet of water on points and stump-filled flats,” Culver said. “They could be either prespawn, spawn or even into postspawn depending on how the water warms over the next several weeks. Anglers could be casting shallow with jerkbaits and crankbaits or using bottom bouncers and crawler harnesses in deep water.”

Bull Shoals has extremely clear water and spawning walleye can be tough to catch because they are easily spooked by approaching boats.

The walleyes in Bull Shoals average 3 pounds, but Culver says there are walleye to 15 pounds in the lake. “I think if a boat can catch several 3 or 4 pound walleye and one big one each day, then they’ll have a good shot to win.” He’s conservatively estimating about 60 pounds to win the event.

Bull Shoals Boat Dock in Bull Shoals will host daily takeoffs each day at 7 a.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday’s weigh-ins will also be held at the marina beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday’s weigh-in will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at Highway 62-412 in Flippin beginning at 4 p.m. The community is invited to attend daily takeoffs and weigh-ins, which are free and open to the public.

Pros and co-anglers are randomly paired each day and fish for a combined boat weight. Pros compete against other pros, and co-anglers compete against other co-anglers. The full field competes during the three-day opening round for one of 10 final-round slots based on their three-day accumulated weight. Weights carry over to day four, with the winner determined by the heaviest four-day weight.

Every angler who receives weight credit in a tournament earns points, with 200 points awarded to the winner, 199 to second, 198 for third, and so on. These points determine angler standings. The top 50 pros and 50 co-anglers based on year-end points standings will advance to the 2005 Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour Championship, where a pro can earn as much as $125,000 cash for a win.

The FLW Walleye Tour Championship is the most lucrative event in professional walleye angling, with guaranteed cash awards for the entire field. A guaranteed cash award of $75,000 plus potential sponsor bonuses totaling $50,000 will go to the FLW Walleye Tour Championship winner for a total pro award of $125,000. The champion co-angler will win a guaranteed cash award of $11,000 plus potential sponsor bonuses totaling $11,000 for a total co-angler award of $22,000.

The FLW Walleye Tour will next visit Lake Erie near Port Clinton, Ohio, April 28-30 for an event presented by Yamaha. Green Bay near Green Bay, Wis., will host the third regular-season event May 18-21, and the regular season will come to a close June 15-18 on Devils Lake near Spirit Lake, N.D.

Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour and seven other national tournament circuits offering a combined $30 million in awards through 214 events in 2005. The 27-year-old organization is the purveyor of America’s largest and most prestigious fishing tournaments, including the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, EverStart Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League and Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour.

For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, browse this website or call (270) 252-1000.

Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as title sponsor of the FLW Tour in 1997 and today is the title sponsor of all FLW Outdoors events. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.