Reigning FLW Walleye Tour champion Nick Johnson of Elmwood, Wis., caught a three-day total of six walleyes weighing 20 pounds to lead the top 10 pros and co-anglers into the final round of the 2005 Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour season opener on Bull Shoals Lake. Top pros are battling a tough bite for a cash award of as much as $80,000, and co-anglers are fishing for as much as $16,000.
Clear skies and calm, variable winds made tough fishing conditions even worse Friday, as just 21 walleyes weighing 64 pounds, 15 ounces were brought to the scale. On opening day, anglers landed 32 walleyes followed by 29 walleyes on day two. The catch rate and the weights are not indicative of what the lake is capable of producing had spring arrived a few weeks earlier.
“It has been a long three days,” said Johnson, who opened the tournament with four walleyes weighing 12 pounds, 9 ounces and has since managed to weigh just one walleye per day. “My goal is to go out there every day and get at least one fish, and so far it has worked. I’m pretty amazed to still be winning this tournament. Nobody has ever won back to back tournaments on the (FLW) Walleye Tour, so I’d love to be the first.”
Johnson has mined a flat in about 10 feet of water all week using a crankbait to hold onto his lead. The flat, he said, is adjacent to a shallow spawning area and drops off into 20 feet of water. He fished the area on opening day with co-angler Jim Schleicher of Maxwell, Neb., and returned on day two with co-angler Johnny Hall of Littleton, Colo. His partner on day three was Lee Brown of Springfield, Mo.
Rounding out the top-five pros are Todd Riley of Amery, Wis. (four walleyes, 16 pounds, 6 ounces); Robert Crow of Paterson, Wash. (five walleyes, 12 pounds, 14 ounces); Robert Lampman of De Soto, Wis. (two walleyes, 12 pounds, 1 ounce); and Chris Gilman of Chisago City, Minn. (four walleyes, 12 pounds).
William Brewer of Omaha, Neb., leads the Co-angler Division with five walleyes weighing 18 pounds, 12 ounces. He fished with pro John Kolinski of Greenville, Wis., on opening day, Riley on day two and Scott Steil of Richmond, Minn., on day three.
“We were making three to four casts per minute,” Brewer said. “That is a lot of casts, and it’s real hard to keep a positive attitude when that plug keeps coming back empty. You have to keep working though, and it will pay off. I couldn’t ask for a better partner tomorrow.”
Rounding out the top five co-anglers are Dave Crawford of Maybee, Mich. (three walleyes, 15 pounds, 13 ounces); Schleicher (four walleyes, 12 pounds, 9 ounces); Dana Delp of Lansing, Mich. (three walleyes, 9 pounds, 5 ounces); and Janet Flynn of Tea, S.D. (three walleyes, 8 pounds, 11 ounces).
Anglers have maintained a 100 percent live-release rate throughout the tournament.
Pros and co-anglers fish for a combined boat weight and are randomly paired each day. The FLW Walleye Tour is the world’s most lucrative professional walleye-fishing series. At the $650,000 million Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour Championship on the Mississippi River in Moline, Ill., Sept. 28 – Oct. 1, pros will fish for as much as $125,000 cash and co-anglers will chase as much as $22,000.
Saturday’s takeoff starts at 7 a.m. at Bull Shoals Boat Dock off Route 178 in Bull Shoals. Saturday’s final weigh-in starts at 4 p.m. at the Wal-Mart store off Highway 62/412 in Flippin. The community is invited to attend the free takeoff and weigh-in festivities.
Anglers from 18 states are competing in the lucrative tournament, which began Wednesday. The full field fished the three-day opening round for one of 10 final-round slots awarded based on the heaviest three-day accumulated weights. Weights carry over to day four, with the winner determined by the heaviest four-day weight.
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, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour and Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series.
For more information on FLW Outdoors and its tournament programs, visit FLWOutdoors.com 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.