GREEN BAY, Wis. – Eleven-year walleye Pro Patrick Neu of Forestville won his first event at the Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour stop on Green Bay Saturday and took home $87,000 cash. Neu and anglers from 21 states fished in conditions from one extreme to the other. The tournament week started with strong winds and heavy rains and ended with calm waters and blue bird skies. Neu, however, was able to catch consistent limits everyday to post his four-day total of 20 walleyes weighing 111 pounds, 8 ounces.
“It’s been a long week, but I feel great,” Neu said. Neu fished an area up the Ocono River about 26 miles from the launch site. “I was fishing a breakline at the mouth of the river. The water is full of tannic acid and has a real dark color, which is just great walleye water when it’s windy and overcast.” On Saturday, however, the water was calm and the skies were bright, and after only boating one fish in the morning, Neu made the decision to leave the fish that got him into the finals to try his backup area.
Neu ran 27 miles back down to the lower end of Green Bay and caught a good walleye and a few more small fish to scratch out a limit weighing 15 pounds, 7 ounces to hold off his hard-charging competitors.
“The keys to my win this week were my outboard-mounted Minn Kota trolling motor that helped me maintain precise speed control and my decision to throw back some early fish on day three,” Neu said. Because this was a no-cull tournament, anglers had to decide as soon as a walleye was caught whether or not it was worthy of being kept. “I knew it was going to take big fish to win this tournament, so I threw back some 5-pound walleyes early on Friday. Later in the day, I caught a 7 pounder and a 9 pounder and that gave me a 6-pound swing. I only won by 4 pounds, so those early decisions made the difference.”
Rounding out the top five pros are Pat Schuette of Manitowoc (20 walleyes, 107 pounds, 12 ounces, $18,500); Dan Stier of Pierre, S.D. (20 walleyes, 106 pounds, 14 ounces, $22,250); Dan Plautz of Muskego (19 walleyes, 98 pounds, 13 ounces $8,550); and Troy Morris of Bismarck, N.D. (18 walleyes, 98 pounds, 8 ounces, $12,700).
Mark Cottingham of Green Bay held on to win the Co-angler Division and $8,700 in his first tournament of any kind with 20 walleyes weighing 107 pounds, 1 ounce. Cottingham fished with Neu on the opening day and the final day of the tournament and fished with Paul Wright of West Point, Ind., on day two and Greg Darsow of Billings, Mont., on day three.
“This has been one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Cottingham said. Having only been fishing for the last seven years, Cottingham may be the most spoiled competitive walleye angler alive right now after winning the first tournament he ever entered. “He was a very quick study and really understood what I was doing out there this week,” Neu said.
Rounding out the top five co-anglers are Mike Lewis of Seymour (19 walleyes, 101 pounds, 8 ounces, $4,800); Richard Konrad of Brillion (20 walleyes, 100 pounds, 14 ounces, $6,700); Randy Peterson of Omro (20 walleyes, 100 pounds, 3 ounces, $4,850); and Scott Tipton of Box Elder, S.D. (19 walleyes, 97 pounds, 14 ounces, $2,500).
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 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.
The full field fished the opening round on Green Bay for one of 10 final-round slots awarded based on the heaviest accumulated weights. Weights carried over to day four, with the winner determined by the heaviest cumulative weight for the tournament.
The next FLW Walleye Tour stop will be the Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour Open on Devils Lake in Spirit Lake, N.D., June 15-18.
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.