VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The lucrative Wal-Mart FLW Striper Series will stop at Lynnhaven Marine in Virginia Beach Dec. 7-9 for its inaugural championship – a no-entry-fee, catch-and-release striped bass tournament that will award the winning team $20,000 cash, guaranteed, and as much as $50,000 cash based on boat and engine bonuses from Hydra-Sports, Seaswirl, Wellcraft, Evinrude and Yamaha.
To qualify for the nationally televised championship, teams competed in six FLW Striper Series events held in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland this season, and only the top 25 teams from each event earned the right to compete. One team in particular – Team Catch and Release lead by Capt. Max Dallorso Jr. of Matawan, N.J. – did more than just qualify. They won two regular-season tournaments and pocketed $70,000 in the process.
“Our team is pretty excited to have a chance to do this again,” said Dallorso, a trader on the New York Stock Exchange floor who averages 150 days per year on the water. “We’re a little nervous because it’s not our home water, and we’re not really going to change the way we go about it. We’re going to try to incorporate methods we use with some of the local techniques, but we’re really going to try to stick to what we know.”
That likely means that Dallorso and his team will be trolling with parachute jigs on wire line. His team’s color of choice earlier in the season was white and chartreuse with pork rind trailers – a combination that paid off with a win at the inaugural Striper Series event at Oceanside, N.Y., in June and the series’ fifth stop at Jersey City, N.J., in September.
Only artificial lures are allowed in FLW Striper Series competition, and each team may weigh in only two striped bass ranging in size from 28 to 34 inches per day. In order to avoid a 2-pound penalty, the fish must be kept alive in new keep-alive boxes developed by FLW Outdoors and KeepAlive Systems. These innovative boxes, based on proven live-release techniques, allow all FLW Outdoors striper tournaments to be catch-and-release events – thus helping to protect the nation’s striped bass population and ensure a vibrant fishery for generations to come.
The full field will compete Thursday, Dec. 7 and Friday, Dec. 8 then be cut to the top five teams, based on accumulated weight, for the final round Saturday, Dec. 9. The winner will be determined by the heaviest accumulated weight from all three days.
“I’ve fished a lot of striper tournaments, and I can say that the FLW Striper Series is really top-notch for the fishermen,” Dallorso said. “They’re very well run, and we are looking forward to a terrific championship.”
Teams fishing the tournament hosted by the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau will take off from Lynnhaven Marine at 7 each morning. The scales will open Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m. at Lynnhaven Marine, and Saturday’s final weigh-in will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 1149 Nimmo Parkway in Virginia Beach beginning at 5 p.m. Takeoffs and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
Coverage of the FLW Striper Series Championship will be broadcast to 81 million FSN (Fox Sports Net) subscribers in the United States as part of the “FLW Outdoors” television program airing Jan. 7, 2007. “FLW Outdoors” airs Sunday mornings at 11 Eastern time. “FLW Outdoors” is also broadcast internationally to approximately 350 million households in Germany, China, South Africa, Australia, Malaysia, Russia, Hungary, the United Kingdom, among other others, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoor-sports television show in the world. Additionally, FLW Outdoors is proud to provide tournament coverage to more than 800,000 servicemembers stationed around the world in 177 countries and aboard Navy ships through broadcasts on the American Forces Network.
Named after the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, Forrest L. Wood, FLW Outdoors administers the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Series, Stren Series, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League, Wal-Mart Texas Tournament Trail presented by Abu Garcia, Stratos Owners’ Tournament Trail, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Walleye League, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Tour, Wal-Mart FLW Kingfish Series, Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series and Wal-Mart FLW Striper Series. These circuits offer combined purses exceeding $37.9 million through 249 events in 2006.
Wal-Mart and many of America’s largest and most respected companies support FLW Outdoors and its tournament trails. Wal-Mart signed on as an FLW Outdoors sponsor in 1997 and today is the world’s leading supporter of tournament fishing. For more information about Wal-Mart, visit Wal-Mart.com.