Quick Bites: FLW Tour, Red River, Day 4
Wal-Mart FLW Tour
Tour Stop #5
Red River, Shreveport-Bossier, La.
Day 4, Pro Finals
The powers of one … It was a safe bet to put your money on Kevin VanDam to vie for the win in today’s final round. And the Kalamazoo, Mich., native didn’t disappoint with his hard-fought second-place finish. According to our online poll, not so many people were as confident about Craig Powers of Rockwood, Tenn., but that’s where the smart money went. Powers, a staple in the FLW final round over the last two years, placed third here at the Red River just last September in the FLW Championship. Time and again on this tour, it seems that one angler just always has one tournament lake figured out. And this was evidently Powers’ lake. Still, he admitted that he used another fishing strategy entirely this week than at the championship. “I fished 40 miles south of where I fished in the championship,” he said. “This time of year, it’s a completely different deal.” Yeah, it was different. This time he got the win.
An amazing catch … Powers’ success today was buoyed by one of the most hard-fought fish catches of the week – one that pretty much defined the kind of fishing that competitors experienced this week among the swampy jungles of the Red River. Having hooked a fish among a mess of downed trees and debris that looked like the inside of the Death Star’s garbage compactor, Powers struggled mightily to get to the bass and work it free. “If it’s meant to be, we’ll see,” he said to the camera during the battle. It was meant to be. It took nearly 10 minutes of grinding his trolling motor over logs, maneuvering his boat closer by hand and literally thrusting his arm shoulder-deep into the snake-infested water to get at it. Finally, he moved in just close enough to jab his rod deep down into the morass and jiggle the 4-pound bass free and into the boat. Said Powers later, “When that happens, you’re going to win. I don’t care who you are or where you’re at, you’re going to win.”
An amazing catch, part two … Powers wasn’t the only one to fight and win a battle with submerged brush today. Dwayne Horton of Knoxville, Tenn., also went belly-down on the boat deck and dug into the Red River face-first to pull a bass free of some underwater tree roots. While it was an impressive catch, unfortunately for Horton, the bass was a little smaller than he expected. “I’d have thought he was a lot bigger than that,” he said. Horton finished in fourth place with a weight of 10 pounds, 1 ounce.
Look out, Tommy Biffle … While VanDam finished in second place, he practically iced his bid to win the Angler of the Year title. He leads the yearly standings by 74 points over second-place Rick Clunn of Ava, Mo., with only one tournament to go. Still, VanDam is making a serious bid to become the FLW’s next “Mr. Runner-Up,” an unofficial moniker held by Oklahoma’s Biffle until he finally won in February. After today, VanDam has three top-five FLW finishes in his career, all three of them second place. There’s no shame in that, though, especially considering his three runner-up finishes came in just six tournaments fished. Said VanDam, “All you can do is put yourself into position and, sooner or later, things will fall into place.” Next stop on the FLW Tour: Lake St. Clair, Michigan – VanDam’s home state. My money’s on sooner.
Smart choice … Fifth-place finisher Dan Morehead of Paducah, Ky., passed up a chance to fish with President George Bush so that he could fish this FLW tournament. Morehead’s father, “Doc,” was chosen to guide the president on one of his fishing junkets this week and invited Dan along. Problem was, the presidential excursion coincided with the Red River Wal-Mart FLW Tour event, and Dan Morehead faced a decision. “My wife told me that unless George Bush was going to give me $100,000, I was going fishing (at the FLW tournament),” Morehead said.
The awards, please … Horton won the Energizer “Keeps on Going” award for the greatest comeback during the event. He fought back from 23rd place on opening day to qualify for the final round in third place. … Third-place Bill Chapman of Salt Rock, W.Va., earned the Conseco “Step Up” award for the highest finish of his career and the Shop-Vac “High Performance” award for the heaviest total of bass over the first three days of competition – 42 pounds, 15 ounces.
Quick Number
35: Estimated number of bass caught by Bill Chapman today. Though an incredible number, they were unfortunately all of middling size. He placed third by weighing in five fish for 13 pounds, 2 ounces.
Sound Bites
“He needs to quit flipping that water out of there.”
– Craig Powers, referring to his fifth and final fish, which flopped around and bailed a bit of water out of the scale as it was being weighed.
“There’s one thing I learned about bass fishing a long time ago: You want to control all the variables, but the ones you can’t control, you don’t worry about.”
– Kevin VanDam
Quick Links, Day 4: