Quick Bites: Forrest Wood Open, Day 2
Wal-Mart FLW Tour
Forrest Wood Open
Lake Champlain, Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Opening round, Thursday
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a race for Angler of the Year
“I left the door open.” These were the prophetic words uttered by 2002 pro points leader Kevin VanDam as he weighed in his 13-pound, 12-ounce sack of fish Thursday. What seemed a foregone conclusion coming into this week’s event – that VanDam would win his second FLW Angler-of-the-Year title and become the first pro ever to win it in consecutive years – is now but an illusory goal for the bass master from Kalamazoo, Mich. VanDam stumbled in the opening round at Lake Champlain – the same northern, smallmouth type of lake where he normally puts on a fishing clinic – and finished the tournament in 44th place. That, indeed, left the door wide open for VanDam’s only real competition for 2002 Angler of the Year, Jay Yelas of Tyler, Texas, who not only made the cut, but made it decisively by placing fourth in the opening round.
Here’s how the points race scenario plays out:
VanDam entered the tourney first in the yearly standings with 914 points. Yelas was second with 886. Sitting 28 points behind VanDam before the Champlain tourney, Yelas needs to beat VanDam by 28 places or more this week to take the title. (Each place is worth a point with first earning 200 points, second earning 199 and so on down the list.)
In the opening round here at Champlain, VanDam caught a total of 29 pounds, 10 ounces and finished in 44th place. He earned 157 points for this tournament and finishes the regular season with a total of 1,071 points. As of Thursday night, he still leads all anglers in points.
Yelas caught a total of 33-15 in the opening round, made the cut in fourth place and will continue to fish in Friday’s semifinal round. Yelas can finish no worse than 20th place, which would give him a yearly points total of at least 1,067 points – four points behind VanDam in his worst-case scenario.
However, where VanDam once controlled his own destiny for the title – needing only a 28th-place finish or better at Champlain to clinch it – it is Yelas who now controls who will win 2002 Angler of the Year. VanDam must wait and see how Yelas fares in Friday’s competition.
Since Yelas has already guaranteed himself a 2002 standings finish of no more than four points behind VanDam (that’s with a 20th-place finish), Yelas only needs to finish this tournament in 15th place or better to assure himself the Angler-of-the-Year title. He can also win, given certain conditions, if he finishes 16th. In other words, out of the top 20 finishing spots left in the tournament, Yelas will only fail to win the points title if he finishes in 17th place or worse.
It gets stickier if Yelas finishes Friday in 16th place. If he does, he will tie VanDam with 1,071 points. The tiebreaker for points-related ties in the yearly standings is total weight of fish caught for the year. If Yelas finishes 16th, it will come down to whether he or VanDam caught the most total weight of fish in 2002. As it stands after five full tournaments plus two days of fishing at Lake Champlain, VanDam has accumulated a total of 165 pounds, 8 ounces. Yelas has 151-3. So Yelas trails VanDam by 14-5, but Yelas still has at least one more day of fishing left and VanDam is done. So if Yelas places 16th Friday, he must do it by catching more than 14 pounds, 5 ounces to win the points title.
Here is what it all boils down to for 2002 Angler of the Year, which all hinges on Friday’s one-day competition:
– For Yelas to win, he must place 15th or better.
– For VanDam to win, Yelas must place 17th or worse.
– In the event of a points tie (Yelas places 16th), for Yelas to win he must catch 14 pounds, 6 ounces or more.
– If Yelas places 16th, for VanDam to win Yelas must catch 14 pounds, 4 ounces or less.
– If Yelas places 16th with a sack that weighs exactly 14 pounds, 5 ounces, he and VanDam will have tied in both points and pounds. In that case, they will go to a – get this – one-hour fish-off to decide the 2002 Angler of the Year.
And if they tie in the fish-off, they will arm-wrestle for it. (Kidding. If that happens, your guess is as good as mine.)
Their reactions
VanDam admitted this week that the Angler-of-the-Year title was more important to him than winning this tournament. If he did it, he would cement his FLW legacy by becoming the first angler to win it back-to-back. Plus, it might have helped alleviate the sting of finishing second in this year’s B.A.S.S. points race. So, understandably, VanDam’s comments on the subject were short and sweet as the events of Thursday unfolded.
“I’d like to win it, but Yelas is right behind me and he had a good day yesterday,” he said as he weighed in.
Later, he explained his stumble in the opening round at Lake Champlain. His 44th-place finish was his worst ever on the FLW Tour.
“I only had three days for pre-fishing,” he said. “I have a lot of commitments and I often don’t get a lot of effort to put into practice. The three days I had were pretty (bad) days. The areas I fished before the tournament changed a lot these last two days. I needed water that is gin-clear, but when it got stained like that, it got tough on me.”
Yelas admitted that, even until today, he had basically conceded the title to VanDam. Even after he weighed in Thursday, it took him a while after the weigh-in hoopla had subsided to realize that he was now in the driver’s seat.
“The way it developed, it’s just that Kevin had a bad tournament,” he said after analyzing the numbers on the opening-round results sheet. “It’s surprising that he did because he’s never lost a lead like that. I haven’t felt any pressure at all this week – it was his title to win. Now I go from having no pressure at all to having all the pressure on me. Still, my goal is to catch the biggest stringer I can and win this tournament. But it is a thrill to have a chance to win the (points) title.”
While Yelas has the edge, there is hope for VanDam. Yelas noted that a mere 4 pounds, 6 ounces separated him and VanDam in the opening round – and that’s not much. And with the way Champlain is bunching anglers together so tightly on the leaderboard this week, just a few ounces could mean all the difference Friday when Yelas goes for the title – especially when he says that the spots where he caught his fish the first two days have dried up.
“I used up all my good bedding fish,” he said. “I’m going to have to do something different than I have been doing.”
Stay tuned, folks. This isn’t over by a long shot.
In other news
Whaddya mean, not rocket science? Sounds like a little chaos theory to me … Another Michigan pro, Chad Grigsby is quietly taking over the Champlain tournament, nabbing a slight lead over Dean Rojas with a 35-pound, 4-ounce weight in the opening round. Wednesday, Grigsby said he caught his leading stringer at his third best fishing hole on Champlain. He also said that “fishing isn’t rocket science.” On Thursday he proved it when he caught his last – and biggest – bass while checking out a new area. “I caught it on my second flip,” he said. “I didn’t even mean to catch the last one. It was an accident.”
Shot, score! Now pass me a donut. I’m going fishing. … While the pro semifinal-round field is filled with past winners and bass-fishing heavyweights with names like Yelas, Clunn, Biffle, Rojas, Jones, Martin and Dudley, one notable FLW rookie managed to squeak in there. Eleventh-place Mike LeBlanc is fishing his first FLW event, and he couldn’t be happier with this week’s results – so far. “I’m fishing pretty good,” he said. “But I’m a little concerned that my fish got beat up (in the opening round).” He should be. Not only did he catch 32 pounds, 15 ounces in the opening round, both of his co-anglers the first two days made the cut. Judy Israel led all co-anglers with 18-3 after fishing out of LeBlanc’s boat on day one and Leon Williams caught 13 pounds on day two and made the co-angler cut in 17th place. LeBlanc, a local former hockey player and current bakery owner out of Colchester, Vt., seemed less concerned about his formidable competition than he was his fish – as well as some news from back home across the lake. “I called my (bakery) shop Tuesday night and one worker didn’t show up for work. I didn’t get much sleep that night,” he said.
By the way … Day two at Lake Champlain 2002 was the second-heaviest day in FLW history. The pros caught a combined 2,199 pounds, 4 ounces Thursday. Wednesday, the first day of comeptition this week, remains the record holder with a mark of 2,349-0. Also, an amazing 164 pros caught five-bass limits while an equally astonishing 116 co-anglers did the same.
Quick links, Day 2:
VanDam’s Angler-of-the-Year title hopes on life support
Photos
Results
Day-three pairings
Press release