FLW anglers reach end of the ‘Road to Richmond’
Championship begins; pros gunning for $500,000 top prize
RICHMOND, Va. – One could measure the Wal-Mart FLW Tour season in mileage – miles of water run, miles of road driven, even miles of fishing line spooled – and come up with some pretty impressive numbers. But likely all FLW anglers would readily admit that this season’s most compelling figure is the one dangling in front of them at the end of this week: $500,000.
On Saturday afternoon, that’s how much money one of these guys is going to take home for winning the 2003 Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship.
But there’s some work to do first. All 48 pros and 48 co-anglers took off from Osborne Boat Landing on the James River outside of Richmond Wednesday morning without incident. With the pomp and circumstance of the past two pre-tournament days behind them, the championship anglers took on a collective air of intense focus as they quietly made their way through boat check before dawn. Some smiled for the cameras, some even waved, but most were clearly distracted by the task that lay in front of them.
The James River is going to be a tough nut to crack this week. While anglers have been exceptionally less than willing to tip their hands on how the fishing’s going, the consensus seems to be that it’s simply going to take a hot spot to win this thing. And, apparently, they are few and far between.
Almost every boat ran downriver from the landing at Wednesday’s takeoff. Some pros are likely making the long run toward the Chickahominy River to try and get away from the crowd; others will try to follow the tide even farther down the James River.
The weather looks like it should remain relatively agreeable throughout the week. There has been grumbling about a pair of hurricane systems roaming around the Atlantic Ocean over the last two weeks and some have worried about how they’ll affect the Virginia coast, but the storms have mercifully stayed away. Partly cloudy skies are hovering over the river today, and forecasts say that similar conditions should hold through Saturday.
The 2003 FLW Tour reached the end of the “Road to Richmond” Wednesday morning, but for 96 pros and co-anglers, the journey has just begun.
The anglers will fish until roughly 3:30 in day-one competition. Following that, they will be escorted to the Richmond Convention Center for the 5 p.m. weigh-in. The pros are competing in a head-to-head bracket format while the co-anglers are fishing in a conventional pool tournament format. The first two days will comprise the entire field in both divisions. On day-three Friday, both fields will be cut in half and a co-angler champion will be crowned. On day-four Saturday, the pro field will be halved again, and the top pro angler will be awarded the Tour Cup and $500,000.
The FLW Outdoors Sports Show featuring over 140 exhibits, sponsor booths and the nation’s top boat brands opens to the public at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the convention center. Admission is free.
For fans outside the Richmond area, you can follow the drama of the head-to-head bracket weigh-ins live every day on FLWOutdoors.com. Complete with live, streaming audio and results, FLW Live is your fastest and most complete option for catching all the action from the 2003 Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship. Transmission begins every day at 4 p.m. Central Daylight Time.
Wednesday’s conditions
Sunrise: 6:47 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 61 degrees
Expected high temperature: 75 degrees
Water temperature at the ramp: 72 degrees
Wind: from the north at 14 mph
Relative humidity: 90 percent
Day’s outlook: partly cloudy
Day-one links: