The General soldiers on
Nixon opens 2004 FLW season with record weight, leads pros at Okeechobee
CLEWISTON, Fla. – Just four months after Larry Nixon underwent surgery to repair his damaged casting wrist, the venerable pro is up to his old tricks again. The Bee Branch, Ark., native led the Pro Division on opening day of the 2004 Wal-Mart FLW Tour at Lake Okeechobee with an enormous five-bass catch weighing 28 pounds, 6 ounces.
Not only did he lead the field, Nixon’s 28-6 put him in the record books with the third-heaviest sack ever caught in FLW competition. It also topped Mike Surman’s record of 27-6, established last year, as the heaviest stringer caught in eight years of FLW competition at Lake Okeechobee.
“Well, this is a warm lake. When you come to Florida you throw soft plastics, and that’s what I love to do more than anything,” Nixon said.
The pro leader caught the bulk of his bass using a Berkley Power Worm in roughly 4 feet of water. He focused his fishing on three main areas Wednesday, locations he was understandably reluctant to reveal so early in the tournament. In fact, after he caught his initial limit containing a couple 5-pound bass, Nixon moved around the big lake in an effort to decoy fellow competitors in the 200-person field. Then he ended up catching his 7-12 kicker fish to push his weight over 28 pounds.
“I was pretty confident there were some good ones in there, but I really didn’t know they were that good,” he said. “I really didn’t know if I could even catch 15 pounds today. That’s the crazy thing about it.”
To take the lead, Nixon needed a record-sized weight. FLW anglers mainly did a lot of flipping and pitching Wednesday, but the sight-fishermen seemed to have a field day. All 200 pros weighed in at least one bass Wednesday, and 175 of them caught five-bass limits. The 10th-place pro, Chad Grigsby of Colon, Mich., who sits on the cut line after day one, notched a hefty limit worth 19 pounds, 2 ounces. The pros are staring at a cut weight of at least 30 pounds in the opening round.
For Nixon, 30 pounds shouldn’t be any problem, but he does have the added burden of his bad wrist to worry about. The winner of two previous FLW events, Lake St. Clair in 2001 and Wheeler Lake in 2002, he fished last September’s championship wearing a protective brace on the wrist and finished 11th. Just over a week after that tournament, he underwent surgery on the wrist, which knocked him out of fishing for over a month in the offseason.
“It’s okay. It’s just not very strong right now,” he said of his injured wrist, which is still swollen and sports a pair of 4-inch scars.
But, if Wednesday is any indication, it will take more than a couple scars to knock Nixon – who’s known as “The General” for his decisiveness and drive in competition – out of the battle.
“Tomorrow, I hope I can catch another 15 pounds,” he said.
McCall claims second
Chris McCall of Jasper, Texas, took the second-place spot in the Pro Division with the second massive stringer of the day, five-bass weighing 27 pounds, 3 ounces.
At Okeechobee it’s necessary to know how to fish in the weeds and grass, and that’s just what McCall did in the extreme.
“I was fishing in the thickest stuff you could find,” he said. “They’re so far up in that trash that it’s hard to go up in there and get them out.”
McCall caught his limit by 11 a.m. using a Gambler Ninja Spin spinnerbait. Then he switched over to a Falcon mat-flipping rod and 65-pound braided line and caught his three biggest fish, all weighing 7 pounds or more.
“The weird thing is, in practice, I hadn’t caught anything flipping,” he said. “I was hoping I’d be able to catch them without messing with my flipping fish, but it looks like I’m going to need another 10 pounds tomorrow to be sure.”
Despite his impressive day on the lake, Wednesday was a hard day for the young FLW pro in his second season. Just minutes after he weighed in, he learned that his mother, 48, had passed away unexpectedly. McCall, however, plans to continue fishing Thursday.
Jones third
Pro Alton Jones of Waco, Texas, claimed the third spot with a hefty limit weighing 24 pounds, 12 ounces.
Jones, who led the first three days of the Wheeler Lake tournament that Nixon ultimately won in 2002, said speed, or lack thereof, is the key to success at the Big O this week.
“You have to fish slow and then slow down a little bit more,” said Jones, who was “dead-sticking” a Yum Dinger and a Yum Garrett Mega tube to catch his fish Wednesday. “Most of the other guys in the area I was fishing caught about 10 to 13 pounds apiece, but I don’t think they were fishing as slow as I was.”
Jones also said he went a little deeper, by Okeechobee standards, to target the bigger bedding fish.
“Four to 6 feet seems to be the magic number,” he said. “At Okeechobee, that’s always the key to finding bigger fish. They’ll bed out in that deeper water. I only caught 10 keepers, but they were quality fish.”
2003 champ Dudley in fourth
The fishing machine out of Manteo, N.C., known as David Dudley seems to be picking up right where he left off after winning $500,000 in September’s FLW Championship. He placed fourth Wednesday with a limit weighing 23 pounds even.
By his own account, the 2004 FLW season began as auspiciously as the 2003 season ended for Dudley. Shortly after takeoff, around 8 a.m., Dudley caught his first bass of the year and it weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces.
“When you catch one that big that early – ooh, son!” he said.
Dudley said he feels tuned in to the Big O bass at the moment and is enjoying the sight-fishing. He used a Zoom brush hog to land all of his bedding fish on day one, including his biggest bass, an 8-10 bucketmouth.
“At Okeechobee, you’re always going to have competition, so you’ve got to have X-ray vision for those big bonus fish,” he said. “All the weights down here in Florida that are in the 15-pound range or more, most of them have got a 6- or 7-pound (kicker) in there. Especially if you’re sight-fishing, you’ve got to go at it that way.”
Shinichi fifth
A two-time pro angler of the year in his home country and now a rookie on the FLW Tour, Shinichi Fukae of Osaka, Japan, placed fifth with a limit weighing 22 pounds, 11 ounces.
Fukae caught his bass using a Shimano prototype top-water bait and said he liked competing at Lake Okeechobee because it fishes very similar to his home lake in Japan, Lake Biwa.
“It’s the same as Okeechobee,” he said. “There are weeds and cattails, but it’s smaller. Okeechobee is very, very big.”
Rest of the best
Rounding out the top 10 pros are Alvin Shaw of State Road, N.C., (sixth place) with a weight of 20 pounds, 13 ounces; Koby Kreiger of Okeechobee, Fla., (seventh) with 19-12; Steve Tosh of Waterford, Calif., (eighth) with 19-8; Dave Lefebre of Erie, Pa., (ninth) with 19-4; and Grigsby with 19-2. All of the top 10 pros caught five-bass limits.
Tosh also claimed the $750 Snickers Big Bass award for a nice Big O largemouth that weighed 9 pounds, 11 ounces.
Martin tops co-anglers with nearly 20 pounds
Catching a sack of fish that any tournament pro would envy, rookie Mark Martin of Vidor, Texas, took top honors in the Co-angler Division with five bass weighing 19 pounds, 10 ounces.
“If every day is like this, I’ll be happy at the end of the year,” said Martin, who is fishing in his first FLW event. “It’s my first time down here, as a matter of fact. It’s been a wild trip so far.”
Martin, who fished with pro Jackie Davis of Willard, Mo., Wednesday, caught his fish using a combination of a 3/8-ounce spinnerbait and a Senko. He landed his kicker bass – an 8-pound, 5-ounce largemouth – on the Senko.
“I’d make one pass burning a spinnerbait, then on the next one I’d throw the Senko around the hydrilla and let it fall in the holes,” he said. “I had my limit in 25 minutes this morning.”
Second place for the co-anglers went to Joel Etheridge of Springville, Ala., with a weight of 15 pounds, 2 ounces.
Thomas Bryant Jr. of Summerfield, Fla., placed third with 13 pounds, 13 ounces. Bryant also landed the $500 Snickers Big Bass award for a largemouth weighing 8 pounds, 10 ounces.
Simon Morrow of Alexander City, Ala., placed fourth with 13 pounds, even.
Ken Murphy of Meridian, Miss., placed fifth with 12 pounds, 5 ounces.
Rounding out the top 10 co-anglers are Bryan Steppe of Owingsville, Ky., (sixth place) with a weight of 12 pounds, 2 ounces; Rob Newell of Tallahassee, Fla., (seventh) with 11-11; Tee Watkins of East Point, Ky., (eighth) with 11-9; Kenny Moser of Alba, Texas, (ninth) with 11-7; and Kevin Stowers of Gainesville, Ga., (10th) with 11-0.
All of the top 10 co-anglers caught five-bass limits.
The opening round of FLW action at Lake Okeechobee continues with its second half Thursday as anglers take off from Roland Martin’s Marina at 7 a.m. EST. The full fields will be cut down to the top 10 anglers apiece following tomorrow’s action.