Montgomery takes lead with largemouths

Species war between brown and green develops at stop No. 4 on FLW Tour: Beaver Lake

ROGERS, Ark. – With each passing year, the Wal-Mart Open on Beaver Lake is becoming a strategic game that involves knowing which species of bass to target.

Due to several factors – including the lake’s growing smallmouth population and the late date of this year’s event – there seems to be a heated battle brewing between largemouths and smallmouths, while spotted bass are getting lost in between.

At Thursday’s weigh-in on day one of the Wal-Mart Open, the two leading anglers targeted all largemouths, while the two anglers in third and fourth targeted smallmouths.

Across the board, weights were down from the two previous years. For instance, last year’s event, held the first week of April, saw several bags over 15 pounds after day one and a 10-pound catch was good enough for 35th place.

Fast forward to this year’s May event, and no one broke the 15-pound mark today. What’s more, there were just 18 bags over 10 pounds.

Andy Montgomery of Blacksburg, S.C., took the early lead in the event with five largemouths weighing 13 pounds, 11 ounces.

Montgomery said he had the worst practice of his career this week, and this morning he had plans of just scraping up about 6 or 7 pounds of spotted bass.

However, when he got to his first spot, he saw something that he instantly recognized as a very good thing.

“I don’t want to say exactly what it was,” Montgomery said. “It’s something that happens on our lakes back home, but as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what to do, and 20 minutes later I had a limit.”

With a nice catch bagged by 9:30, Montgomery suddenly had the confidence to scratch his spotted-bass plans and run way up the river to flip jigs for bigger fish.

His move paid off, allowing him to cull three times with bigger largemouths.

Montgomery did reveal that he is using Shooter jigs in crawfish colors. One is a 3/8-ounce jig, which he is swimming, and the other is a 1/2-ounce, which he is pitching and letting go to the bottom.

Another Andy in second

Duracell pro Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., grabbed the second-place position out of the starting gate today with five largemouths for 12 pounds, 15 ounces.

Morgan’s creel included the Pro Division Snickers Big Bass weighing 4 pounds, 11 ounces.

Morgan is running, gunning and junk-fishing at an accelerated pace and has adopted a take-or-leave-it attitude toward the fish.

“I went to water I haven’t practiced on, and I never repeated the same water twice,” he said. “I covered about a five-mile stretch of the lake today, just bumping around on the big motor and keeping the trolling motor on 36-high.

“No matter what I throw, I make the longest cast I can, work the bait once or twice, and then reel the lure all the way back in and make another cast.

“The water is so clear and the fish are so pressured that you can’t get the boat anywhere near them. If a fish is going to bite, it bites on the first 5 or 10 percent of your cast. If it’s a topwater, I only twitch it four or five times; if it’s a worm or jig, I let it make an initial fall and then shake it once and reel it back in.

“I’m not keying on anything specific or in any one area; I’m just focusing all my attention on that initial presentation. After that, I feel like working the bait all the way back to the boat is just a waste of good fishing time.”

Horton third

And now representing the smallmouth camp is Dwayne Horton of Knoxville, Tenn., who sits in third place with five smallmouths weighing 12 pounds, 3 ounces.

Horton fished one hump in the middle of a bay that tops out in 10 to 15 feet of water most of the day and culled two other smallmouths en route to his limit.

Horton is throwing a Spot Remover jighead with a Zoom finesse worm tied to Berkley’s new Fireline Crystal.

“That Fireline Crystal is unbelievable,” Horton said. “I’m using 3-pound-test: It’s the size of sewing thread and you can’t break it. I’m setting the hook on fish in 25 to 30 feet of water, and it has zero stretch. I just pull the rod back, and it’s a solid hookset.”

Monsoor to fourth

Tom Monsoor of La Crosse, Wis., is renowned for his swim-jig prowess, and he used one today to catch 11 pounds, 12 ounces of mostly smallmouths to start the event in fourth place.

One of Monsoor’s critical considerations when tying his swim jigs is color.

“I had been throwing more of a blue-glimmer jig most of practice with limited success,” Monsoor said. “And the other day, Karen Savik showed me a baitfish that she had accidentally snagged on her hook. When I studied it, I noticed that these minnows here are actually more of a greenish gray on the back. So I spent some time tying up jig skirts that looked exactly like that minnow, and I’ve been catching bass ever since.”

Monsoor is swimming the jig over schooling fish and through timber in 30 feet of water.

“They won’t touch a topwater, but they’ll eat that jig,” he added.

Shaw fifth

Alvin Shaw of State Road, N.C., is in fifth place with a five-bass limit of mostly largemouths weighing 11 pounds, 11 ounces.

Shaw sight-fished two of his keepers and caught the rest on shaky heads.

Rest of the best

Rounding out the top 11 pros in the Wal-Mart Open after day one:

6th: John Sappington of Willard, Mo., five bass, 11-9

7th: Tony Couch of Buckhead, Ga., five bass, 11-1

8th: Mark Davis of Mount Ida, Ark., five bass, 11-0

9th: Ray Scheide of Russellville, Ark., five bass, 10-12

10th: Glenn Browne of Ocala, Fla., five bass, 10-11

10th: Jay Yelas of Tyler, Texas, five bass, 10-11

Bridges leads co-anglers

Pete Bridges of Tallapoosa, Ga., leads the Co-angler Division at the Wal-Mart Open after day one with 9 pounds, 11 ounces.

Bridges noted that his catch came much upon the good fortune of being paired with local pro J.R. Beehler of Bella Vista, Ark.

“He’s on a lot of fish – a lot of good fish,” Bridges said. “I caught fish everywhere we went, and I culled several times. He knows what he is doing.”

Bridges’ key lure was a 4-inch Senko rigged on a jighead.

Rest of the best

Former FLW Tour co-angler winner Kelly Greer of Green Forest, Ark., is in second place with a five bass limit weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces.

Brandon Sheeler of Warsaw, Minn., holds the third-place position with five bass weighing 8 pounds, 4 ounces.

Rick Parnell of Casselberrry, Fla., is in fourth place with 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and Greg Fleming of Holly Lake Ranch, Texas, is in fifth with 7 pounds, 6 ounces.

Rounding out the top 10 co-anglers in the Wal-Mart Open on Beaver Lake:

6th: Bob Bjorklund of Centennial, Colo., five bass, 7-4

6th: Bob Blosser of Lodi, Wis., five bass, 7-4

8th: Bud Strader of Rockwood, Tenn., five bass, 7-3

9th: Danny Austin of Guys, Tenn., five bass, 7-2

10th: Bill Gift of Alix, Ark., five bass, 7-1

Big bass

Robert Mulleins of Cumberland, Va., caught the Co-angler Division Snickers Big Bass weighing 3 pounds, 13 ounces, worth $500.

Day two of the Wal-Mart Open begins Thursday at 6:30 a.m. at Prairie Creek Marina.