SEBASTIAN, Florida – As soon as he was out of his chair following the official press conference for his 2018 MLF General Tire World Championship Shotgun Round victory on Lake Garcia, South Carolina pro Andy Montgomery made it clear where he was headed: to Bass Pro Shops in Palm Bay, Florida, 30 minutes away.

“I’m buying every Junebug Cut-R Worm in that store,” Montgomery insisted. “And if they don’t have enough of them at that store, I’m going to the Bass Pro in Port St. Lucie and buying all of theirs, too.”

Montgomery’s fondness for that particular bait – a 6-inch Strike King Rage Tail Cut-R Worm – is understandable. Buoyed by two flurries in the second and third periods (both on the Junebug Cut-R Worm), Montgomery rang up 41 pounds, 8 ounces on 20 largemouth to win the first Shotgun Round and its automatic advancement into the first of two Sudden Death Rounds. to win the first Shotgun Round and its automatic advancement into the first of two Sudden Death Rounds.

Montgomery’s rigging: Montgomery rigged the 6-inch Cut-R on a 2/0 straight-shank hook and a 1/8-ounce Strike King Tour Grade tungsten bullet weight that he pegged on 16-pound fluorocarbon. He fished that setup on a 7-foot-3 jig rod and a Daiwa 7.1:1 reel.

“Deep” is relative: Montgomery spent the better part of Periods 1 and 2 dabbing around the 1-to 6-foot depths of the 3,150-acre Garcia – a former farm site that was flooded in 1991 to create a fishing habitat – catching two to three 1- to 3 ½-pound largemouth in small flurries. Those flurries all came in the same area: a small pocket of slightly deeper water with clean hydrilla, a picture-perfect set of conditions for newly spawning fish.

“I found a little deeper ‘pond’ area at the end of Period 1 that was 3 feet deep,” Montgomery says. “The rest of the spots where I saw beds were 2 feet deep, and in Florida, 1 foot makes all the difference in the world. I could barely see the beds in that deeper water, but when I went back there at the start of the third period, some more new females had moved in. That’s typical Florida: females move up in the afternoon and the bucks get a lot more aggressive when those females get in there with them.”

Montgomery capitalized with a 5-9 a half hour into the final period, and then added 7-7 in a 12-minute flurry, and an additional 7-14 in the last hour to hold off a late charge by Edwin Evers.

NOTES: Montgomery’s Shotgun Round win guaranteed him a rare three-day break as he waits out the results of the second Shotgun Round and two Elimination Rounds before fishing the first Sudden Death of the 2018 World Championship.