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Team Lucky Craft cashes in
at Lake Norman FLW Tour stop Bolivar makes first FLW Tour top 10; Ehrler takes lucky 13th |
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CONCORD, N.C. – Collectively, Team Lucky Craft had its best event of the year at the FLW Tour event on Lake Norman, April 26-29. Each team member placed squarely in the money bringing home a combined total of $55,000 for the Lucky Craft crew. |
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>>>Gabe Bolivar |
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Then Bolivar posted a banner day on day two, weighing in 13 pounds, 13 ounces, including the Pro Division’s day two big bass for 4 pounds, 15 ounces. “This has been a breakthrough experience for me,” Bolivar said after qualifying in the seventh place position going into the finals. “All year, I’ve had a great first day and horrible second day. “On the second day at every tournament this year, I have run out of fish because either I caught them all or other anglers got to them. So at this event I spent two days of practice intentionally looking for off the wall places and difficult places to reach especially for day two and it worked.” On day one, Bolivar fished the “community” places he had found during practice. And like in past events, he and other competitors caught everything those places had to offer in a single day.
“On day two, instead of going back to repeat on that used water like I have all year, I went to the hard to reach places and ‘nothing looking’ areas I specifically scouted for day two.” Bolivar discovered “single cast opportunities” that few others would go through the trouble to find. “It’s like going under dock cables, maneuvering around the back side of docks and casting over docks,” Bolivar said. “It’s crazy but if you could get a lure to a piece of virgin water on Norman, it was an automatic bite.” His big bass came from such a piece of water. “I literally worked about 15 minutes to get my boat under cables and around several docks just to make this one cast to a single tiny pocket that was guarded by all these boat docks. Once I got back there, I caught two keeper males and that big female off one bed. Needless to say, the effort was totally worth it. “I’m learning that’s one of the secrets to fishing these big boat fields in FLW events,” he added. “You can fish in the crowds on day one and catch fish. But on day two, you better not be planning to dip from that well again.
“You’ve got to have something that is so off the wall or so ‘nothing looking’ no one else would fish it, or better yet, something that is going to take some effort to get to. With all the docks on Norman, there were a lot of single cast opportunities that took some effort to access, but with the right presentation, you could access water that had not seen a lure in a while.” For Bolivar that meant skipping a soft plastic way back under docks to spawn and post-spawn fish. His key bait was a 5-inch Senko rigged on a 1/8-ounce Reaction Innovations Screwed-up jighead. He fished the lure on 10-pound test fluorocarbon with a 7-foot Lucky Craft Python spinning rod in a heavy action.
After three events, Bolivar now sits in 24th place in the FLW Tour Angler of the Year Points.
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>>>Brent Ehrler |
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Similar to Bolivar, Ehrler figured out that skipping lures to hard to reach places on floating docks was the key to getting a better bite on Norman. “My best places on docks were the where the walkways met the back of the floating platform,” Ehrler noted. “It was a pain to maneuver the boat around and between docks to achieve just the right angle for skipping back under there, but that’s where the fish were. “Also, I keyed on any gaps I could find in the foam floats under the docks.”
By getting back behind docks, Ehrler also discovered some spawning fish that others had missed. When he would get in behind docks and look from the bank out towards the docks, it changed the way his eyes saw the light and “hidden” fish were revealed. “Several times as I was moving my boat into position to make the right cast, I would look back under a dock from a different angle and see fish on beds – that was a huge bonus.” To catch his fish, Ehrler relied on the three finesse approaches. One was a Net Bait T-Mac finesse worm screwed onto 3/32-ounce Picasso Shakedown. Another one was a Senko screwed into a 1/16-ounce Shakedown. And the third was a drop-shot Roboworm that he mostly used on bedding bass. After stop number three, Ehrler now sits in 11th place in the FLW Tour Angler of the Year standings.
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>>>Anthony Gagliardi |
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“I had trouble getting off to a good start here,” Gagliardi said. “The first day of the tournament I had one of the worst tournament days I’ve had in two years. Several of the big fish I had (on bed) were gone. I broke two better fish off. Then it seemed like I stayed hung up or my line stayed tangled up all day – it was just one of those bad days on the water that kind of took me off the pace from the beginning.” Gagliardi started practice catching fish on a Pointer 100 around docks. But as the tournament grew closer, he began to see more and more fish on beds so he dedicated more time looking for spawners.
“But for some reason, a lot of the spawning fish were gone that first day,” he said. “I don’t think it was an issue of other anglers catching them because some of the first ones I ran to were already gone.” From there, Gagliardi developed a one-two punch of catching fry-guarding bass. “I used a Splash Tail to find the fish,” he explained. “I’d twitch it around docks until a fish would come up and swirl on it. Then I’d pick up a wacky worm and throw it back in there a couple of times until the fish bit. That’s probably how I caught three-quarters of my fish in the tournament. “But I was really counting on a couple of those bigger bedders that first day and when that didn’t pan out, it was down hill from there.”
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>>>Joe Thomas |
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Finishing in the 75th position and grabbing the last $7,000 check was pro team member Joe Thomas with a two-day total of 20 pounds, 3 ounces.
At Norman, Thomas tapped into one of his strong suits: post-spawn fish on docks. “I really enjoyed Norman,” Thomas said. “I like fishing post-spawn fish around docks and the Slender Pointer 112 in MS American Shad is my favorite bait for doing it – that’s what I caught all my fish on this week.” Thomas quickly dialed his pattern into targeting old, floating foam docks on secondary points along the main lake and creeks.
“The old-style floating docks were the best,” he said. “Those are flatter to the water and provide the most shade. Anytime I found an old floating dock in 4 to 8 feet of water on a secondary point at the mouth of a spawning bay or pocket, it was an automatic fish.” Another facet of Thomas’ pattern was making precise casts down the sides of the dock. “The lure had to be as close to the sides of the dock as possible,” he noted. “I’d snap the Pointer down there until it got right in the shade line and that’s where most of my bites came from.”
Thomas also pointed out that he wanted calm, slick conditions for his jerkbait pattern. “That might sound counter-intuitive,” Thomas said. “Usually I want cloudy windy conditions for a jerkbait. But when using it around docks, the sunnier and calmer it is, the more those fish are going to pin up around the docks in the shade for cover. “My pattern was at its best on day one when it was bright and sunny, that’s when I caught twelve and a half pounds,” he added. “On day two, when it was cloudy and rainy, the pattern was not near as strong until afternoon when the sun came back out.” Coming up The next FLW Tour event Team Lucky Craft will be fishing will take place on Beaver Lake, May 17- 20 in Rogers, Ark. |
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Provided by Cox Group