Former Forrest Wood Cup winner Brent Ehrler led the charge among the Lucky Craft Team at Lewis Smith, catching a two-day total of 22 pounds, 5 ounces to finish 12th.

“It hurts to miss the top-10 cut by just 2 ounces, but I’m very pleased with this finish given my practice,” Ehrler said. “I never really got on anything solid during the official practice period. I caught a bunch of fish on a Slender Pointer 97 and a Staysee 90, but getting fish to measure 15 inches was difficult. Once fish started showing up on beds during the last half of practice, it afforded me the opportunity to go down the bank looking for keepers to catch. That was a much more efficient approach than just fishing and hoping for keepers.”

The key to Ehrler’s success was looking in stained water for bedders.

“A lot of the field was sight-fishing in Ryan’s Creek, which was ultra clear,” Ehrler explained. “I opted to fish in the next creek up which had a lot more color to the water. The fish were harder to see, but I had the whole creek to myself. I didn’t have to worry about someone else finding the same fish I was finding in there.”

During the event, Ehrler used a Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver topped with a Tru-Tungsten weight and tied to 20-pound test fluorocarbon line to entice bedding bass.

“Everything I weighed in came off beds,” he said. “And most of them were largemouths. For some reason it seemed like the largemouth spawned first at Smith – I saw very few spots on bed.”

The former FLW Tour Angler of the Year collected an extra $1,750 bonus for catching the biggest bass in the event – a 5-pound, 6-ounce largemouth.

“I caught her off a bed on the second day,” Gagliardi said of the big bass. “I actually found her the first day of the tournament. She was cruising around in deep water waiting to spawn with a smaller buck. The buck would lock down, but she would not get near the bed, so I left the pair alone. When I came back on day two, she was parked right in the middle of the bed and had become super aggressive. It took just a couple of pitches to catch her. Then a couple of pitches later I caught the buck, which was a decent keeper, too.”

Gagliardi was off to a fantastic start early on day two. However, things went downhill from there.

“As soon as I caught that big fish, I thought, ‘I just made the cut!’” he said. “Catching a bass like that on Lewis Smith is like catching an 8- or 9-pounder in Florida – it goes a long way in making the cut. And I just knew I was going to be able to catch a few more keepers to go with her.

“I wish that thought had never entered my mind because I think it jinxed me,” Gagliardi continued. “I only weighed in three bass that second day and missed the cut by 2 pounds – just one more keeper would have put me in there. I still can’t believe I had all day to catch another fish or two and I couldn’t get it done. It’s like I got the break I needed – the big fish to make the cut – and then I couldn’t finish the job with another keeper.”

Gagliardi’s main weapon when sight-fishing was a 9/16-ounce Tabu jig. He chose such a heavy jig to sight-fish with because he was fishing deep beds, and he wanted the lure to fall straight down into them.

“That’s the main thing when sight-fishing,” Gagliardi offered. “You want a bait that’s going to stay in the bed. Lighter weights are fine when fishing shallow, flat beds. But when it’s deep and steep, you need something heavier for a truer fall to your target and better staying power in the bed.

Lucky Craft team member Gabe Bolivar had a decent first day at Lewis Smith Lake. He brought in a 9-pound, 7-ounce catch Thursday but then went into a free fall on day two when he caught just one bass for 1 pound, 11 ounces, putting him in 98th place for the event.

“This was just a terrible event for me,” said a dissappointed Bolivar. “I don’t have any excuses either. I’m finding fish; I’m around good fish; they’re just not ending up on my line during the tournament. My co-angler the first day had 11 pounds; my co-angler the second day had 8 pounds – they both made the top-10 cut fishing with me, and I didn’t catch squat. I’m just not in the groove right now.”

Bolivar sight-fished the first day and after he ran out of bedding fish, he fished a shaky head on points the second day.

“I’m pretty frustrated,” he added. “This is my kind of lake: deep, clear, full of spotted bass – I should have done a lot better here. Before the next tournament, I’m just going fishing for a week to see if I can get some of this worked out and have a much better finish at [Lake] Norman.