Lucky Craft pros off to solid start at FLW Tour season Opener on Lake Guntersville

Ehrler misses top 10 by 8 ounces; Gagliardi, Bolivar cash solid checks

Lucky Craft pros fishing the FLW Tour got the new 2009 season started off on the right foot at the Tour's season opener on Lake Guntersville February 12-15.

Guntersville's prolific waters did not disappoint as the famed Alabama reservoir turned out some of the best early-season fishing the FLW Tour has experienced in several years.

As many predicted, the rattling lipless crankbait bite was red hot on Guntersville's grass beds and consequently Lucky Craft pros scored big on the LVand LVR Series baits.

Lucky Craft pro staff member Brent Ehrler led the way in the season opener, narrowly missing the coveted top-10 by just 8 ounces and finishing 11th.

Ehrler checked in 24 pounds, 9 ounces on day one, which included a monstrous bass weighing 8-8 and followed that up with a 15-11 limit on day two giving him a two-day total of 40-4. Though he just missed the top 10, Ehrler took home $15,000 in winnings.

"On one hand, I'm disappointed in missing the top 10 cut," Ehrler said. "I lost a couple fish that second day that would have put me right in there. But on the other hand it's a great way to start the season points wise."

Ehrler settled on the 3/8-ounce LV-100 due to its smaller size and lighter weight.

"The LV-100 would not bog down in the grass as bad," Ehrler said. "I could reel it slowly on top of the submerged hydrilla and just tick the tops of the grass. By the last day of the tournament, I had four LV-100s on the deck in differing colors: pearl ayu, chartreuse shad, spring craw, and ghost minnow. I would change colors depending on the cloud cover and water color. All the LV's were tied to either 12- or 14-pound test fluorocarbon, and I used the Lucky Craft 7-foot medium-heavy action rod to snap the LV out of the grass."

Ehrler caught most of his fish from a 150-yard flat positioned between two points in a bay off the main river. The flat featured clean green healthy grass that had a hearty feel to it when compared to the slimy dead grass that covered the other flats.

"I seined the area back and forth catching new fish as they moved up," Ehrler said. "I knew when I was about to get a bite because the grass would suddenly have a different hard feel to it. It was like my lure would hit a small patch of new grass and the fish were positioned in the greener stuff. I could not see green clumps or anything, but I could sort of feel my way down the flat and after a while I learned where the key little sweet spots were where that harder grass was growing."

Team member Anthony Gagliardi posted a solid finish in 29th place.

Gagliardi's consistent daily catches included an 18-13 limit on day one and a 16-12 limit on day two for a two-day total of 35-9.

"I'm pretty happy with that finish given the practice I had," Gagliardi said. "I did not have a spectacular practice considering we were on Guntersville. With Guntersville's potential, I knew it would take 20 pounds per day to do well, and I simply did not have that kind of practice. So to come out of it where I did I'm pleased."

After spending time on the main river looking for the mother lode in practice, Gagliardi eventually retreated to the more stable bays and creeks for the tournament.

"Historically, the main river produces the bigger limits on Guntersville this time of year, but it's like hunting a needle in a haystack to find a group of those bigger fish," he said. "Plus, on Wednesday, (the off-limits day between practice and the tournament) I had a lot of high winds that blew the muddy water around out there on the main river, making the river much more of a gamble. So I chose to fish inside the clearer bays and creeks during the tournament."

After scoring his 18-13 limit by 10:30 the first morning in his primary area, Gagliardi left and used the rest of the day to find bigger fish. But he was unable to upgrade his original catch or find anything better and relied on his primary area all day the second day to grind out 16-12.

Gagliardi's top lures included the LVR-Mini in chartreuse shad, the LV-200 in chartreuse light blue, and the LVR-D7 in American shad.

He cast the LV-200 and the LVR-D7 on braided line and the LVR-Mini on 16-pound fluorocarbon.

While many pros in the tournament used red rattle baits, Gagliardi said he felt like the shad colors were much more productive for him.

"Due to the really cold weather we had the week before, there was a huge shad die-off on Guntersville and I felt like that's what the bass were eating: shad that had been crippled by the cold water," he explained. "Plus the water was clearer back in the bays and shad colors just seemed to produce much better for me than the red colors."

Gagliardi also noted that the greener, healthier grass was the absolute key to catching fish.

"You had to fish the bait over the cleaner, greener grass," he added. "There was a lot of dead, slimy grass in those bays, but if you could find a strip or two of green grass in flats in the backs of the bays, that was the ticket."

Team member Gabe Bolivar came away from his first visit to Lake Guntersville with a $12,000 check thanks to his 39th-place finish.
"A 39th finish may not sound great to some, but I'm pretty stoked by it," Bolivar said. "I have never been to Guntersville, and I'm not much of a cold-water fisherman so I was little concerned about getting steam-rolled because of the lake's reputation for big bass. But I was able to hold my own with some decent catches and come away with a 39th, which, incidentally, is my best start to an FLW Tour season."

Bolivar spent the week fishing in the back of a creek that featured healthy milfoil on the flats in 1 to 3 feet of water.

His primary lure was the LV-100 in pearl ayu and spring craw. He fished both lures on 12-pound test fluorocarbon.

"There is no doubt that the LV-100 matched with 12-pound test fluorocarbon was the perfect combo for where I was fishing," Bolivar said. "Things got really tough in there the second day. Some of the other guys fishing around me quit catching fish and I still managed to pull in almost 16 pounds with the LV-100. It's really a sleeper bait - not many people on Tour know about. It's a smaller profile rattling bait with a different sound than ordinary traps - and 12-pound fluorocarbon is the perfect line for it. The key for me was just kind of slow-rolling the lure through the sparse hydrilla and milfoil."

Joe Thomas, 119th. Joe Thomas' FLW Tour season got off to a rough start on day one of the Guntersville event when mechanical difficulties kept him from weighing in. Consequently, he recorded a zero for his day-one catch.

Thomas, however, remained undaunted and returned to the water on day two to sack up 17 pounds, 7 ounces.

"That's a rough way to start the season," Thomas commented. "But I kept my chin up and rebounded a bit on the second day."

Thomas fished up the lake on the main river where he had located some healthy green hydrilla in 4 to 6 feet of water.

His two primary baits were the LV-500MAX and the LVR-D7 in mad craw and chartreuse shad. He fished the two lipless rattlers on 65-pound test braid.

"I kept the boat in about 6 feet of water and cast up into 4 feet," Thomas said. "I was really slow-rolling the bait - almost like a spinnerbait - and when it would load up in the grass, I'd snap it out hard and that's when the bite would happen."

The next place to catch the Lucky Craft pros in action on the FLW Tour will be at Table Rock Lake in Branson, Mo., March 12-15.