As mentioned, a big bass was the ticket to moving up in the standings. Ehrler found such a bass during practice and ran straight to it the first morning of the tournament.

"I wasn't going anywhere until I caught that bass," Ehrler said. "A fish like that is mandatory to make a top-10 at Norman. I spent at least an hour and a half on that fish, maybe more, but I finally caught her."

Ehrler's prize fish ended up weighing 4-10 and took the big bass honors on day one, anchoring his limit of 12-3 for tenth place.

"After I caught her, I just went sight-fishing and throwing a shaky head to finish out my limit," he said. "I also spent some time looking for another big fish to catch on day two, but never found it."

On day two, Ehrler switched from a shaky head to a weightless wacky worm to catch visible cruisers around docks and walkways.

"If you could see a fish before it saw you and skip a cast right to it, it would bite every time," Ehrler said. "I caught plenty of fish doing that and it was a lot of fun. But at about noon I decided to take a big gamble and make a long run to a couple of better bedding fish I had found in practice. When I got there, they were gone and it cost me about an hour of fishing time. I probably should have just kept throwing that little worm around docks and culling by ounces at a time."

Ehrler's day-two catch of 9-10, left him just 12 ounces shy of making the top-10.

For sight-fishing, Ehrler relied on a Chigger Craw tied to 20-pound test fluorocarbon. When skipping shaky heads and weightless worms he used Berkley's Fat Dover worm on 1/8-ounce head and a Wacky Crawler on Lucky Craft's Shaky Head spinning rod.

"That Shaky Head spinning rod by Lucky Craft is the perfect action for that kind of fishing," Ehrler said. "The tip loads up just right for skipping light stuff around docks and bushes.

Ehrler also now leads the FLW Tour Angler of the Year race at the halfway point in the season with 571 points.

"The Lake Norman event was much different this year than it has been the last two years," Bolivar noted. "The last couple of years, you could just fish around and catch more 2-1/2 to 3-pound fish. For some reason, it was not like that this year. All I could catch fishing around was little 12 to 14 inchers. I felt like the only way to get the better ones was to look for them on beds. So I spent a lot of the time sight-fishing."

On day one, Bolivar ran to beds he marked in practice and his best five weighed 9-1. On day two he made a bold move to fish new water and it paid off.

"One thing I've really been working on in my fishing is to fish looser during the event and not be so attached to my practice," Bolivar explained. "On day two at Norman the wind laid down, it slicked off and it really allowed me to see farther down into the water than I had been able to all week. So I just scrapped all my waypoints from practice and went looking for new fish in new water. It worked great; I found some deeper beds that a lot of people probably never saw earlier because of the wind. It was like the wind had camouflaged the deeper beds and I would have never found them if I had kept running my waypoints from practice, which were all shallow beds. Fishing new water paid off and I weighed a better 10-15 the second day."

For his sight-fishing, Bolivar used a Basstrix 3-inch tube. While looking for beds he cast a 3-inch Skinny Dipper on a 1/16-ounce jighead around docks to catch cruisers.

Bolivar now stands in 52nd place in the FLW Tour standings for the year.

While many other pros in the event sight-fished, Thomas chose to focus on post-spawn fish. His day-one catch of 12-7 put him in eighth place when the tournament began.

"I was fishing a very wind-related pattern," Thomas said. "I developed the pattern during practice when we had so much wind and it worked great the first day of the event because we still had enough wind to keep it going."

Essentially, Thomas focused his fishing efforts on wind-blown floating docks and bank rip rap. He used a Lucky Craft Slender Pointer 112 in American Shad and a 5-inch Berkley Hollow Belly swimbait rigged with a 6/0 Arkie swimbait hook, which has a weighted shank to work down the sides of the docks.

"The fish were set up on the windy sides of the dock floats and rip-rap," he said. "Every fish came off the windy side on day one; that pattern was very strong. But on day two, it slicked off and that pattern went dead. Instead, I resorted to fishing a little finesse worm around docks to finish day two with a 7-pound catch."

Thomas now sits in 87th place in the FLW Tour yearly standings.

Gagliardi survived a near tournament disaster on day one when he failed to catch a keeper bass by 12:40 in the afternoon.

"I don't know what was going on," he said. "I went to the fish I marked from practice and they just would not bite. I was so stressed, I was pulling my hair out. I fished for about seven fish and never got any of them to bite - I was freaking out."

Finally, at almost 1 o' clock, Gagliardi broke the ice and righted the ship with a few sight-fish and two better quality fish on a topwater, allowing him to weigh in 11-1.

On day two, things went much smoother for the South Carolina pro. His sight-fish bit better and he secured a small limit much quicker than the day before. Then he ran across his potential ticket to the top-10.

"I found a giant fish on bed - for Lake Norman anyway," Gagliardi said. "I'm thinking she was probably 6 pounds and she bit my jig on the first cast, but I missed her. I had a small limit in the livewell and I decided to spend as much time as necessary to catch her because if I did, I was in the top-10, no doubt. She kept nosing down on the bait and playing like she was going to bite again. I probably spent two hours on that fish and never caught her. Consequently I had to live with the little limit in my livewell."

Gagliardi now sits in the sixth place position in the FLW Tour Angler of the Year race with 539 points.

"This year is shaping up to be eerily similar to the year I won AOY in 2006," Gagliardi said. "I finished 36th at Okeechobee that year - I finished 36th at Guntersville this year. I won the second tournament of the year that year - I won Table Rock this year. And we are going to Kentucky Lake and Champlain to finish out the season just like the year I won. So even though I'm in sixth, I'm pretty optimistic about the rest of the season."